Sherrill’s Studio served Waynesville, NC from 1902 to 1975 and developed thousands of rolls of film dropped off by locals and visitors. Sometimes, the person who dropped off the film didn’t return to pick up their photographs! Sherrill’s Studio dutifully kept the envelopes of developed photos hoping to eventually reunite them with their photographer.

Today, thanks to the Haywood County Historical Society, Hunter Library’s Special and Digital Collections at Western Carolina University has these envelopes of prints and negatives. We hope that you will be able to help us solve the mysteries of the people, places, and events depicted. We also look forward to reuniting families with digitized versions of their relative’s long-lost images.

Search a family name below to see if a relative has left an envelope of photos at Sherrill’s!

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HOW TO SEARCH:

Searching:
Type the name of a relative in the search bar. If there are multiple results for the name, they will be displayed below the search bar. You can search the database using a first name or full name, but because the names are listed as they were written, search results may not be accurate (for example, Barb vs Barbara, Rob vs Robert Each name may have multiple digital images available, but we recommend you contact us in case there are photos in the unclaimed enveloped that we have not yet digitized).

This website is dedicated to the film that was brought to Sherrill’s Studio for developing, and that includes a customer name, but were never picked up. We hope that you will be able to help us solve the mysteries of the prints and negatives inside these envelopes and we also look forward to reuniting families with digitized versions of their relative’s long-lost images.

If you have any information about the locations or people in these images, please either fill out the form provided or email us at: specialcollections@wcu.edu. If you are interested, we will provide you with digital copies of the images and any others in the envelope that may not have been scanned.