Sixty photos were on display in the White library as part of the “A Thousand Words” collection, which tells the history of Emporia through the lens of Walter M. Anderson, an Emporia native who was born in 1918.

“It (the “A Thousand Words” collection) kind of has to do with the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. You can learn instantly more in a picture,” said Dayne Sabatos, sophomore theater major. “I think it’s creative. I personally really like this collection… It’s very useful and chronicles the history of Emporia in a very visual way.”

Anderson took about 12,000 photos of Emporia and the surrounding communities by the time he died.

The exhibition of “A Thousand Words: Photographs from Walter M. Anderson Collection” began at 2 p.m., Feb. 1 in the library. It will be open all semester.

“I think it’s a really interesting, valuable resource,” said Rebekah Curry, the public services supervisor of the library and archives. “They are so much about the history of Emporia starting in the 19th century until about the early 1990s.”

The exhibition is to introduce this collection to people who aren’t familiar with it and bring back some memories, according to Curry.

“We really wanted to do something with this collection because it would be something a little bit different,” Curry said, “Our exhibits are usually kind of heave more on informational panels. This was a chance for us to feature a lot of images.”

This exhibition showed the history of Emporia when it used to be a bustling city center and important city, one of the biggest towns in Kansas, according to Sabatos.

“I think it’s beautiful,” said Sarah Johnson, cataloging and metadata librarian. “I had no idea that these photographs existed. I love seeing artwork, so I’m really excited to see something like this down here.”