20090580009

Willamette Heritage Center Collections, 2009.058.0009.

This photo has proved to be a bit of a mystery.  It has a pen inscription on the back that reads: “Catching Gambusbia to transfer to other parts of the district H.H. Riddell and Ray Bilyeu.”  We have been unable to look up any word in the English language that has the spelling “Gambusbia.”  However, there is a genus of fish called Gambusia, that seems a little more likely.  Some species of Gambusia, are known as the mosquitofish, and have been effectively used in repressing mosquito populations.  There is another photo in this collection inscribed “looking for mosquito larvae,” that looks very similar, and suggests that this is a probable assumption.  We still do not know where the photo was taken, but from the look of the clothing and the actual photograph itself, we think it is probably anywhere from the 1920s-1940s.