DOWAGIAC — Tuesday morning, Dowagiac Area History Museum Director Steve Arseneau was hard at work, placing photos inside frames and finding places for them along the walls of an upstairs room of the museum.

“You know what people say, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words,’” Arseneau said, frame in hand. “Some photos tell more of a story than others, but they all tell a story.”

If the old adage is true, the Dowagiac Area History museum will soon be displaying 150,000 words worth of photos during an upcoming exhibit.

The Dowagiac Area History Museum will open a new exhibit called “Dowagiac through the Camera Lens” on July 18.  The exhibit will display around 150 photos from the museum that tell the story and history of Dowagiac. The exhibit will run through the end of the year. An open house reception, complete with refreshments, will be hosted from 4 to 6 p.m. July 18, to celebrate the new exhibit.

Inspired by the Dowagiac Area History Museum’s collection of more than 6,000 photos, Arseneau said the photos will span a period of time from the 1860s to 1960s to tell different stories of Dowagiac’s history that people may not know about.

“I tried to pick out a lot of them that haven’t been seen before or are rarely seen,” he said. “Some are based around themes like schools or early Dowagiac businesses. … Mostly, we tried to pick out a lot of really good photographs. We wanted photos that tell a story.”

One of the stories told by the photos happens to be one of Arseneau’s favorite stories about Dowagiac.

Holding a black and white photo of a man holding a wheelbarrow steady, Arseneau told the story of the man in the photo, Harry Adonis. In 1902, Adonis took a bet to walk to California from Dowagiac with the wheelbarrow, while along the way getting married and raising $500. In the end, Adonis completed the first two tasks successfully, all while gaining national media attention.

“It’s just such a fun story,” Arseneau said. “It really is one of favorites. … I’ve told it many times.”

Another photo displays Nicholas Bach, a former Dowagiac hotel owner, who claimed to be a water boy in Napoleon’s army. Yet another photo shows the history of one of Dowagiac’s first African American barbers, who came to the city in the 1800s.

Many of the photos in the exhibit will tell similarly fun and enriching stories that many will enjoy, Arseneau said. If nothing else, he said he hopes visitors will leave the exhibit knowing more about Dowagiac’s history than when they came in.

“People like nostalgia, and these photos capture a moment in time,” he said. “We don’t want to lose sight of those moments in time. So, in a way, these photographs help recapture that.”