Archives of Wellspring
Some collections find their way to us through winding roads — unexpected kindnesses, family inheritances, a stranger’s offering. Here, we honor the stories that almost slipped away.
David Lenox Archives (Tulsa, late 1960s - early 1970s)
David Lenox, photographed around 1969 — the man behind the lens of the collection.
This collection began with a knock on a studio door.
A man, carrying stories no one else had wanted, offered a stack of forgotten film to Josh, the owner of the studio. Josh bought the collection for $300 and helped pack it from where it had fallen — scattered across the floor of a crumbling house, gathered into boxes and an empty litter pan.
When the film reached my hands, it was tangled and dusty, fragile with time. I spent the night sorting through each frame, piecing together what had almost been lost.
Photographer David Lenox captured women on the edge of dreams — posing for what appeared to be modeling portfolios, some tied to Accent Model Studio, a local agency he seemed to run alongside his wife. Among the photographs were handwritten notes: names, eye colors, schools attended, ambitions for careers yet to come. Some of these women later appeared in newspaper articles, carrying forward the dreams first captured quietly on film.
His camera followed them across Tulsa’s changing backdrop — by the old Camelot Hotel, through downtown parades, into corners of a city that has long since shifted.
More than 2,000 images make up the Lenox archive — a collection rescued by chance and preserved with care, offering a window into ambition, artistry, and the Tulsa of another time.
