Russell Chalberg purchased the Ellison Photographic Studio in Austin in the 1960s from Alfred Ellison. The bulk of the 13,000 negatives and prints from the studio which had been operated in Austin from the 1870s to the early 1950s, deals with Austin and Travis County and is currently housed at the Austin History Center while remaining prints and negatives representing the years 1923-ca. 1965 in areas other than Travis County were donated to the Barker Texas History Center. More than half of the negatives included are of unidentified persons from Dripping Springs circa 1946 arranged by the letter assigned to each roll of film by the photographer. Also included are group portraits of Liberty Hill High School banquets 1946 and 1948; officials of Shell Oil 1953; the Texas Classroom Teachers Association 1949; and shots of the activities surrounding a wedding reception in Walburg. The collection contains in addition photographs of missions and other historic sites in Texas as well as some taken for the Pedernales Electric Cooperative and several Texas construction firms. The most recent items are a set of contact prints of Lyndon Johnson at a press conference in the mid-1960s which are very similar to those housed in the LBJ Library.