CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In 1969, a 19-year-old visionary borrowed a cheap 110 camera and started taking pictures all over town.

"The interstate was coming through," Jerry Waters said. "I knew big changes were on the way."

He started shooting on Capitol Street and clicked his way to Greenbrier Street. He shot pictures all along Piedmont Road, an area forever altered by the modern highway system.

That's how it started.

Over the years, Waters amassed an impressive collection of then-and-now Charleston scenes, everything from the notorious back end of town where he grew up to the private South Hills Country Day School, circa the 1960s.

Last year, he started building a Web site brimming with old Charleston photos, most from the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s, some from as far back as 1907. In many cases, he includes pictures of the same location today.

"I think it helps bring it all together," he said.

Remember Bus Totten's Pure Oil Station at Five Corners? There's a picture of ol' Bus Totten himself, standing beside the gas pumps in his white mechanic's coat. A couple of '30s-era coupes await his attention in the garage bays. A picture below shows the car detailing shop that operates there today.

The collection on www.mywvhome.com includes such bygone landmarks as the Gold Dome Drive-in at the foot of the old Kanawha City Bridge, Stewart's Hot Dogs on Kanawha Boulevard (now Captain D's); the old art deco Greyhound bus station on Summers Street (replaced by Slack Plaza); Fernbank Grade School (now the site of a Rite Aid); and the Empire Diner (pictured in the midst of demolition).

Waters devotes an entire section to Rock Lake Pool. Another section features panoramic views of old Charleston and Nitro. Several photos recreate the bustling Capitol Street shopping district before the mall. Before-and-after aerial views trace the progress of the mall's construction. Gritty close-ups depict life in the Triangle District and other blue-collar neighborhoods.

Recent additions include then-and-now shots of junkers and shanty boats along Elk River before urban renewal.

All this nostalgia is catching on.

"West Virginians all over America, expatriates, are sending e-mails to their friends about this Web site," Waters said. "They write and tell me how much they appreciate me taking the time to post so many pictures. Even [Mayor] Danny Jones said it's the best he's ever seen on the Internet. He's very familiar with the part of town where I grew up. His buddy, Frankie Veltri, was my next-door neighbor on Smith Street."

Waters describes his intentions in the Web site introduction: "West Virginia has probably exported more good people than any other state ... and yet, they always call West Virginia home. This page is for them, the [expatriates] who had to leave West Virginia. ... To you I say: We're still here, holding down the fort. ... We welcome you back any chance you get, to remember your roots or just to see what's new."

He dedicates the site to the city's working class, people who lived and worked where he did, "in the back part of town and other seedy places that no one seems to want to remember."

The working class isn't generally represented in Charleston histories, he said. "Usually you read about the Ruffners and Quarriers and the Ruffner Hotel and the State Capitol and Summers Street. There's not much about the Joe Fazios and how they grew up between two major railroads with steam engines belching black smoke day and night. In some of these old photos, you can see soot covering the houses."

Waters' biological mother gave him away at birth, an adoption of sorts without official papers. "Mom was never in a position to legally adopt," he said. "She was too poor." Her family lived in the Bullitt Street area, "what most at the time would consider the worst part of town."

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In 1969, a 19-year-old visionary borrowed a cheap 110 camera and started taking pictures all over town.

"The interstate was coming through," Jerry Waters said. "I knew big changes were on the way."

He started shooting on Capitol Street and clicked his way to Greenbrier Street. He shot pictures all along Piedmont Road, an area forever altered by the modern highway system.

That's how it started.

Over the years, Waters amassed an impressive collection of then-and-now Charleston scenes, everything from the notorious back end of town where he grew up to the private South Hills Country Day School, circa the 1960s.

Last year, he started building a Web site brimming with old Charleston photos, most from the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s, some from as far back as 1907. In many cases, he includes pictures of the same location today.

"I think it helps bring it all together," he said.

Remember Bus Totten's Pure Oil Station at Five Corners? There's a picture of ol' Bus Totten himself, standing beside the gas pumps in his white mechanic's coat. A couple of '30s-era coupes await his attention in the garage bays. A picture below shows the car detailing shop that operates there today.

The collection on www.mywvhome.com includes such bygone landmarks as the Gold Dome Drive-in at the foot of the old Kanawha City Bridge, Stewart's Hot Dogs on Kanawha Boulevard (now Captain D's); the old art deco Greyhound bus station on Summers Street (replaced by Slack Plaza); Fernbank Grade School (now the site of a Rite Aid); and the Empire Diner (pictured in the midst of demolition).

Waters devotes an entire section to Rock Lake Pool. Another section features panoramic views of old Charleston and Nitro. Several photos recreate the bustling Capitol Street shopping district before the mall. Before-and-after aerial views trace the progress of the mall's construction. Gritty close-ups depict life in the Triangle District and other blue-collar neighborhoods.

Recent additions include then-and-now shots of junkers and shanty boats along Elk River before urban renewal.

All this nostalgia is catching on.

"West Virginians all over America, expatriates, are sending e-mails to their friends about this Web site," Waters said. "They write and tell me how much they appreciate me taking the time to post so many pictures. Even [Mayor] Danny Jones said it's the best he's ever seen on the Internet. He's very familiar with the part of town where I grew up. His buddy, Frankie Veltri, was my next-door neighbor on Smith Street."

Waters describes his intentions in the Web site introduction: "West Virginia has probably exported more good people than any other state ... and yet, they always call West Virginia home. This page is for them, the [expatriates] who had to leave West Virginia. ... To you I say: We're still here, holding down the fort. ... We welcome you back any chance you get, to remember your roots or just to see what's new."

He dedicates the site to the city's working class, people who lived and worked where he did, "in the back part of town and other seedy places that no one seems to want to remember."

The working class isn't generally represented in Charleston histories, he said. "Usually you read about the Ruffners and Quarriers and the Ruffner Hotel and the State Capitol and Summers Street. There's not much about the Joe Fazios and how they grew up between two major railroads with steam engines belching black smoke day and night. In some of these old photos, you can see soot covering the houses."

Waters' biological mother gave him away at birth, an adoption of sorts without official papers. "Mom was never in a position to legally adopt," he said. "She was too poor." Her family lived in the Bullitt Street area, "what most at the time would consider the worst part of town."

Under photos of ramshackle homes in the area, Waters adds colorful tidbits of family lore. He mentions, for instance, his great-grandmother, "Old Lady Lewis," a bootlegger and probable madam who lived around the corner.

Pictures of the derelict neighborhood remind him that whites as well as blacks struggled with poverty, he said.

In 1955, his family gravitated to Smith Street and Shrewsbury Street where his aunt and uncle opened a beer joint. The Web site features several photos of old-time city beer gardens. Waters writes that he was probably in most of them by the time he was 13.

Around the corner where they eventually moved was "The Block," the famous black neighborhood. "It was for the more well-to-do blacks," he said, "so for us, it was a step up."

A new entry on the site offers extensive views of old Shrewsbury Street and "The Block," along with vivid recollections of the life Waters remembers there.

The photo collection grew as Waters entered the working world and developed a real interest in photography. "I brought professional cameras and became a newspaper stringer." Charleston papers published more than 100 of his pictures, he said.

A Charleston firefighter from 1975 to 1997, he discovered a stash of old 4x4 negatives destined for the fire department trash bin. "They were from the inspection bureau. There was every school in the city limits, some old wooden schools, one and two rooms, all the hospitals, a lot of depressed areas like Sentz Street that ran between Broad and Brooks streets, photos you rarely see in any kind of pictorial history."

A friend with a photo lab printed the negatives and many of the pictures appeared in the book "Kanawha Images." "I bought a scanner large enough to scan them and I built the Web site around them," he said. "That was about a year ago."

Half the pictures on the site came from the fire department," he said. "And people send me photos. These photos come from everywhere."

At one point, he checked the 1907 City Directory. "It had 125 photos in it. I scanned the ones I liked and tried to clean them up."

On his most-wanted list are photos of the old Joyland Park in DuPont City where DuPont Middle School stands today. The Web page includes an extensive story about the amusement park, but he hasn't uncovered any pictures to illustrate it.

"I've tried to make the photos as large as possible so people can print them out," he said. "On the Internet, people tend to put small pictures on the screen and you can't see detail. You can click on mine and blow them up to print an 8-by-10 photo."

A link on the site offers a three-minute video showing downtown Charleston in 1980. "That doesn't sound so long ago, but it shows Capitol Street where the mall is about to be built and Capitol Street is a bustling business area."

He's particularly proud of the vintage pictures of Sissonville Road. "I don't think anyone has ever seen any photos of Sissonville Road in historical perspective."

The site grows almost daily. "My goal is to build the largest pictorial history Web site. I'd like to spread out to South Charleston, Dunbar and St. Albans, but right now, I'm concentrating on Charleston and the immediate area."

Reach Sandy Wells at san...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5173.