LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — The Leavenworth County Historical Society has launched a $1 million campaign to retrieve glass-plate photo negatives taken more than century ago during Leavenworth’s pioneer days.

The 40,000 photo negatives, some of which show steamboats and cavalry soldiers, were obtained in 1968 by David Phillips, a Chicago man who got them from a Leavenworth photographer.

The Kansas City Star  reports that the Leavenworth County Historical Society now wants the photo negatives back. So far, the historical society has recovered 25,000 of the glass plate negatives that Phillips sold to a California museum.

The historical society says the million dollars would be used to buy the rest of the plates from Phillips, as well as for storage, presentation and research accessibility for families, students and historians.