By DAWN TRACY Herald Staff Writer When an old Orem Llne electric railroad car collided with a Heber Creeper steam engine in the heart of downtown Provo in 1918, photographer Samuel Robinson grabbed his equipment. rushed to the scene and recorded the event. Since then, his photographs of Provo’s only train crash have appeared in joumals, newspapers and evm in a local Orem restaurant. Matter of fact, so many people have borrowed copies of Robins0n’s pictures of early life in Provo that the family has a check-out system so that the old photogaphs won’t get lost. ”1 n’t think I realized how valuable the old pictures were,” says one of Robinsons four children, Bernice Adamson of Orem. “If I had, I would have asked my father to tell me more about the picturesfl Sixty-five years ago when the two trains crashed on SecondWest and Center Street, no one was injured, although the Orem electric car was filled with passengers on their way to the state fair and General Conference in Salt Lake City, Schools Superintendent L.E. Eggertsen and Provo Mayor LeRoy Dixon were among the injured. Impact of the crash sent two prisoners. on their way to the state penitentiary. sprawling down the aisle. Newspaper accounts do not list the cause of the accident. Robinson was able to photograph the crash because his photo supply office was located just a few blocks away. Mrs. Adamson says younger members of the family often cbide her for not obtaining more information of early Provo life from her father before he died in 1954. “I know now that I should have,” she says. “I just wish I would have known then.” Two months before the train crash. Robinson also photographed a fire at Provo’s Knight Woolen Mills. The mills, which closed in 1982, never recovered from the 1918 blaze, which officials said was caused by spontaneous combustion. It was the largest fire in Provo’s history, up to that time. Robinson did not concem himself solely with disasters. He? also wok pictures of comment events in the early port of cmtury, such as a Provo July 4th parade, his music and pho-. tography store and his children. “Father always had u camera in his hand,” says Mrs. Adam son. “He obtained musical training at the old Brigham Youn Academy but he taught hims photography. ” Robinson’s English famil brought him to Coalville when h was 2. His father, an unschool miner, taught himself and his; children now to play musicalf instruments. “We really didn’t think of myg father as a phowgravher,” says Mrs. Adamson. “We thought of him as a musician. He was always repairing instruments and he loved music,” Robinson was a member of the Academy and Provo City bands. so it’s natural that the family hu pictures of the early bands in their photography collection. “My father was far from wealthy. but we considered blm nccessful,” says Mrs. Adamson. “I-le worked hard. he loved people and he preserved a record of historical events that have been valuable and enjoyable for many people.”