What, if anything, can be known about photos like these from 116 years ago?

The specific location within the ditch remains elusive even if we know the August 14, 1909 date. Documents exist somewhere, I’ll bet, to identify the location as well as

the names of folks working on the dig at that moment.

The burden with photo archeology is just to match the photos with the documents, and that

deprives us of the stories if we don’t do it.

I know people exist somewhere who count these folks as their ancestors.

Other photos of Hurricane and dredges contemporaneous with it can be seen here.