Opelika Business Portrait Project

The Opelika Business Portrait Project documents the businesses of downtown Opelika through field-based oral history, photography, and ephemera. Working on location at each business, the archive records interviews with owners and staff, photographs the storefront and interior, and collects business ephemera such as menus, signage, advertisements, and printed matter. The collection is organized by business, with a separate series for each. It was established in 2026 and is actively growing as new businesses are documented. The project captures the commercial and social life of downtown Opelika at street level, preserving the voices, images, and material culture of local enterprises that might otherwise go undocumented.

Series I: Boxcar Theater contains ephemera including programs, posters, tickets

Series II: CoLab LLC (2019–2026) contains born-digital and digitized materials donated by CoLab LLC, a coworking business at 216 S 8th Street, in June 2026. The series includes photographs of the building during and after its renovation and expansion, staff and community event photographs, floorplans and building illustrations by community manager Elizabeth Boyle, a donor-written business history, a member newsletter, and membership records, totaling 49 digital files.