LEWISTON – While thousands of Franco-Americans filled local mills and factories, hundreds more started businesses of their own.

It’s a story Donat Boisvert aches to tell.

“People think immigrants all went to the mills or made shoes,” said Boisvert, coordinator of the Franco-American Collection at Lewiston-Auburn College.

Instead, they created their own niche markets, founded a shopping district of their own along Lincoln Street and eventually spread into the Yankee bastion a block away: Lisbon Street.

It’s an evolution Boisvert hoped to illustrate when he created a new exhibit titled “Le Commerce.”

However, he soon discovered that there were astonishingly few business photos among the collection of more than 1,000 images.

It’s a hole in history.

So, Boisvert created an intriguing 22-photo diorama that only hints at the power of Franco entrepreneurship.

It includes a 1931 picture of P. Bolduc Furniture Movers and a 1940 image of Alphee J. Grenier at the Bergeron Brickyard.

There’s also a 1900 photo of bakery owner Phillippe Dupont with several of his workers, including apprentices E.W. Mailhot, who later founded Mailhot Sausage Co., and F.R. Lepage, who started Lepage Bakeries.

“I used everything I had,” Boisvert said. There were other photos, but they chronicled the same businesses.

He wanted to do more. To recall a local restaurant, for instance, he’d like a menu or two. Instead, much of that material has been thrown away.

When the French-language “Le Messager” newspaper folded, many of the old issues were taken to the dump and incinerated.

“We have hundreds of pictures of the basilica,” he said. Other images recall the many clubs. But the stores where so many spent their off hours have left little trace.

And it’s not just the small businesses. Lots of photos depict the textile mills, but there are few images from the shoe shops, which also employed thousands.

Boisvert believes some materials are out there, collecting dust in attics and basements. He hopes that people may find boxes filled with photos and consider donating them to the Franco-American Collection. They only need to drop by his office at Lewiston-Auburn College.

Images, more than anything, can tell the stories of the past, he said.

“You can put it into words, but it’s just not the same,” he said.