Wichita ? The personal papers of legendary photographer, filmmaker and author Gordon Parks will be housed at Wichita State University.

The university announced Thursday that the school will receive Parks’ collection of private papers, manuscripts and other personal items, which has an appraised value of $500,000. The collection includes nearly 150 boxes of papers and other material from Parks, who once attributed his creativity to his childhood growing up in extreme poverty and segregation in Kansas.

The Gordon Parks Foundation in Chappaqua, N.Y., accepted the university’s proposal for the collection over interest from several other institutions, including the New York Public Library and Library of Congress.

“There were a number of institutions who were very interested in it, but Wichita State’s proposal was so unique and strong, we just selected it,” said Peter Kunhardt, president of the Gordon Parks Foundation. “I think Kansas has reached out and embraced Gordon in a way that has touched all of us here.”

Parks, who died in 2006 at age 93, began his life as the youngest of 15 children in the southeast Kansas town of Fort Scott.

Included in the collection are rough drafts and scripts of Parks’ noted works, such as his autobiographical novel and movie “The Learning Tree” and the 1971 movie “Shaft”; unpublished manuscripts of novels and poems; and notations revealing Parks’ creative process.

“You’re going to get his feelings in writing,” said Parks’ son, David, a filmmaker who lives in Austin, Texas.

David Parks said his father would have been pleased the collection will be kept in Wichita.

Harvard and Princeton also pursued the material, David Parks said, but his father wanted the collection accessible to the public and feared it could be obscured by collections at larger institutions.

Wichita State paid the foundation $505,500 from private donations and about $60,000 from the university, said Ted Ayres, vice president and general counsel at Wichita State, who led the effort to obtain the material.

The deal also will endow a position at the school for a graduate assistant to focus on the collection.