C. M. Marsh, photographer. The Brown Family, 1890s. City of Greeley Museums, Permanent Collection.
The Brown family sat for their portrait at Clark M. Marsh‘s Greeley studio in the 1890s. Greeley had a population of around 2,400 in 1890, and only a small number of Black families lived in the town.
1880 Federal Census, Greeley, CO
The 1880 federal census provides information about the family. Elvira Brown was a single mother, born around 1851 in Michigan. She worked as a laundress. Her eldest son, William, was born in the New Mexico Territory, and her three other children—Ernest, Bertha, and Belle— were born in Colorado. The children’s father was born in the Indian Territory. Brown lived with her widowed mother, Charity Davis, and a brother and sister. Elvira’s two eldest children, and her brother and sister, attended school.
In the 1885 Colorado census, the Brown family lived on Seventh Avenue in Greeley. All four children attended school. Elvira’s mother and siblings did not live with the family.
In 1900, Ernest Brown worked as a porter in Greeley. On August 3, 1907, Brown married Violet Wright in Las Animas, Colorado. He worked as a porter at a lodging house, where his wife was a chambermaid.
Bertha Brown married Benton Davis, a porter, on July 1, 1898, in Boulder, Colorado. By 1900, the couple lived in Leadville, Colorado, with their two-year-old daughter. Her sister Belle resided with them, working as a laundress at the Saddle Rock Restaurant. Elvira also lived in Leadville.
The family lived in Leadville through 1903, but I could not find any record of them after that date. If anyone has more information about the Brown family, please let me know.
Thank you to Miranda Todd at the Greeley Museum for providing the names of the Brown children.
Frederick Lincoln Knight was born around 1861 in Albany, New York to Horace Barton Knight and Mary Hillman Knight.In the 1880s, he worked as a printer in St. Louis, Missouri.He married Calista A. Shore in Lucas, Iowa on July 1, 1882.
In the 1890s, Knight continued his career as a printer in Denver, where he was employed by the Smith-Brooks Printing Company.In 1894, he acquired land on Colorado’s Eastern plains and began taking landscape views.The following year he set up his photo tent in Akron, Colorado, south of the Republican newspaper office.His photo business kept him busy until his crops were ready to harvest.
Fred L. Knight, photographer. [Sod home at an unidentified location], 1890s, silver printing out print. History Colorado, 92.175.1.In the spring of 1898, Knight acquired a photograph car and planned a summer tour of the outlying countryside.Later that year, he purchased a camera for taking small stamp photographs, which could make 28 portraits on one sheet of film.In the spring of 1901, Knight closed his gallery for the season and traveled to nearby towns, entertaining people with the largest Edison phonograph in Eastern Colorado. Later he incorporated moving pictures into the programs. He continued his entertainment tour for several years. Knight worked as a photographer in Akron through 1909.
By 1920, Knight lived in Lakeport, California, where he worked as a newspaper printer. He died in 1942.
Thank you to Jori Johnston, Aaron Marcus, and Joy Saliu at History Colorado and Beverly Brannan for proofreading this post.
The picturesque Wet Mountain Valley, 150 miles southwest of Denver, attracted thousands of miners in the mid-1870s. The first photographers arrived to the area in the 1880s.
Here are a couple of views photo studios during the 1880s. The prints found in public libraries are not vintage prints, and the photographers remain unidentified.
Unknown maker. William “Moccasin Bill” Henry Perkins and his daughter standing in front of a photo tent in Wetmore, Custer County, Colorado, 1880. Denver Public Library, Western History, X-14093.
This studio has a fabric sign promoting the photographer’s work.
Unknown maker. View of two teams of mules and riders in front of a photo studio, Wetmore, Custer County, Colorado, 1885-1890, Denver Public Library, X-14101.
The above studio appears to the left of the white tent in the street scene below. As you can see in the detail, the cloth sign is the same in both photographs.
Wetmore, Colorado, 1880. Denver Public Library, X-14092.Detail of Wetmore street scene.
Two photographers worked in Wetmore in the mid-1880s. James C. Stoneman (b. 1858) arrived in Wetmore in 1884. Emmett Little (b.c. 1851-1907) was also in Wetmore in 1884.
Please let me know if you have information about who took these photographs.
Russell Bros., photographers. Thanksgiving display at Birks Cornforth Grocery Store, 17th and Lawrence St., circa 1886, History Colorado, 2000.129.1043.
British immigrant Birks Cornforth (1836-1906) was one of Denver’s early settlers. In 1863, he established a wholesale and retail grocery store that operated for decades in the city.
The Russell Brothers made this photograph around 1886. Warren H. Russell (b. c. 1854- 1894) and Frederick C. Russell (1859-1924) were born to Chandler Miller Russell and Clara Howard Russell in New Jersey or New York. In 1870 the family moved to the Union Colony of Colorado (now Greeley), joining the experimental utopian farming community.
In 1882, Frederick, Warren, and Alonzo Russell worked as electroplaters and assayers in Denver. In the mid-1880s, Warren Russell earned a living as a photographer in Denver, partnering with his brother, Frederick, in 1886 as the Russell Bros.Warren spent the remainder of his career with Frank Reistle, at one of the first photoengraving businesses in Denver.On March 10, 1894, Warren died on the job when a fire broke out in Reistle’s establishment.
In the 1890s, F. C. Russell practiced carpentry, first in Denver and later in Greeley, a career he would follow for the remainder of his life.Frederick Russell died on September 30, 1924, and is buried in Greeley’s Linn Grove Cemetery.
Thank you to Jori Johnston and Aaron Marcus, History Colorado.
Smallwood & Ball were listed as photographers in the 1876 Denver City Directory. Although no views were published under their combined names, the same stereoviews were often published under both Smallwood’s and Ball’s names.
William John Smallwood was born in St. Joseph, Missouri to William Jackson Smallwood and Mary “Polly” Fox Smallwood.In 1850, his father traveled to the Lake Tahoe area of California in search of gold. He appeared in California’s 1852 census and supposedly died shortly thereafter.
William Smallwood grew up in Knox County, Missouri.In the 1870 census, he is listed as a photographic artist.By 1873, Smallwood had moved to Denver, Colorado, where he worked as a dyer.In 1876, he formed a partnership with photographer George Ball. He made photographs south and west of Denver.
William Smallwood, photographer. Balanced Rock, Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado, circa 1876. Albumen silver stereograph. History Colorado, accession number 84.192.690
A few years later, Smallwood returned to Knox County, Missouri.He married Anna Amanda Roberts on June 4, 1882.They spent their married life on a farm, raising six children to adulthood.William Smallwood died on January 7, 1912, and is buried in Knox County’s Baker Cemetery.
George E. Ball was born in Ross, Herefordshire, England, around 1848. He worked as a photographer in England before immigrating to the United States in November 1874, where he settled in the Denver area. He was the junior partner in the photographic firm of Smallwood & Ball. In 1876, he opened his own gallery in Golden, Colorado, specializing in stereoviews. He exhibited his views at Boulder’s Mineral and Agricultural Fair of 1877.
George Ball, photographer. Green Lake, Georgetown, Colorado, circa 1876. Albumen silver stereoview. History Colorado, accession number 84.192.8.
By 1878, he was a popular resident of Golden, operating a lunch stand at the railroad depot.He organized a shooting club in the city and served as its president.Ball spent four months on a survey party for the southern portion of the Denver & Rio Grande railroad.
On January 18, 1881, the desirable bachelor married Miss J. M. A. Pearlburg in Golden.In July 1882, he sold his lunch counter and moved to a ranch in Middle Park, Colorado with his wife.The couple often wintered in Golden. However, in the summer of 1886, George Ball’s life took an unexpected turn. Word from England revealed that while George had been living as a single man in the United States, he had a wife and three children in England.After George stopped writing home, his British wife assumed he had died in the United States. She took action to find him. In early 1886, an affidavit taken before a United States consul in Leeds, England, made by Elizabeth Ball, provided the details of their marriage.
The press reported that he could be arrested for bigamy or have a divorce brought against him by one or both of his wives. But, about two years later, George Ball surfaced in Alameda, California, as a photographer. He made portraits and a rare series of stereoviews with the mount “The New Series of Pacific Coast Views.”
In the fall of 1897, he left the Bay Area and headed to Sawyer’s Bay in Siskiyou County, California, where he had a placer claim. Further details about his life have not been uncovered.
Thank you to: W. G. Eloe; Krista N. Hanley; Jori Johnston and Aaron Marcus, History Colorado; and Beverly W. Brannan.
Fred Park Stevens was born on July 19, 1872, near Spinney, Park County, Colorado, to H. Hoyt Stevens and Adee Euphosene Fillebrown Steven.In 1876, the family moved to Colorado Springs.He attended the St. Louis Manual Training School at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, graduating fourth in a class of sixty-one students. In 1892, he entered Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, majoring in mechanical engineering.To earn money for college, Fred made blueprints for students. In 1896, after graduation, he returned home to Colorado Springs and resided in the Alta Vista Hotel, managed by his father.
In 1897, Stevens took his photography skills to the next level by partnering with Wilbur E. McChristie, founder of the Nonpareil Portrait and Publishing Company, based in Ohio.McChristie, ill with tuberculosis, had relocated to Colorado Springs for his health.
Later that year, Stevens hiked up iconic Pike’s Peak (14,115 feet above sea level) and spent a week at the summit, waiting for the perfect moment to capture the sunrise in a photograph. His image from the mountaintop, an exposure of a fiftieth of a second, received immense praise and gained widespread attention. Harper’s Weekly published the picture in its December 11, 1897, issue.
F. P. Stevens, photographer. Sunrise From Pike’s Peak, 1897, hand-colored photograph. Courtesy L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602
This accomplishment was followed by a companion photograph, “Sunset behind Pike’s Peak.”In less than four years, more than 60,000 copies of these two photographs have been sold, wholesale and retail, either as black and white prints or hand-colored with watercolors.
F. P. Stevens, photographer. Sunset Behind Pike’s Peak, hand-colored photograph. Courtesy, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602.
Having bought out his partner in the spring of 1898, Stevens moved into a new ground-floor studio, calling his business Stevens Fotograferie. The operator hired to oversee portraiture had previously worked at Napoleon Sarony’s prestigious gallery. Stevens’ firm specialized in Colorado views, interiors, and portraits of animals, hand-colored or black and white.They produced lantern slides, provided photocopying and enlarging services, and developed and printed photographs by amateurs.
In 1899, the Lackawana Railroad Company commissioned Stevens to photograph their route. In February 1900, he made views of Pueblo, Colorado, including a group portrait by flashlight of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen ball at the Colorado Mineral Palace.
Stevens Views. The Man that Made Colorado Famous. Booklet by Foltz & Hardy, circa 1900. Collection of the author.
In August 1900, Foltz and Hardy, Colorado Springs’ new book and stationery store, became the general agents for Steven’s sunrise and sunset photographs, selling them at 50 cents a pair.The contract called for the delivery of photographs amounting to $4,500 retail, at the rate of 5,000 photos per week if required.This large number of prints could only be offered because Stevens had invented an automatic, electric printing machine capable of printing 900 prints an hour.
In 1902, Stevens’ photographs were featured in Denver theComing City: A Collection of Forty Instantaneous Photographs of Life in Denver, published by F. S. Thayer in a limited edition of 1,000 numbered copies.Later that year his work was included in a souvenir viewbook of Colorado Springs published by Critic Publishing.The booklet of twenty-four photographs included “Pike’s Peak at Sunset,” the first time this popular photograph appeared in a book.
Under advice from his physician, Stevens decided to move to a lower elevation.Stevens sold his photographic business to L. A. Hatch of Orange, New York, in December 1902.He also sold all rights to his famous Sunset and Sunrise views to the Foltz and Hardy bookstore. Stevens had married Elsie Slayback on June 19, 1901. When they left Denver in the next year, they planned to visit tourist attractions in the Eastern states before resuming his photographic business, perhaps in California.
In December 1902, Stevens began work for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, to be held in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904.The Fair planned to issue photographic admission passes.To efficiently accomplish this, Stevens invented an automatic electric printing machine capable of printing 600 prints an hour. He received a patent for his invention.An average of 1,200 people were photographed daily, setting a world record. The entire process including taking the picture, developing and pasting it into the passport took approximately an hour.
In 1905, Stevens brought his printing technology to the Lewis & Clark Exposition held in Portland, Oregon.In December 1908, Stevens was appointed the official photographer of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition held in Seattle the following year.
Stevens moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1913 where he managed the commercial photography firm, Canadian Photo Company.
Stevens died on December 1, 1915, at the age of forty-three, in Vancouver, leaving his wife a widow.Stevens was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs.
Thank you to Beverly W. Brannan for proofreading this post. Brigham Young University kindly provided scans of Stevens’ sunset and sunrise photographs.
I visited Sterling, the largest city on Colorado’s Eastern Plains, and went to the Overland Trail Museum. During my visit, I discovered a couple of new photographers from early Colorado to add to my list of camera artists. Please let me know if I have missed any.
Gustaf Robert Appelblad was born on March 27, 1863, in Jönköping, Sweden. He learned photography from his brother Ture Appleblad.In 1882 Gustaf immigrated to the United States and shortened his name to Appel.He settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Three years later, Appel established himself in Central City, Colorado, working as a retoucher.In May 1886, he purchased B. A. Lindquist’s studio.He claimed to make about 200 portraits a month and to produce roughly 2,000 prints.
G. A. Appel, photographer. Wm. Gleason and second wife; Overland Trail Museum, section 14, No. 61
On June 4, 1887, Appel married Anna C. Johnson in Central City.The couple moved to Sterling in August 1889.The following year, he set up a tent gallery in Idaho Springs.In June 1891, Appel purchased a large photography studio at 1527 Larimer St., Denver, Colorado. During his seventeen years in Denver, he advertised extensively in the Swedish newspaper Svensk-Amerikanska Western.He also participated in local politics, running for office as a socialist.
In May 1908, Appel sold his studio to Leroy Kellog and took up residence in Eaton, Colorado. Gustaf R. Appel died on November 22, 1911, at the age of 48. His remains rest in Denver’s Fairmount Cemetery.
Boston R. R. Photo Car, Unidentified woman, History Colorado, Accession # 2014.137.43
Boston Railroad Photo Car Active in Sterling in March 1889. Operated by J. S. Legerton. (See below)
Denver Travelling Photograph Gallery Based on a small group of cabinet cards held by the Overland Trail Museum, it appears that the Denver Travelling Photograph Gallery may have visited Sterling. The photographs all show signs of fading, likely due to poor chemical processing, possibly as a result of a quick turnaround time. I have been unable to find any additional information about this studio.
I. N. Ford, photographer. Portrait of Howard? McConley. From the collection of Karen E Hendrix.
Isaac Newton Ford was born in Illinois on October 26, 1850, to Aquilla Ford and Nancy Galbreath Ford.He spent his childhood on a farm in Linn County, Kansas.The 1880 federal census lists Ford as a miner in Fairplay, Colorado.He settled in Iliff, Colorado, marrying Harriet Louise Miers Monroe on December 2, 1884.
In the 1890s, Ford had learned photography. On May 31, 1910, Ford was thrown from his horse-drawn wagon and died from his injuries, leaving behind a wife and four sons. Ford is buried in Sterling’s Riverside Cemetery.
L. F. Active in Sterling in March 1889. I was not able to identify this photographer.
John S. Legerton, photographer. Portrait of Robert D. Sanders. Overland Trail Museum, Section 14, No. 98.
John S. Legerton was born in England in 1862.At the age of twenty, he arrived in the United States.Legerton worked as a traveling photographer visiting towns in Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, California, and Montana, often for only a few days at a time.His businesses and partnerships changed throughout the years, including Chidester & Legerton, Legerton View and Photograph Co., Legerton & Moorehead, Legerton & Gregory Photo Co., and Boston Railway Photo Car.
Between 1886 and 1890 Legerton’s home base was Iliff, Colorado.He spent the latter decades of his life in the Los Angeles, California area as a dealer in second-hand bottles.John S. Legerton died on August 29, 1955 in Los Angeles.
E. F. Phillips was a photographer and sign painter in Sterling, CO, between 1890-1896.
E. F. Phillips, photographer. Columbus Day, Oct. 21st, 1892, Sterling, Logan County, Colorado. Overland Trail Museum, Section 3A, #29
Orion U. Roberts was born in August 1869 in Rush County, Indiana to James Harrison Roberts and Augusta Green Roberts.Orion’s mother passed away when he was four years old, and ten months later, his father married his sister-in-law, Winifred Marillas Green.Orion attended school in Indianapolis.
On July 2, 1892, Orion married Mary Foster in Cook County, Illinois.By 1897, they were living in Colorado, where Orion practiced photography.He set up a temporary studio in Castle Rock, before moving to Sterling, Colorado, where he stayed for several months.In 1900, he had a studio at 710 Santa Fe in Denver.The 1910 census places the couple in Seattle, Washington, with Orion working as a carpenter.Orion Roberts died on April 3, 1933, in Washington, Oregon.He was survived by his wife.
O. U. Roberts, photographer. Portrait of Michael V. Propst (1822-1900) and Jane S. White (1827-1910) Overland Trail Museum, Section 14, No. 48.John C. Sanders, photographer. Portrait of Allen H. Sanders and Eliza Sanders. Overland Trail Museum, Section 14, #77.
John C. Sanders was a traveling landscape and portrait photographer in Iliff, Colorado, c. 1887. He also represented the firm of Legerton & Gregory Photo Co., taking orders for photographs.
Frank Stewart was born on December 1, 1859 in Cambridge, Ohio to John Stewart and Elizabeth Stiles Stewart.He married Hepzibah Rae Reynolds on February 12, 1890, in Dallas, Iowa.He may have been active as a photographer in Scranton City, Iowa in the mid-1890s.By 1899 the Stewarts had relocated to Sterling, CO,where they built a six-room residence. Frank ran a photo gallery there, producing local views and portraits. Notably, six of his baby portraits were featured in the Denver Times baby contest. In May 1900, he established a branch gallery in Brush, Colorado managed byH. M. Vredenburg.A few years later, the Stewarts moved just south of Sterling to Atwood, where they operated a dairy farm. Frank Stewart died on January 3, 1937. He is buried in Las Animas Cemetery, Las Animas, CO.
Thank you to Brian Jesteadt, Museum Assistant, at Overland Trail Museum, for his expertise and assistance during my visit. Karen Hendrix kindly supplied a scan to illustrate I. N. Ford’s work.
Wedding portraits from the 19th century are quite common, but photographs of wedding ceremonies are rare. A penciled caption on the back of this photograph states that Will Prentiss is the groom. But, according to marriage records and newspaper accounts, this photograph documents the wedding of George Prentiss and Gertrude McKissick. The photograph was taken on September 27, 1897, under the bell on the porch of the Hot Springs Hotel in Canon City, Colorado. After the ceremony, the couple traveled to Denver by train for their honeymoon.
Photographer George Christian Fricke was born on January 27, 1867 in Germany.He immigrated to the United States in 1884, likely bringing along his photographic skills. In 1888, Fricke owned a photography business with Bretzman in Pueblo, Colorado. By 1892, he was working as a photographer in Canon City, Colorado, and running a branch gallery in Westcliffe, Colorado.Fricke’s photographs illustrated the July 25, 1901, special edition of the Canon City Record, dedicated to the growth of the city and its influential business and civic leaders.
In November 1901, Fricke sold his gallery to the Mills Sisters, photographers from Chicago.In March 1902, the Fricke family left Canon City, living briefly in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Seattle, Washington, before settling in Vancouver, British Columbia.He partnered with photographer George W. Schenck.The firm traveled to the suburbs of Vancouver, setting up temporary galleries.
By 1920, Fricke was living in Aberdeen, Washington, working as a logger.George C. Fricke died on May 23, 1947 in Aberdeen, Washington.He was buried in that city’s Fern Hill Cemetery.
Thank you to History Colorado staff, Jori Johnson, Collections Access Coordinator, and Aaron Marcus, Digital Imaging Studio Manager.
Anna M. Tweed was born in Kansas circa 1864 to William Wilson and Eliza A. Thompson Tweed.The Tweed family lived in Wakarusa, about seven miles south of Lawrence, Kansas.They moved to Colorado Springs around 1878 where Anna’s father was the director of a mining company.
Glen Cove with Addie and Anna Tweed and Dad. Courtesy of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.
In the mid-1890s, Anna pursued photography, with a studio at her brother’s property, Glen Cove, on Pike’s Peak Carriage Road in Colorado Springs. She specialized in local scenery printed on boudoir card mounts. In 1900, she worked for photographer Fred P. Stevens.
That fall, Anna accepted a position with Foltz and Hardy’s new book, stationery, and art store in the Exchange National Bank block.According to an article in the Colorado Springs Gazette, “her natural talents as an artist, and pleasing manners with customers, proved materially instrumental in the upbuilding of that popular firm.”She was employed there for five years before taking a similar position at Kendrick’s bookstore in Denver.In 1905, Anna’s landscape photographs were published in At the Foot of Pike’s Peak a collection of poems by Colorado Springs authorMrs. Lelah Palmer Morath.
Anna M. Tweed, photographer. Group on top of Colorado Midland railroad car, albumen print on boudoir card mount. Collection of the author.
After a brief time in Denver, Anna returned to Colorado Springs.In the years that followed, she traveled extensively, visiting Hot Springs, Arkansas; Las Vegas, New Mexico; Phoenix, Arizona; Los Angeles, California; San Francisco, California and Tacoma, Washington.
In 1913, Ms. Tweed moved to New York City where she represented Wallace Nutting, a New England landscape photographer.While on vacation in Colorado Springs during the summer of 1913, she brought 600 Nutting photographs with her and displayed them at Harding’s art store.She lived in New York City for several years, but by 1923 she had moved to Los Angeles, where she resided until her death on December 21, 1945.She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA.
For more information about female photographers who worked in Colorado Springs see Searching for the Early Women Photographers of the Pikes Peak Region by Nancy Bathke and Brenda Hawley in Film & Photography on the Front Range, Pikes Peak Library District, 2012.
Thank you to Hillary Mannion, Archivist, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum for assistance with acquiring the scan of the Tweed family and to Beverly W. Brannan for proofreading this post.
The Breckenridge History archives recently acquired an ambrotype of a local mining camp. Originally gifted to the Montana Historical Society, Photo Archives Manager Jeff Malcomson researched the one-of-a-kind photograph and discovered that the location did not match either of the two French Gulch locations in Montana. Upon further investigation, he was able to confirm that the image actually matched French Gulch in Breckenridge. Read more here.
Ambrotype of French Gulch mining camp, Breckenridge, Colorado
