This unforgettable public domain image of the ‘White House’ Anasazi ruins in Canyon de Chelle is well-known and often reproduced. It is emblematic of cliff-dwellings of the American Southwest. One hardly notices the pueblos at the foot of the cliff — those in the rock-shelter or cave are the center of focus. Then the cliff face continues above, streaked with different colored rock layers in one direction, and stains of a thousand years of rain in the other.

The ruins on the ledge of rock are castellated, like medieval European forts. The one on the left appears to be several stories high, and buttressed for strength. Impregnable, with the high-ground advantage, certainly defenders could withstand anything but a prolonged siege, when water would be their weak point.

But they were found unoccupied; nature had already ousted the defenders — most likely by withholding water. The best laid plans are never a match for relentless time.

This is another Timothy H O’Sullivan image, like our earlier post on Canyon de Chelle, and is dated from the same time period, about 1873.

This photograph shows the home of Chief Ko-Teth Sha-Doc, in Ketchikan Alaska. I was in Ketchikan in the 1980s and remember seeing a house painted dark-blue with a whale-totem painted on it, similar to this. Probably the home of a descendant of Ko-Teth Sha-Doc and the modern chief of the Tlingit band there. This public domain photograph was taken in 1906.

This is another image taken by a non-professional photographer, Charles Clinton Page. Page was born in New York, probably in Ulysses (Tompkins county) in January 1873, and attended Cornell University in Ithaca, graduating in 1899. He was a lawyer, and practiced in Trumansburg New York for a few years before moving to Alaska about 1906, where he was appointed Clerk of the Court by Judge Royal Arch Gunnison, also a Cornell alumni. In 1914 he was again a practicing attorney, still in Alaska, though he stated his ‘permanent’ location was Long Beach, California.

This is another very nice Native American portrait, of an Arapahoe woman called Freckled Face. We see in excellent detail the traditional dress she wears, covered with shells. She also has a necklace of beads and collar of white porcupine quills. She also wears another item around her neck that resembles a miniature version of the man’s breast-plate. We can also see her silver bracelet, rings and earrings. Her hair is arranged in the very traditional manner, parted at the center and braided, with the two braids brought forward over the shoulders, and finished at the ends with dangling ribbons.

This public domain image is attributed to Frank A Rinehart, but those of you who are following along with posts in this blog will remember that a couple weeks ago we showed you an image of Apache Chief Naiche which was taken by Adolph Muhr, but copyrighted by Rinehart. We have no way of knowing for sure if Rinhart took this image, or it was another that he purchased from some other photographer.

Naiche (ca 1856-1919) was the second son of Cochise and Dos-Teh-Seh, and thus hereditary chief of the Chiricahua Apaches when his elder brother Taza died in 1876. This public domain photograph was copyrighted in 1898 though it may have been taken a few years earlier — not before 1890. It shows Naiche dressed in a military uniform, with ‘USS’ on the cap above crossed arrows, a symbol worn by civilian scouts for the US Army 1890-1926.

This image was taken by Adolph F Muhr (ca 1858-1913) who was born in New York City, the son of Herman Muhr, a physician. His family moved from New York to Hoboken New Jersey in the 1870s, and Adolph took up photography there, probably working for a local studio while still living with his parents. About 1883 he moved to Denver and opened a studio on the corner of Larimer and 16th Streets in partnership with William L Bates. About 1889 Muhr married Cora E, and in 1890 he was listed as manager of the ‘International Art Gallery’ in Denver. In 1893 he had a photographic studio at 48 King Block in Denver. Muhr later moved to Seattle Washington, where he died at the age of 55.

The photograph was not copyrighted by Adolph Muhr, the photographer, but by F A Rinehart. Frank A Rinehart was in Denver 1879-81, just before Muhr went there, but was probably related to Alfred Evans Rinehart, another photographer who was in Denver from 1875 until after 1910. Frank Rinehart was in Omaha Nebraska from about 1882 until after 1898. Rinehart presumably bought the negative from Muhr in 1898 and scratched his copyright notice onto the glass plate negative.

Here we have a car full of Eskimos. The car looks like something from the late 1910s, but that is just because it is ahead of its time. This public domain photograph, and the car, were produced in 1905. The car is a Rolls Royce, and in those days way ahead of its competitors in style. This was probably the first automobile in Nome, Alaska, and the photographer had the stroke of genius to fill it with Eskimos for this image. They look like they are having fun.

The photographer was Frank H Nowell (1864-1950), born in New Hampshire. Frank’s father Thomas Nowell moved to Alaska and took up some mining claims, and in the mid-1880s Frank joined him there. He came back south in the 1890s, met a Michigan girl (Elizabeth Helen Davis) vacationing in Florida, and married her in 1894, and soon afterward took up photography as a hobby. By 1900 they were on the outs and he is found living in California, and lists his marital status as Divorced, and his occupation as secretary of a mining company (his father’s).

Luckily, the couple reconciled, as it is said she brought his camera with her when she joined him in Alaska, where he had gone late in 1900. He began to document Alaskan life, and set up a studio in Nome. In 1909 the family moved to Seattle Washington, and Frank opened a studio there. We find them listed in the 1910 and 1920 censuses in Seattle. His biography claims he had a photographic studio up until he retired in the late 1940s, but the 1930 census shows his occupation then was as a distributor for an oil company. He was 66 years old by then, it seems unlikely he continued operating a photographic studio into the late 1940s, when he would have been over 80.