In 1878, Rocky Ford farmer G. W. Swink offered slices of watermelon to train passengers passing through town. The following year, using the door of a Santa Fe boxcar for table space, a crowd of about fifty people celebrated the local melon. During the next decade, the celebration moved into the watermelon grove with a 500-foot table to serve more than 12,000 visitors. By 1900, Rocky Ford melons were shipped to the East Coast and as far away as England. The 2025 Watermelon Day in Rocky Ford is scheduled for Saturday, August 16th, at the Arkansas Valley Fair. Events include a carved watermelon contest and a seed-spitting contest.
Jackson Elmer Orr was born on December 22, 1865, in Clinton County, Indiana, to Civil War veteran Matthew Elijah Orr and Elizabeth Jane Scircle Orr. He grew up on a farm in Indiana and later in Kansas, with seven siblings. On his twenty-first birthday, Jackson married Priscilla Roseboom.
Orr worked as a traveling photographer for most of his life, with home bases in Kansas and Colorado. He initially traveled with a tent and later with a gallery built on wheels. His life highlights the extremes some photographers go to survive—always seeking new opportunities, never staying in one place for long, buying and selling studios, and sometimes buying back the same studio they had sold. In the summer of 1890, he and Mahlon L. Anderson operated as Orr & Anderson, based in Greensburg, Kansas. In December 1890, Orr bought a photographic gallery in Pratt, Kansas, but he seemed to sell it almost immediately. He moved between Kansas towns like Greensburg, Oakley, Winona, and Russell Springs, staying for a few weeks or months as needed for business.
In November 1892, Orr opened a permanent gallery in Oakley, Kansas. He and his wife spent the summer of 1893 in Colorado and planned to be in Oklahoma the following winter. In June 1894, they moved to Rocky Ford, Colorado. He bought Edward S. Rickard’s photography studio and reconnected with his former partner, M. L. Anderson. After five months, they ended their partnership. Four months later, in March 1895, he sold his Rocky Ford gallery to Anderson. However, by October, he was back working in Rocky Ford.
Roughly 200 miles separated Rocky Ford, Colorado, from Oakley, Kansas, both small towns with populations under 500. Orr moved between the two cities, frequently operating studios in both towns. In Rocky Ford, he made photographs of the flourishing crops, especially watermelons. By 1900, Rocky Ford watermelons were prized for their size and taste, not only across the United States but also in Europe.
In March 1900, Orr sold his Oakley, Kansas, photo studio to O. R. Turner. Back in Rocky Ford, Mrs. Orr died from heart disease on May 6, 1901. Later that month, Orr sold his Rocky Ford gallery to Charles A. Wales. But a few months later, Orr made plans to build a brick studio with all new apparatus. The new studio opened on November 1, 1901.
On May 31, 1903, Orr married Bessie Seaman. The couple traveled extensively around the West Coast looking for a new business location, but returned to Rocky Ford and continued business there. In 1907, the couple attended a class on Aristo photography, a type of photographic paper popular at the time. Later that year, he sold his Rocky Ford gallery and planned to take additional photography training before opening his next studio. Jackson and Bessie Orr divorced in 1909.
In 1912, Orr had a photo car at Cortez, Colorado, in the southwestern corner of the state. The beauty of the area led Orr to extensively photograph the many prehistoric ruins in the area, and in particular, Mesa Verde National Park. For the next two years, Orr traveled around the state presenting lantern slide lectures on the history and significance of this geographic area.
In late 1914, Orr moved to Arizona. He worked for the Heath studio in Phoenix before buying John W. Branch’s Tempe photo gallery. Moving north to Enterprise, Washington, in 1918, Orr met his third wife, Cassie Anna Bell, a schoolteacher more than thirty years younger than him. The couple moved to Augusta, Kansas, where Orr worked in several local communities in Kansas and Oklahoma.
In January 1921, looking for a new adventure, Orr and a friend traveled to Mexico. Returning home to Kansas, he sold his studio and Orr and his wife moved to Veracruz, Mexico. Orr passed away in Veracruz on October 5, 1922.
