Otto Ward Courtney was born around 1869 in Ohio (His obituary states that he was born in Kentucky, but census records consistently list Ohio as his birthplace). He moved to Colorado as a young man and settled in Telluride. One of his early experiences in Telluride came while hunting, when he encountered a mountain lion. Courtney shot and wounded the lion, but it kept approaching him. With the animal about twenty feet away, Courtney aimed again, and the lucky shot killed it. The mountain lion measured eight feet and nine inches from tip to tip.
A surprise encounter with his sweetheart, Lucy Gardner, on a westbound train led to their hasty marriage. After a fight with her mother, Gardner boarded a train to Salt Lake City to visit her aunt. A few stops later, Courtney boarded the same train and, hearing Lucy’s woes, decided they should marry immediately. They exchanged vows on December 6, 1895, in Montrose, Colorado. On April 6, 1897, Lucy Courtney gave birth to an eight-pound baby girl. Unfortunately, their marriage did not last. By the 1900 federal census, Otto Courtney was listed as single.
Based on a dated photograph of the town in the Telluride Museum’s collections, Courtney may have begun his photographic career in Telluride as early as 1892. In July 1896, Courtney purchased C. A. Erickson’s Telluride photograph gallery. The photo mount reads: Landscape Photographer—Views of Mining and Residence Properties a Specialty. A few months later, in December 1896, Courtney opened a photo gallery with one of the Moore brothers, either Henry or Oscar. The following year, Henry Moore occupied Courtney’s former gallery while Courtney built a new gallery on the corner of Colorado Avenue and Willow Street. By April 1898, Courtney had handed his photo business over to C. C. Harding.
For the next four decades, Courtney pursued cattle ranching in the Telluride area and mining claims, especially carnotite claims near Gateway, Utah, where he moved in 1921. He died of a heart attack on September 9, 1947, at his cabin in Whitewater, Colorado, about ten miles south of Grand Junction. He was buried at Orchard Mesa Cemetery in Grand Junction.