Tag: railway photographer

Scenes Along the Colorado Midland Railway by J. L. Clinton and W. I. Rudy

The 222-mile Colorado Midland Railway ran between Colorado Springs and Aspen via Leadville, providing access to remote mining areas. The train also offered tourist excursions, often highlighting wildflowers along the route. Completed in 20 months, it was the first train to use standard-gauge rails over the Continental Divide in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.

W. Ira Rudy, photographer. The Colorado Springs Fireman’s Band at the second excursion on the Midland, July 17, 1887.  Albumen silver print on boudoir card mount. Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum.

Passenger service began in July 1887, between Colorado Springs and Buena Vista.  At the end of August, 15 days earlier than expected, service was extended west to Leadville.  This segment included thirteen bridges.  West of Leadville, the train traveled through the 2,161-foot-long Hagerman Tunnel, crossing the Continental Divide, then the highest railroad tunnel in the world.  On February 4, 1888, regular train service continued on to  Aspen.  The train provided a convenient route for passengers traveling to and from the Aspen mining district and, most importantly, it provided an economical way to transport ore to its marketplace.

railroad bridge
W. Ira Rudy & Co., photographer. Trestle at the Loop. C. M. Ry. near Hagerman Tunnel, circa 1890. Collection of the author.

But the high-elevation route was plagued by snowstorms.  During the first four months of 1899, the train was inoperable for seventy-seven days due to snow.  These costly delays forced the company to travel through a lower-elevation tunnel, the Busk-Ivanhoe Tunnel. In September 1890, with mounting debt, the railroad was sold to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, and its name was changed to Colorado Midland Railroad.

After several mergers, the Colorado Midland Railroad Company was legally dissolved on May 21, 1922.

Many photographers documented the Colorado Midland, including William Henry Jackson, Louis Charles McLure, and Harry Hale Buckwalter.  This blog post will discuss the work of photographers J. L. Clinton and W. Ira Rudy, who photographed the railway in the late 1880s.  They worked both in partnership and alone.

Rudy & Clinton, photographers. “Artist’s Nook, Green Mountain Falls, C. M. R’y, 1889.” Pikes Peak Library District.

The Photographers

James Luman Clinton was born on June 15, 1860, in Clintonville, Wisconsin, to Luman W. Clinton and Sarah Ann Sharp Clinton.  When President Lincoln called for an additional 300,000 men to serve with Union troops in the Civil War, Luman Clinton volunteered with the 21st Wisconsin Infantry.  In September 1862, he mustered into service, leaving his pregnant wife and three children behind.  A month later, he died on the battlefield at Perryville, Kentucky.  

The eight-dollar monthly pension Mrs. Clinton received was not enough to support her family.  She operated a millinery shop until 1880, when the family moved to Madison, Wisconsin, which offered her children more educational opportunities.  The city provided many job opportunities for the Clinton children.  Eva, the oldest child, was employed as a seamstress, James worked in a printing office, while his younger sister, Lulu, retouched negatives at Andrew Isaacs’ photo studio.  A year later, she died tragically in a boating accident.  

In 1885, Isaac hired James as a photographer.  The following year, James briefly worked in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, before moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where his photographic career flourished.  Clinton took over Franklin A. Nims’ studio at 18 South Tejon Street. He married his Wisconsin girlfriend, Emily Dodge Prescott, on May 5, 1887, in Colorado Springs.  The couple was very active in the Baptist church. 

Mess Wagon
J. L. Clinton, photographer. “Mess Wagon, Among the Cowboys, Shooting Craps.” Coutesy of Pike’s Peak Library

In 1889, Clinton partnered with W. I. Rudy.  They served as the official photographers for the Colorado Midland Railway.  In 1891, Clinton signed a five-year lease for a new ground-floor photography studio in Colorado Springs.  In 1893, he traveled west to Glenwood Springs and later east to  Elbert, Colorado, making portraits, scenic views, and views of residential buildings.  

By 1896, Clinton seems to have abandoned photography and invested in a new mining venture.  A few years later, he owned a peach orchard in Palisade, Colorado.  He expanded his farm to include cherries, potatoes, and alfalfa.  

Mr. and Mrs. James L. Clinton died of pneumonia within three days of each other in January 1930.  The couple was laid to rest at the Palisade Cemetery.  They were survived by Mr. Clinton’s 94-year-old mother and their son and his family.

William Ira Rudy was the second child of Isaac and Sarah Ann Groff Rudy.   He was born around 1855 in Stark County, Ohio. His father was a merchant in the dry goods business.  By 1860, the family was living in Mendota, Illinois.  In 1867, when Ira was about twelve years old, the family settled in Olathe, Kansas.   

In August 1876, Ira and his older brother Dan opened a music, book, and stationery store in Abilene, Kansas.  They sold Steinway & Sons pianos, sheet music, pens and paper, and even sewing machines.  In February 1877, the brothers sold their interest in the business to their partner, B. F. Maxwell.  In 1880, Ira moved 12 miles east to Chapman, Kansas, where he worked in a drugstore and taught a band music class.  

On August 8, 1881, Rudy married Anna Rohrer in Chapman, Kansas.  The following February, Ira and his brother, Dan, left Kansas and headed west.  By June of that year, Ira’s wife had joined him in Colorado Springs, where they settled in Colorado.  By July 1883, Ira had set up a “museum” filled with a “collection of odd and beautiful things, a capable taxidermist, who mounts or stuffs birds, skins of animals, in the best style; and a complete museum department, consisting of sheet and book music, violins, accordions, banjos, guitars, &c.” 

Rudy employed people who traveled to Mexico and New Mexico to acquire Native American artifacts for the store.  They brought back beads, blankets, pottery, and moccasins.  Tourists could purchase items and have them shipped anywhere in the United States.  A room in the back of the store housed live birds and animals, including a young antelope and a Golden Eagle.  

Halfway House
W. Ira Rudy, photographer. The Hundley Stage Line to Cripple Creek Via C. M. R. R.,  History Colorado, object id. 95.200.898. Prior to the completion of the Midland Terminal Railway, stagecoaches and freight wagons connected the gold camps with the railroad.
Back of mount
The circle and triangle design was used by the Colorado Midland between 1887 and 1905.

By 1886, Ira’s younger brother Frank had moved to Colorado Springs, where he worked as a painter and paperhanger, while Ira pursued scenic photography, a field he would work in through 1894. In 1889, Clinton partnered with W. I. Rudy.  During this period, he documented the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and the Colorado Midland Railway. His work was published in the Midland’s circulars and publicity materials.

In 1896, Ira Rudy established a mining company with a group of Colorado Springs residents.  This business was likely unsuccessful, as by 1900, Ira left his wife and young daughter and moved to Seattle, Washington.  A few years later, he worked as a bartender in Los Angeles.  In 1907, Anna obtained a divorce from Ira on the grounds of desertion.  Ira Rudy appears in the 1910 federal census as a hotel clerk.  I have not found any further information about him.  

Thank you to History Colorado staff, and to Hillary Mannion, Archivist, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.

 

William Cronyn’s Talented and Tragic Life

woman with guitar
Cronyn & Hibbs, Railway Photographers. Unidentified woman with a guitar, circa 1899.  Collection of the author.

Last fall I attended the annual Daguerreian Society meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.  I was on the lookout for photographs by Colorado photographers at the trade fair.  An image made by Cronyn & Hibbs of a woman with a guitar caught my attention.  I thought the name Cronyn was in my database, so  I hustled up to my hotel room to check.   (Note to self:  Always ask the dealer to hold the photograph, rather than assume the photo will still be available when you return.)

My database included a William Cronyn, but no one named Hibbs.  I liked the image and it provided information about Cronyn’s career trajectory, so I decided it would be a good purchase.  I returned to the dealer’s table and the Cronyn photograph was in another collector’s hands.   What should I do?  I hung around as the woman contemplated her purchases, and exhaled a sigh of relief when she placed the Cronyn & Hibbs photograph in her reject pile.  I immediately picked it up and asked the collector if she was sure she was willing to let this one go.  We had a good chuckle about my predicament.

Cronyn’s biography is confusing.  Canadian census data suggests that William Cronyn was born around 1850 in Ontario, Canada to David Cronyn and Anna Hawthorne Cronyn, but other records state his birthplace as New York.  His personal life was messy.  He married at least four times.  Perhaps because of this, he moved frequently and his professional life showed plenty of challenges.

By 1879, William Cronyn lived in New York City.   The 1880 census lists his occupation as a photographer and his wife’s name as Josephine.   A year later, in March 1881, Cronyn married Etta Wright, in Omaha, Nebraska.  They would remain married until the early 1890s.  In the mid-1880s Cronyn was employed in the Pittsburgh area as an artist.  Later in the decade, he opened a studio in Omaha, but ownership of the gallery ended up in court.  Cronyn moved out of the gallery, taking all the apparatus and furniture, leaving broken negatives on the gallery floor.

Cronyn cabinet portrait
Cronyn, photographer. Charles O. Unfug, mayor of Walsenburg, CO in 1887 and 1891. History Colorado, Accession #92.94.13

In November 1887, Cronyn arrived in Pueblo, Colorado. The Colorado Daily Chieftain reported that Cronyn had “spent thirteen years…in the operating rooms of [Napoleon] Sarony’s famous photograph gallery in New York City.”  Likely this is an exaggeration, as there is no record that Cronyn spent that length of time in New York.  

He seemed to hit his stride in Pueblo.  His wife assisted with studio sittings and ran the business when Cronyn traveled.   She was also a talented artist, producing “point crayon”  portraits.  The point crayon portrait was executed by hand using only the point of the crayon, rather than the standard crayon portrait where shadows were created by rubbing the medium into the paper.  

child by Cronyn
Cronyn, photographer. Portrait of Helen Virginia Gibson, between 1887 and 1891.  Poughkeepsie Public Library District, I-G07.

Cronyn claimed his studio had the largest skylight in Colorado, enabling him to make portraits even on cloudy days.  The skylight aided him with his specialty for fancy lighting.  He won first premium and a diploma for best photographic collection at the 1888 Colorado State Fair, held in Pueblo. Locally, his work could be seen in the windows of Pueblo’s Wick’s Shoe store.

Early on the morning of August 1, 1890, a newspaper carrier noticed a fire in Cronyn’s studio.  An electric light left burning all night had ignited studio scenery.  The firefighters saved the building but losses included the skylight, valuable backgrounds and studio apparatus valued at almost $2,500.  The losses were fully covered by insurance and the studio was repaired quickly.

Less than a year later, another fire broke out in the back of the Cronyn studio, probably caused by the explosion of an oil stove.  The studio suffered smoke damage and a few panes of the skylight broke.  A week later Cronyn put the studio up for sale, including his cameras, chemicals, furniture, books and other supplies.  Lydia McCloskey purchased the studio.  Cronyn remained in Pueblo, working for photographer, Wesley S. Howard.

By late May 1891, E. E. Powers took over Cronyn’s former studio from McCloskey, with the operating room under the direction of Cronyn.  The press referred to the business as the “Cronyn gallery.”  Meanwhile, Mrs. Cronyn moved to Denver with their baby for her health.  Cronyn joined his wife briefly in Denver, but news reports cited his interest in moving to Los Angeles, California or Missouri.

In June 1892, Cronyn secured a position with W. H. Caman in Wellington, Kansas, leaving his wife in Denver.  A year later, Cronyn was on the road again.  In 1896, he acquired a photo railroad car which he operated in North Dakota with someone named McGlachlin.

Cronyn’s third marriage took place in September 1898 in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Helen Gould, a young woman thirty years his junior.   They divorced less than two years later due to Cronyn’s affection for another woman.

Cronyn & Hibbs, photographers. Unidentified man and woman, circa 1899. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Donated by Don L. Durrah and D. Simone Durrah Logan in memory of Hattie J. Durr Whiddon Graham (1873-1950); Christopher Columbus Wayman Whiddon (1894-1973); Lina Irene Jordan Whiddon (1897-1983)

In 1899, Cronyn operated a rail car in Minnesota with Charles Hibbs.  On July 5, 1900, misfortune struck Cronyn’s photo car.  His assistant, who lived in the car, came home from a dance and accidentally tipped over a lamp, quickly igniting the entire car.  The fire destroyed the car and all of its contents, valued at $6,000.  Cronyn held only $2,000 insurance.

The 1900 federal census adds confusion to Cronyn’s biography.  The census places Cronyn in Aiken, Minnesota, married to Margaret “Maggie” Whitney, also a photographer.  The census data states that they have been married for 10 years.  William Cronyn died of heart disease in February 1903 in Tracy, Minnesota.

Thank you to Dr. Marcel Safier, of Brisbane, Australia for researching Cronyn’s death date.  Beverly W. Brannan, former curator of photography at the Library of Congress edited this post.  Jori Johnson, Collections Access Coordinator and Keegan Martin, Digital Imaging Technician, History Colorado also assisted.