X-Rays, balloons, documenting railroads, motion pictures, pioneer radio broadcasting
By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com
Maybe he was ahead of his time, but it seems Colorado pioneer photographer Harry
Hale Buckwalter always liked to be first in line. No matter what line he chose to stand in.
"Wow - why do we have x-ray photos in our digital collections?" says Randel Metz, Denver Public Library, blogger.
"Because Harry
Hale Buckwalter, who made this photograph, had wide-ranging interests,
among them x-ray photography, hot air ballooning, and high speed motion
capture, three of his pursuits that played a role in his photographic
career. The Harry Buckwalter collection of photographs is owned by
History Colorado, and is part of the Library's Digital Collection as a
result of the collaboration between our two institutions during the
early phases of the project, back in the mid 1990s," explains Metz in his blog.
Buckwalter's film appeared and was all over the map of Colorado and beyond, documenting
railroads, Native Americans, mining, ranching, President Theodore
Roosevelt's Western Slope hunting trip, city scenes in Denver and
Colorado Springs, the first X-ray photographs taken in Colorado, early
Colorado motion picture production, and pioneer radio broadcasting, says Metz.
"Eric Paddock, Curator of Photography at what was then the Colorado
Historical Society, says that Buckwalter's photographs "stand out among
those of his contemporaries because they are eclectic and sometimes
audacious, and because Buckwalter's personality and visionary charm show
through in every print. While many other photographers single-mindedly
pursued their specialized subjects, Buckwalter dabbled in every kind of
photography, from portraits to landscapes and from spot views to aerial
views... Buckwalter was fascinated by the technological developments of
his day, and was quick to experiment with gadgets of all kinds. He was
an inventor, a balloonist, a radio pioneer, and an eccentric gentleman
scientist with a youthful sense of fun.... Buckwalter's sure knowledge
of his subjects' importance made them noteworthy in their own time, and
historically resonant in ours," says Metz.
"Photojournalist,
radio reporter, and film producer Harry Buckwalter (1867–1930) is
considered Colorado’s first photojournalist," according to Colorado historian William Jones. Jone's study of Buckwalter's work has appeared in multiple publications including Encyclopedia Colorado, and Colorado Heritage Magazine.
"He was also one of the
great technological innovators of the nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century American West, known for his advances in X-ray
photography, early adoption of radio, and moving pictures. Buckwalter
began his illustrious career as a reporter for Denver’s Rocky Mountain News," Jones says.
"In 1895 professor Wilhelm Roentgen’s announcement that he had discovered the means for X-ray photography created considerable public interest across the nation. The Rocky Mountain News, eager for an unusual story, decided to sponsor X-ray experiments. It turned to its young reporter, Harry Buckwalter, a skilled photographer who was keenly interested in science and technology, to conduct them. Readers of the Rocky Mountain News came to know him in 1894 for his vivid description of a solo balloon ride over Denver. The idea of taking X-ray pictures intrigued Buckwalter greatly. He teamed up with Dr. Chauncey E. Tennant of the Denver Homeopathic College and in February set to work on what would become some of the earliest successful X-ray photographs developed in the United States."
"Unable to locate a Crookes tube (named for William Crookes, a British scientist who worked with vacuum tubes), which was being used by X-ray experimenters on the East Coast, Tennant and Buckwalter decided to have tubes produced locally by the Diamond Incandescent Lamp Company. They encountered considerable difficulty producing tubes that could maintain the vacuum pressure necessary for X-ray photography, but by the first week of March 1896, they had several functioning tubes and attempted to make X-ray pictures. The first tube lost its vacuum at once, but the second tube produced exciting results. As reported in a front-page story in the Rocky Mountain News on March 9, 1896, “Another tube was then made, and it worked perfectly. Several negatives were made before it gave out. The principal one was that of Dr. Tennant’s hand, which was made in just five minutes, when the current was so great that a small hole was melted in the glass, destroying the vacuum,” Jones says.
"A third tube produced a view of several objects of varying densities, and the two X-ray photographs illustrated the story. Since the Rocky Mountain News had not begun to print halftone photographs yet, it was necessary to include an artist’s sketch of the X-ray photos. Until this time, most researchers had asserted that any glass used in the tubes must not contain lead, but the experiments of Buckwalter and Tennant had proven otherwise. The paper proudly proclaimed in its headlines, “Successful Experiments with Lead Glass Tubes Made by the News and Homeopathic College. Tubes made by a Denver Firm Give Much Better Results Than the Most Praised Product of Europe.” The experiments produced what were almost certainly the first X-ray pictures made west of the Mississippi and among the first in America. Buckwalter would have likely gone on to other news assignments, but publicity about the project quickly involved him in additional X-ray work."
According to Jones, "In spring 1896, an irate miner shot Central City marshal Mike Kelher during Kelher’s attempt to garnish the miner’s wages for an unpaid medical bill. Central City deputies rushed Kelher to Denver’s St. Luke’s Hospital. There, doctors determined that the bullet was very near to Kelher’s heart but were afraid to operate without knowledge of its exact location. The doctors asked Buckwalter and Tennant to locate the bullet by X-ray, and the pair agreed to make what was one of the first clinical X-ray pictures ever taken. The exposure successfully located the bullet, but the surgeons decided that it was impossible to remove and the marshal died a short time later."
"In fall 1896, Benjamin Lindsey, a young Denver attorney, approached Buckwalter and Tennant to request that they produce X-rays for a client involved in a malpractice case. They agreed, and in a landmark decision, their X-ray photograph became the first ever admitted as evidence in a court of law. James Smith was Lindsey’s client, a young man in his twenties. While trimming a tree, Smith had slipped from the ladder and fallen on his side. After experiencing considerable difficulty walking, Smith was treated by Dr. W. W. Grant, a well-respected physician and surgeon. Grant pronounced the problem a bruise or contusion of the muscles in Smith’s injured hip and advised exercise of those muscles. When Smith did not improve, he consulted another doctor who believed the problem stemmed from a fractured femur. Shortly thereafter, several other doctors advised Smith that Grant’s diagnosis might well be a case of malpractice. Smith retained Lindsey, who promptly filed a case against Grant in the District Court of Arapahoe County (now the District Court of Denver), on April 14, 1896. Buckwalter and Tennant produced X-ray photographs of Smith’s leg that showed a clear fracture of the femur, and the pair enjoyed national renown as the technicians behind the country’s first X-rays admitted in a court of law," says Jones.
After the Smith case, Jones says Buckwalter chose not to continue working in the field of radiology.
"He quickly rose to the position of assistant city editor of the Rocky Mountain News, but within a few years he left the paper to work freelance. His photographs continued to appear in Denver’s papers for many years, but he also gained acclaim for his railroad photos as well as excellent mining and Native American scenes. In 1901 Buckwalter began making motion pictures, producing at least fifty short films over the next decade. Always an innovator, he was among the city’s first radio broadcasters during the early 1920s and an early radio dealer. Buckwalter died on March 7, 1930. A collection of Buckwalter’s glass plate negatives, including some of his early X-ray pictures, is housed in the History Colorado museum," from William Jones, “Harry Buckwalter: Pioneer X-Ray Photographer,” Colorado Heritage Magazine 10, no. 1 (1990).
According to records Harry Hale Buckwalter was born in Reading, Pennsylvania to Andrew Collins and Mary Elizabeth (Ritter) Buckwalter. He left for the American West at the age of 16. In Colorado Springs he met his future wife, Carrie Emmajean Fuller, born in New York in 1868, whom he married in 1889. They moved to Denver and had two children, John in 1894 and Margaret in 1899.
In 1892, he became interested in photography and began his career at The Denver Republican as a printer, and then as a reporter and photographer at the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, the first daily newspaper founded in Colorado. His photos were first reproduced by artists using wood block illustrations, and later in halftone as printing technology in the region advanced.
In 1894, Buckwalter teamed with balloonist Ivy Baldwin for a series of aerial photographs of Colorado.
Baldwin's balloon was not capable of lifting both men, so Buckwalter made a solo ascent launching from Elitch Gardens in Denver. His article "Dancing in the Air" and photographs of the experience was one of the first examples of photojournalism in the American West.
He experimented and made improvements to high speed camera shutter designs. Many of these early films were featured in Hale's Tours of the World, an early amusement ride that took place inside a replica train car. In 1900, Buckwalter started a collaboration with the director and producer William Selig, a filmmaker in Chicago and became the Western agent for Selig Polyscope Company, selling and distributing Selig projectors and films to theaters in the region.
By 1902 Buckwalter founded a studio called Buckwalter Films and began directing and producing silent films shorts beginning with The Girls in the Overalls, a story of seven sisters who run a family ranch after the death of their parents, in one of the earliest western films in America.
The Royal Photographic Society awarded Panorama of the Royal Gorge and Panorama of Ute Pass top prize at an exhibit in 1903. Several of Buckwalter's documentary films were exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
In 1905, Buckwalter was invited to film and document President Theodore Roosevelt's hunting trip in western Colorado.
President Theodore Roosevelt and his hunting party on horseback near Glenwood Springs (Garfield County), Colorado.
In 1910 Buckwalter Films became part of General Film Company. His last known film, a documentary on the construction of the Panama Canal, was shot in 1913, while he was simultaneously carrying out a photographic report on the subject.
The History Colorado Center with the Denver Public Library hold a collection of Buckwalter's photos and glass plate negatives. Many of Buckwalter's films are considered lost.
Harry Buckwalter died on March 7, 1930, at the age of 63.
A group of men and women on a handcar on the Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek Railway, pause for a view into a valley, Teller County, Colorado.
Great article
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