Postcards from the camps
Herald and News
Klamath Falls, Oregon
April 25, 2005
Lumberjacks eat in a mess tent at the McCloud River Lumber Company around 1905. |
Excellent photographers are a Klamath Basin tradition.
It’s a heritage that goes back to Peter Britt, who lived in Jacksonville but made the first images of Crater Lake that helped stir interest in making it a national park.
That photographic tradition continued with Fred Kiser, whose reputation as a
photographer was largely due to his own images of Crater Lake, often from viewpoints that made good use of his mountaineering skills. The current Rim Village Visitor Center is Kiser’s former photo studio.
And then there’s Charles R. Miller.
Five locomotives push a wedge plow to clear the tracks in January 1914. |
Miller, a contemporary of Kiser, was 27 when he moved from Portland to the Mt. Shasta City area. In the years that followed, Miller became one of the region’s best known photographers, especially at logging camps. He later moved to Klamath Falls, formed the Miller Post Card Company and had exclusive rights for scenic photographs at Crater Lake.
More than 160 black and white images taken between 1900 and 1915 are featured in “Mt. Shasta Camera: The Photographs of Charles R. Miller,” by Wayne Bonnett, $45, a beautiful coffee table book from Windgate Press.
Most of Miller’s artfully composed, richly textured images were taken in far Northern California lumber camps and mill towns. Included are photos of logging railroads and steam locomotives, log trains on precarious bridges, and engines pushing snow and steaming through primitive logging camps.
Charlie Linton and Frank Gibson have their portrait taken by Miller around 1906. |
Other images feature sturdy, proud men, and sometimes young boys, at work. They’re sometimes lost in seas of mammoth logs, dwarfed by ancient machinery, or seated on benches at a logging camp mess tent.
Miller moved to Klamath Falls in 1909 and opened a Main Street studio. His postcards featured hunting, fishing and rodeo cowboys. Miller was granted Crater Lake photo privileges in 1913 and had exclusive rights in 1915.
Changing times forced him to find new sources of income. As Bonnett writes, “Simple, affordable Kodak cameras plus the automobile meant ordinary people, his customers, could travel and take pictures of their own.”
Miller ran the Orpheus Theater in Klamath Falls for two years, then apparently disappeared. Bonnett speculates the death of Miller’s 15-year-old son, Arthur, was a factor. Miller resurfaced in 1925 as manager of White Pine Molding Company, where he worked until his death in 1934. He is buried in the Linkville Cemetery.
“Miller’s photo postcards circulated for decades and today are sought after by collectors,” Bonnett writes. “His original photographs and albums found their way over time into private collections, museums and libraries. These surviving photographs, though relatively few, are Charles Miller’s legacy.”
Other pages in this section
- Writers on the Range: Panhandling in our national parks – November 21, 2005
- Anniversary: Altorfer – 50 years – November 20, 2005
- New parkway signs go up – October 21, 2005
- Latest park proposal still worries some – October 20, 2005
- Scientists gather to save pines – October 09, 2005
- Prescribed burns planned at Crater Lake – October 4, 2005
- Crater Lake pines in peril – October 01, 2005
- ‘Rockin’ in the Klamath Basin – September 26, 2005
- Park rangers cleared in camper’s shooting death – September 23, 2005
- Seismic monitoring stations wanted at Crater Lake – September 17, 2005
- Editorial: Don’t let parks become political battleground – September 15, 2005
- Proposal: Parks need an update – September 6, 2005
- Hike of the Week: enjoy solitude, panorama on top of Crater Peak – September 2, 2005
- Spending a night on Crater Lake’s Wizard Island – September 04, 2005
- Longtime Crater Lake ranger retires – September 02, 2005
- Basin residents honor Crater Lake – August 26, 2005
- Oregon Governor just another tourist – August 26, 2005
- Crater Lake bicycle ride: 100 years, 100 miles – August 25, 2005
- Kulongoski, Walden in town for Oregon quarter celebration – August 23, 2005
- Jack Batzer dies after a household accident – August 22, 2005
- Crater Lake plates boost park funds – August 20, 2005
- Teens rehabilitate trails near Crater Lake – August 18, 2005
- Rim runs, marathon an oxymoron – August 15, 2005
- Bricco wins despite pain – August 14, 2005
- Hawkes wins marathon – August 14, 2005
- Layne claims victory in first trip to Crater Lake Rim Runs – August 14, 2005
- Hill, Glidden remember ’84 race well – August 13, 2005
- Parking a concern at Rim Runs – August 11, 2005
- Crater Lake National Park has seven rangers with authority to carry guns – August 02, 2005
- Man shot at Crater Lake arrested a year ago – August 02, 2005
- Ranger details Crater Lake shooting – July 30, 2005
- Ranger shoots violent camper at Crater Lake – July 29, 2005
- Teachers wanted for outdoor science school workshop – July 26, 2005
- Construction Projects Update – June 30, 2005
- Make the most of Crater Lake quarter – June 02, 2005
- Mint strikes Oregon quarter – May 27, 2005
- Celebrations planned for state quarter –
- Construction projects beginning at Crater Lake – May 24, 2005
- Multiple construction projects Begin! – May 23, 2005
- Since you asked: It would take centuries to drink up Crater Lake – May 6, 2005
- Officials unveil plan of action for tourism – April 27, 2005
- Wintery classroom at Crater Lake National Park – April 25, 2005
- Festival blooms in Jacksonville – April 7, 2005
- Project to Rehabilitate Rim Village Begins! – April 01, 2005
- Courses set on Karuks, bats, Crater Lake biology – March 21, 2005
- Education Afoot: a local teacher takes the lesson out of doors – February 7, 2005
- Streamflow signs buried in the snow – February 1, 2005
- How Rogue forest began – January 30, 2005
- Winter fun at Crater Lake – January 6, 2005
- Crater Lake ski races set for this weekend – February 02, 2005