Asahel Curtis (d. 1941)
Asahel Curtis was brother and assistant to Edward Curtis, who ran a successful photo studio in Seattle. He was sent by Edward to document the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897 with 3000 glass plates. Edward was determined to “go into the Alaska view business in the most gigantic scale ever attempted”. Asahel took the Rosalie north in September 1897 and was in Bennett in the spring of 1898 waiting for the ice to go out. At this time, Edward wrote an article for The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine called “The Rush to the Klondike over the Mountain Passes.” The photos were Asahel's but were credited to Edward as owner of the studio and sponsor of the expedition. Although this was standard practice, Asahel did not agree and eventually gained possession of the photo rights.1)
In Dawson, Curtis took photos of the miners, charging $1.25 for an unmounted 5×7 or 6.5×8.5. A mounted photo cost $1.50. He shipped photograph plates to Seattle with instructions for shipping photos to miner's families around the country. In the winter of 1898, he and Charles G. Ainsworth mined a claim on Sulphur Creek and Curtis kept a diary of their disappointing progress. He attempted to get a job as a photo engraver in Dawson, but the job offer fell through. Within a year he was back in Seattle where he worked as a photoengraver and then entered several photographic partnerships before forming his own commercial company. In 1913, Asahel again travelled to Dawson, this time via a sternwheeler from St. Michael. Curtis remained a photographer until his death in 1941. He kept a diary of his trip that is now in the Asahel Curtis papers, Manuscripts and University Archives, University of Washington Libraries. There is a collection of Asahel Curtis' photos in the Washington State Historical Society. The University of Washington, University Libraries Special Collection also has some of Curtis's photographs. The Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma has half of his negatives and 40,000 prints.2)