Frank La Roche (1853 – 1934)
Frank La Roche was born in Philadelphia to parents Aaron and Anna La Roche of German ancestry. Frank started work in a photography studio at age seventeen. After two years he started his own business in Quaker City and in 1872 went to Mauch Chunk, PA to photograph the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Around 1873, he and his family moved to Florida where he was a commercial photographer. In 1876, he opened a gallery in Salt Lake City and in 1878, he took photographs of the transit of Mercury for the United States and French governments. In 1888, he opened a gallery in Des Moines, Iowa.1)
La Roche settled in Seattle in 1889 to specialize in Alaska and Puget Sound scenery. He and his son, Frank La Roche Jr., travelled to Alaska and Yukon between 1890 and 1902 brought the negative back to Seattle where they developed and printed them. He sold prints and created a six-part album Enroute to the Klondike. Chilkoot Pass and Skaguay Trail (1897). When he retired, he passed his business on to his son.2) La Roche’s Klondike negatives were retained by him and now reside at the University of Washington.