1 post tagged “photo”

Last week I began my column “I love a good mystery, and that’s exactly what I stumbled upon early last year when Joanne Lochte Redden brought by a group of old photographs.”   There are three photos of one event in old time Kerrville, a parade which seemed to double in on itself, approaching the intersection where today’s Heritage Star shines, approaching the intersection from three different directions.
I’ve had a lot of comments, and one very nice letter from Ms. Esther B. Wiedenfeld of Comfort.  Of the parade photo, she wrote, the photo “tells me that it was when there were any number of German-Americans very active in civic activities in Kerrville.”
This is true.  Many of the leading citizens of our community’s early days were of German descent; some, like Charles Schreiner, were born in Europe.   Looking over a list of early Kerr County citizens, many bear a German-sounding surname.
Ms. Wiedenfeld also writes “the backdrop looks like a design from Comfort’s early parades.”   This backdrop, or archway, is unique, and there are two, one each shown in two different photographs. These two large arches were erected on Water Street, large enough for the parade to pass beneath.  Both arches are decorated with greenery; one sports a star at its zenith, the other a lyre.   I noticed today the lyre is also made of greenery.
Still, the one confusing clue is a word emblazoned on a huge banner beneath the archway decorated with the lyre: “Wilkommen.”
Why did the archway say ‘Welcome’ in German?
I think the community was celebrating a big event, and I think the community was expecting visitors.  Further, I think the community was expecting visitors for whom “Wilkommen” would have been a normal, every day greeting.
What events might meet these criteria?
Looking through old newspapers, I see the community celebrated several ‘trades days’ when the merchants banded together offering special pricing and incentives.   Several of these were organized by J. E. Grinstead, an early newspaperman who was an early booster of the area.
But none of the accounts mention a parade.
There was one event, in 1887, that would qualify, but I’m not sure there were cameras in Kerr County at the time.  While photography had been invented much earlier, cameras took a while to reach the frontier, and in 1887 Kerrville was still a frontier town. 
But it is possible.  Photography had become a hobby as early as the 1850s, but the process was much more arduous than simply clicking a disposable camera.   Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), who wrote ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ ‘The Jabberwocky,’ and several learned treatises on logic, was an amateur photographer in England, and his photographs date from the 1850s to the 1870s.  George Eastman founded the Kodak company in 1881.  So it’s within the realm of possibility that an event occurring in 1887 in Kerr County would have been the subject of three photographs.
To confirm my theory, I’ve been communicating with my old alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin.  The Center for American History, an overlooked department of The University, has in its collection a Kerrville newspaper dated September 29, 1887 which would either prove or disprove my theory, but my dear old school wants a fortune for a copy:
4 scans @ $20 ea.
1 CD @ $3
4 preservation fees @ $25 ea.
Postage and handling, $6
Sales Tax, $15.59
Total: $204.59
Not bad for a newspaper which originally sold for a nickel.  Of course, the University of Texas is an institution noted for its lack of resources; perhaps they need the money.
Let me work on this this coming week.  I’ll let you know how it goes next week.
Until then, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who would never charge ‘preservation fees’ for access to his extensive Kerr County collection.