Adventure with a Camera
The Photographs and Letters of
Fred Payne Clatworthy 1898-1900 

Article from the Fall 2009 YMCA of the Rockes, Lula W. Dorsey Museum Newsletter:

Adventure with a Camera

Visualize riding a bicycle from Evanston, Illinois,
to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and then to Magdalena, New
Mexico, via Denver, Taos and Santa Fe in 60 days.
That in itself is a feat, but imagine doing that in
1898. While on this adventure, bicyclist Fred Payne
Clatworthy wrote detailed letters home and took photographs of what he experienced.

Fred Clatworthy (left) and Walter Johnson (right) enjoy breakfast near Cripple Creek, Colorado. Courtesy Colorado Historical Society 10036136.

Clatworthy's adventure didn't end in New Mexico.
He and a traveling companion captured a couple of
half-wild burros in Magdalena and walked 500 miles
to the Grand Canyon. After spending the winter in
Camp Verde, Arizona, they purchased a horse and
burro and went to Los Angeles. There, Clatworthy
purchased another bicycle and rode up the California
coast to San Francisco. From there he took a steamer
to Portland and a train back to Evanston. He arrived
home almost one year later to the day.

In January 1900, Clatworthy and his friend return
to Los Angeles where they purchase mules and a
wagon. They made their way through southern
California and northern Mexico across the Yuma
Desert back to the Grand Canyon.

In the spring 2008 edition of Musings, we told you
that a book recounting Clatworthy's adventure was
due for publication in the fall of '08. Well, sometimes
a book is like a good pot of chili. It has to simmer for
a while.

Caravan in the Arizona desert. Courtesy Colorado Historical Society 1003654.

To refresh your memory, Clatworthy was the Y's
official photographer from 1908 into the early 1950s.
He even took a photograph of the Y's founders when
they came to Estes Park in 1907.

Not only did Fred Clatworthy photograph conference
groups at the Y and local sights, he traveled all
over the world shooting photographs for National
Geographic. It published over 100 of his images
between 1923 and 1934.

Most of the images published in National
Geographic were autochromes. The process was
patented in 1903. It utilized a glass plate, microscopic
grains of potato starch and carbonblack. Before the
1930s, this was the only acceptable method of capturing
a color image. During his lifetime, Clatworthy
shot over 10,000 autochromes.

Other than a short biographical sketch, we intentionally
didn't write extensively about Clatworthy's
professional career so as not to detract from his letters
and photographs. To amplify his life, Gary Dill
interviewed Clatworthy's daughter, Barbara
Clatworthy Gish. The resulting DVD, edited by Brian
Biggs, is included with the book.

Adventure with a Camera is published by
Photos by Dill in Estes Park. Jack volunteered as
researcher, biographer and editor.Gary Dill is a longtime friend and photo concessionaire for the YMCA of
the Rockies. As such, his company is a direct link to
Clatworthy's ties with the Y and Estes Park.

Adventure with a Camera is bound to resemble an old photograph album. Its 111 pages are printed on archival paper. The book and the accompanying DVD contain scores of previously unpublished photographs from the Colorado Historical Society and the Clatworthy family of the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, the Arizona desert
and southern California.

Gary Dill is donating profits from the book to the
Dorsey Museum to help preserve our Clatworthy photograph collection which is the second largest in the
world. If you would like to purchase a copy, the price
is $39.95 plus shipping. To order a copy go to
http://photosbydill.com/fred.htm, or call Photos by
Dill at 970-586-8736.

Download a PDF of the entire Newsletter