Darius Kinsey, born in Maryville, Missouri, in 1869, was one of the West Coast’s earliest and most prolific photographers of old-growth forests and logging operations. As a young man during the winter of 1889-1890, he moved to Snoqualmie, where his family built and operated the Mount Si Hotel as well as a meat market, general merchandise store, and dance hall. Kinsey became intrigued with photography and set up a studio in his early 20s, first with his brother Clark and then with his wife Tabitha, whom he married in 1896. For the next 45 years, he photographed the men, equipment, techniques, and facilities that made up the logging industry in Washington, often hiking miles over rugged terrain carrying heavy cameras, tripods, and glass plates. Tabitha steadfastly supported her husband in an in-home darkroom where she processed negatives and made prints to order; she later offered custom tinting to customers. Kinsey worked until his early 70s, when a fall from a tree stump broke several ribs; he died in 1945. The following year, Seattle photographer Jesse Ebert bought the collection from Tabitha Kinsey. He sold it in 1971 to California photographers Dave Bohn and Rodolfo Petschek. In 1979, Bellingham’s Whatcom Museum paid $60,000 to bring the Kinsey collection home to Washington.
Early Snoqualmie Settlers
Darius Kinsey was born in Maryville, Missouri, on July 23, 1869, the son of Edmund John Kinsey (ca. 1844-1896), a carpenter and farmer, and his wife Louisa Elizabeth McBride. Darius was the second of five boys (in birth order: Alfred, Darius, Clarence, Edmund Jr., and Clark) and had one sister, Emily. In 1889, 20-year-old Darius left Missouri with his older brother Alfred, arriving that winter in Snoqualmie, a newly platted town in a newly admitted state.
On December 19, 1889, the two men purchased a lot from the Snoqualmie Land and Improvement Company. The following year, the rest of the family arrived and built the three-story Mount Si Hotel. They also established Snoqualmie’s first general store and meat market, livery stables, community hall, and post office, and hosted weekly church services inside a tent on the family property. Religion played a big role for Darius throughout his life. He abstained from tobacco and liquor, and supervised Sunday school at the Methodist church. As an adult, card-playing was forbidden in his household, and no work, domestic or otherwise, could take place on Sunday.
After arriving in the Northwest, Kinsey became intrigued with cameras and photography. He bought his first camera and took a few lessons from a photographer who had stayed at the family hotel. "After learning the photography trade, he was hired by the Seattle and Lake Shore Railroad Co. and spent the next five years taking views along its line. At the same time, he started his pictorial documentation of life in the logging camps, photographing every aspect of logging in the Pacific Northwest" ("Darius Kinsey: Kinsey Brothers Photographs of the Lumber Industry ..."). By all accounts, Kinsey was a quick learner with an eye for interesting compositions. "In 1892 he made perhaps his first great photograph – oxen on the Bryan and Reid skid road ... By 1894 at the latest he was traveling through the countryside taking family pictures, and in that year he probably met Tabitha in Nooksack” (Kinsey Photographer, 299)
The aforementioned Tabitha is Tabitha May Pritts (1875-1963), who was living in Nooksack, a small town about 5 miles south of the Canadian border. Born on May 24, 1875, in Waverly Mills, Minnesota, Tabitha and her five siblings came west with her parents to homestead in Whatcom County. Darius and Tabitha married on October 8, 1896, and settled in Sedro-Woolley to be close to her family. They bought a house on Talcott Street and purchased an adjoining lot the following year. In Sedro-Woolley, the enterprising couple set up a photography business called Kinsey Photograph Studio, complete with a business office and a studio equipped with a skylight – an unusual feature for the time.
All in the Family
Darius was not the only Kinsey who enjoyed photography. The trade also appealed to his brothers Clarence (1871-1956) and Clark (1877-1956). For the next few decades, the three brothers would team up in various combinations to take photos professionally. Darius and Clark started working together around 1895, traveling to the small towns of northwestern Washington using a large portable tent as a studio. Their business, Kinsey & Kinsey, lasted until 1899, when Clark got wind of gold waiting to be found in the Klondike and headed to Grand Forks, Yukon, with his new bride Mary Jane Williams. (The wedding was a family affair: Mary’s sister Sara married Edmund Kinsey Jr. at the same ceremony.) Clarence joined Clark and Mary in the Yukon and the three of them ran a photo studio there.
When not occupied with studio portraits, Darius would load his cameras, tripods, and glass negatives, each weighing 12.5 pounds, into a horse-drawn wagon and navigate as closely as he could to the logging camps. He would hike in, often for miles, carrying 100 or more pounds of equipment. In later years he used a Model-T Ford and then a Franklin touring car to transport his equipment.
Darius taught Tabitha how to process the hard-to-handle glass plates; for 45 years that was her contribution to the family business. To drum up clients, Kinsey advertised his portrait services in weekly newspaper ads where his writing style was personal and distinct. "A good photograph is almost as necessary as Life Insurance. Think how much either would be missed. The time to have it made is now – before anything happens to render it too late" read one ad. Another suggested: "Borrow a baby if you haven’t one of your own, and let KINSEY photograph it for Easter." A third noted that, "The charm of individuality marks every portrait produced at the Kinsey Studio. Modern methods, up-to-date styles, newest and best apparatus and accessories. Will you examine our work and be convinced of its value?" (Kinsey Photographer, 48-49).
Love of the Outdoors
Kinsey’s entrepreneurial spirit, his artistic eye, and the remarkable beauty of the Pacific Northwest combined to elevate the young photographer to national attention. He was invited to provide photographs of Washington’s logging and forestry industries for the U.S. pavilion at the Paris Expo in 1900, and he started to get orders for his photographs from as far away as Savannah, Georgia, and St. Paul, Minnesota.
At the turn of the twentieth century, outdoor photography was extremely challenging. The equipment was heavy and unwieldy, roads were rutted or non-existent, and the weather could change on a dime, yet it was an arena in which Kinsey excelled. Small in stature and earnest in demeanor, Kinsey could "climb like a goat. Shod in caulk boots, he jumped from log to log carrying his tripod and cameras. He’d prop a ladder against a tall stump and climb up and wait, sometimes for hours, for the sun to break through the tree limbs to catch the perfect light. Later, he employed a tripod he could adjust to as high as 12 feet" ("Why Ken Burns and Ralph Lauren ...").
Sometimes a picture-perfect day would turn perilous. In July 1903, Kinsey and his assistant John Zetterlund climbed from Longmire to Paradise on Mount Rainier, only to be surprised by a violent snowstorm. "The snow fell in sheets and the wind blew for hours. We were 8,000 feet up the mountain side, and snow was already thirty feet deep beneath us ... We were soaked to the skin and could not light a fire" ("Have Narrow Escapes"). Luckily, they got a fire started and the storm soon ceased. But their troubles on that outing continued. The following day, the pair just missed being swept away by a rock avalanche on the Nisqually Glacier, and Kinsey nearly lost his footing on slippery rocks while crossing the swiftly flowing Paradise River.
As outdoorsy as her husband, Tabitha sometimes joined Darius on these expeditions. In August 1903, the couple, joined by a Miss Phronia Farnsworth and a guide, set out to climb Mount Baker, scrambling over logs and across crevasses – the women in long skirts, the men sporting suspenders – but were turned back by deep snow close to the summit. In 1904, Kinsey took a two-week photographic journey to Yellowstone National Park, and later that fall the couple completed a seven-week driving tour of the U.S., capturing stereoscopic images of Washington, D.C., New York City, and St. Louis, among other locations.
Moving to Seattle
Darius and Tabitha continued to work and live in Sedro-Woolley until early 1907, when they moved to Seattle – a sad day for the small town, according to the Skagit County Times: "The family is so identified with the town that its departure is like taking away a substantial part of a good foundation. Since its founding the home of the family has been here, and its work has done as much or more than all else in spreading the moral and material fame of Sedro-Woolley" (Kinsey Photographer, 158).
The Kinseys moved into a 12-room house at 1607 E Alder Street; they later moved to Greenwood Avenue. Concurrent with the move to Seattle, Kinsey abandoned studio portrait work to concentrate on the logging industry and renamed his business Timber Views. "Often hired by the companies whose operations he documented, Kinsey covered all phases of logging, from a tree’s first cut to its transformation into lumber" ("The Past in Focus"). Tabitha continued to support her husband by developing the images in-house, printing the pictures, and mailing them back to Kinsey, who would sell them at the camps. The goal was to get the photos into the loggers' hands by the next payday; each image sold anywhere from 50 cents to $1.50. The Kinseys soon became known for their high-quality detailed photography, achieved by using large-sized negatives to make the contact prints.
The Kinseys had two children, Dorothea (1901-1987) and Darius Jr. (1907-1997), and both children helped in the family business. At one point, Dorothea was responsible for moving the printed pictures from one tray of water to another, over and over, up to 16 times, making sure to remove all the developing chemicals so the photos would not fade or yellow. Darius insisted the task be performed with precision, but his meticulousness might have cured Dorothea of any interest in the family business. "As I grew older father wanted me to become interested in the business, but I wanted no part of it. It seemed to me that all it amounted to was work, work, work" (Kinsey Photographer, 21). She later worked in real estate.
Darius Jr. was a bit more disposed to follow in his father’s footsteps, especially when it involved driving the Model-T Ford, which he began to do at the age of 12 or 13. But cars could go only as far as the roads permitted. "Of course, the logging sites were all back in the mountains. I mean, it wasn’t a short hike to any of them ... [We] ran out of film, and my Dad and I had to walk down to the car and I think it was fifteen or eighteen miles, one way. It was too much for me. I didn’t go all the way, but he went to the car to get the film and walked back" (Kinsey Photographer, 181). In 1914 Kinsey transitioned from glass plates to film, which significantly reduced the weight and increased the portability of his gear, allowing him to carry more supplies into the field more easily.
In 1908, Kinsey's brother Clark, who had been working in construction, moved to Seattle with his family and took up photography again. Rather than compete for the same pool of clients, the brothers split up the work geographically: Clark serviced the logging territory south of Seattle while Darius concentrated on the logging camps to the north. Instead of relying on a stay-at-home wife and an in-home darkroom as Darius did, Clark traveled the backroads with Mary and their three children, setting up a portable darkroom when needed. The family car was jammed with cameras, tripods, chemicals, washing trays, metal plates, and heavy boxes of photographic papers, along with a tent, bedding, and supplies.
Liked by Many
Kinsey was well-liked by the lumber and railroad companies, and by 1919 he had become the official photographer of the West Coast Lumberman’s Association. He continued to provide quick and expert processing to the delight of loggers who would often be photographed holding and admiring their finished prints. His corporate clients were happy as well, for his photos showcased a growing and economically viable industry in a positive light.
Kinsey’s photos were not intended to be works of art but rather documentation of the logging industry and the people who worked in it. "Often using an 11x14 Eastman View camera, he photographed the entire logging process: early mornings in logging camps; the fallers posed with their axes, cross-cut saws and springboards; buckers crosscutting fallen timber; loading operations with steam donkey engines and ginpoles; logging railroads hauling their loads to Northwest mills. His images form a visual history of logging: from skid road logging with horses and sleds at the turn of the century to Diamond–T logging trucks and highlead logging operations in the 1920s" ("Darius Kinsey: Kinsey Brothers Photographs of the Lumber Industry ...").
Not all his photographs focused on men and machinery. He was also inspired by the majesty of old-growth forests and the grandeur of snow-capped peaks. One Kinsey photo of massive cedar trees is titled "Pioneer trail winds through moss-hung cedar forests in Washington." Another depicts "Rapids along the banks of July snow, Paradise River, Wash." A particularly interesting series, photographed in 1901, documents a gigantic cedar stump, 22 feet in diameter, near Edgecomb, Snohomish County, which had been hollowed out and turned into a snug home for a pioneer family. Kinsey liked the idea of a stump home so much that he reproduced the photograph on his business stationery.
With his quiet and professional manner, Kinsey knew how to put people at ease. Former logger Palmer Lewis, who was interviewed in 1972, recalled that, "Darius Kinsey was greatly liked, well-known, and respected .... As I remember him, he was a man with great patience. He evidently had a considerable understanding of human nature – knew how to handle people. The mysteries of photography were apparently no mystery to him, for he always seemed decisive, knew what he was about, and didn’t waste time" (Kinsey Photographer, 231).
The Final Years
As he grew older, Kinsey spent less time in the forests and more time photographing shingle mills, lumber yards, and railroad yards. Tabitha continued to work as her husband’s partner as she had for more than four decades. One of her innovations was to offer custom-tinted pictures that doubled the print’s retail value, since each rendering was a customized work of art. She also took care of their children and the household with the support of a housekeeper and several darkroom assistants. She saw the workload as a team effort that provided the family with a good living.
Kinsey kept working until his 71st year, then in 1940 he fell while climbing a tree stump and broke several ribs. No longer able to carry the heavy equipment or walk great distances, the fall ended his career. His last recorded negative was dated October 1940. He died on May 13, 1945, at the age of 76. Tabitha died on November 23, 1963, at the age of 88 after a short illness. The couple is buried in Nooksack.
Selling the Collection
A year after Kinsey died, Tabitha sold the collection of negatives and prints to Jesse Ebert, owner of a photo studio in West Seattle, who kept it intact for 25 years. During that time, Ebert contacted several logging companies and universities, including the University of Washington and Yale, to see if he could find a buyer, but none was interested or willing to meet his price.
Then, little by little, the collection started to draw attention. In 1963, New York’s Museum of Modern Art mounted an exhibition called "The Photographer and the American Landscape," showcasing Kinsey along with photography greats Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) and Edward Steichen (1879-1973). In 1970, Seattle magazine featured a Kinsey photo on its February cover, which caught the eye of California photographer Dave Bohn. Bohn traveled to Seattle and spent several hours examining the collection. He was overwhelmed by what he saw. "I realized I was standing in front of a visual gold mine. I don’t mean in terms of money. I mean a visual gold mine. This was it" ("Why Ken Burns and Ralph Lauren ...").
With his friend and fellow photographer Rodolfo Petschek, the pair purchased the Kinsey collection from Ebert for $8,000 and spent the next three years searching for additional prints and negatives to add to the collection. "During that period, Petschek spent a year in his darkroom, developing photographs from the unwieldy glass plates and transferring the images from those plates and from flammable nitrate stock onto safety negatives. After vital input from nearly two dozen researchers and experts in the Northwest, Bohn and Petschek published three Kinsey books over the next nine years" (Skagit River Journal). The Bohn-Petschek books included a two-volume history of the Kinseys plus an oversized 300-page publication called Kinsey Photographer. More exhibits followed, including one by the Oakland Museum in 1975. Another book published in 1984 by Bohn and Petschek, The Locomotive Portraits, featured additional Kinsey photographs.
In 1979, the Whatcom Museum paid $60,000 to acquire the Kinsey collection, numbering more than 4,700 negatives and 600 prints. The museum receives regular requests to use the Kinsey photographs in marketing campaigns, documentaries, reference books, calendars, and postcards, to name a few. "Ken Burns paid about $6,000 for their use in two of his documentaries. Ralph Lauren paid about the same for Kinsey images for its stores in London and Milan" ("Why Ken Burns and Ralph Lauren ...").
