Charles E. Morris: Photographer of the open range

Reporter's note: Charles E. Morris was a photographer in the late 1800's-early 1900's. For a time he had a studio on Indiana Street in Chinook. He was a cowboy turned self-taught photographer who set about to capture life on the open range. He recognized he was seeing the end of an era and photographed much of the range area, and its people, in our part of the country.

One of his granddaughters,Diana Morris Mann, was recently in Chinook and our publishers bought a copy of a book she was selling about the photographs her grandfather took. The book was written by her father, William (Bill) Morris. Like many "Journal" readers, I had seen some of Charles Morris photos but didn't know the story of the photographer and why he took his photos of cowboys, livestock drives and Native Americans. This is what I learned about Charles E. Morris. My research helped me understand this "photographer of the open range" and his connection to our region.

Charles E. Morris, the "Texas Kid"

Charles Morris left his home in Maryland at age 14. He took a six shooter, a bag of salt and the clothes on his back. He was afoot, the year was 1891. He began to follow the cattle trails of the day and ended up in Texas where he got a job as a 'helper' with a cattle company. From Texas he followed jobs to Nebraska, Wyoming and, eventually, eastern Montana. He liked the country, he had gained skills as a cowboy, and he decided he liked eastern Montana.

By the mid-1890's he was a seasoned cowboy and found his skills were in demand by cattle companies. Morris realized he was seeing the end of an era-the open range, in the 1890's, was already beginning to disappear. Land would soon be fenced, cattle would be moved long distances by rail and the Native American culture would be changed by interaction with settlers. Morris decided to teach himself photography and record the open range as he experienced it.

One interesting thing about Morris was his quest for learning. For four seasons he would cowboy in the summers and head to Lacross, WS to attend college and study business during the winter. Before his last trip to Lacrosse he told his buddies back in Montana, "When I come back in the spring I will be a married man and a businessman."

How he acquired his first camera is not totally clear. Some sources say he ordered brochures and chose a camera based on what he learned. Other versions are that he bought the camera when he was on his last trip to Wisconsin. Whichever is correct, he came back with a new bride, Helen, and he had a camera. He had no one to teach him photography so he taught himself.

The "Texas Kid" became "Webster"

It was common for cowboys to nickname a new hand in their midst as "kid" with the area where he had last come from-Morris was the "Texas Kid." Once he had completed college he gained the nickname "Webster" because of his command of the language and use of words. He immediately began photographing cowboys, the prairie and mountain scenes he encountered while a cowboy, and later recorded Native American people and their ceremonies.

By the early 1900's Morris was working for the IX brand in Big Sandy. He had made an arrangement with his boss that he could take photos while working as a cowboy with the warning, "so long as you do your regular work."

By 1903 Morris had honed his photographic skills and a friend loaned him $300 to equip a large buggy as a photographer's studio-on-wheels. He was now a full time professional photographer.

Because of the difficulty of processing the old glass plates used at the time to make a photographic image, Morris realized he needed a permanent studio. He rented space on the second floor of a drugstore, on Indiana Street in downtown Chinook, built in 1900 by B.F. Williams, a druggist. Morris had a permanent place to process his plates and a studio where he could do wedding photos and portraits.

Studio in Chinook, around 1903-1910

Color processing prints, in the early 1900's, was only available in Germany. The photographer would ship color negatives to Germany for processing. Morris's wife, Helen, herself a painter, had excellent skills in the photo lab, producing many photographs that still exist. Perhaps as important, she was adept at "tinting"-a process of adding color, by hand, to black and white printed photographs. Her skills allowed Morris to create 'colored photos' without the expense of sending plates to Germany.

Morris also had an eye for business as well as creating dramatic open range photographs. Somehow he connected with Charles Russell, the famed painter of the same era, and began to put Russell's paintings on post cards-another process that required shipping photographs to Germany to be printed on post cards. Likely the most famous post card depicts a starving steer and was entitled "Last of 5000" or "Waiting on a Chinook." Russell's wife, Nancy, herself very entrepreneurial as she promoted her husband's art, attributed much of the increased demand for Russell's paintings from the post cards, made by Morris, that were sent all over the country and world.

The relationship with the Russell's had an important effect on Morris' career as well. In 1904 Charles Russell encouraged the Morris' to travel to St. Louis, where Russell's family still lived, and enter a photograph in the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exhibition. Morris entered a photograph of a cowboy on a bucking bronco and the photo won first place in its class. This established Morris as a serious photographer of the open range.

During his first year in Chinook Morris' business flourished and he was able to pay off his original loan that got him started as a photographer. He continued to photograph scenes aroundthe Milk River Valley and the Bear Paws, as well as more distant locations. He was always fascinated with the horsemanship of Native Americans and began to photograph native horsemen, ceremonies, powwows and individuals in regalia.

One native connection to the Fort Belknap community was through Louisa Tingley, described as a 'matriarch of the Bear Paws.' Morris photographed Tingley in her native regalia as well as many other Fort Belknap individuals. The book Bill Morris wrote about his grandfather, "True, Free Spirit," has several sections of photos of Native Americans and native horsemen and ceremonies.

The winter of 1906-07 was disastrous in the region around Chinook, with many losses of livestock. Then in 1908, a flood hit the Hi-Line. Morris lost many of his photographs and glass negatives in the flood. He decided to move on at some point (the census records for 1910 show Charles and Helen, and their young daughter, still living in Chinook) to Great Falls.

Great Falls, 1910-1938

Morris opened a new, expanded business in the Central Avenue district, named the Charles E. Morris Company. He still sold his well known panoramic photographs of sheep and cattle drives and roundups and continued photographing the area, adding nearly 1000 new images to his collection. He did several photographs of Charles Russell at his log studio in Great Falls and post cards were still an important part of his business.

Morris closed his business in the early 1920's. He packed up his photographic equipment and photos and opened a sporting goods business, which his two sons continued, in Missoula and Great Falls, after Morris' death in 1938 at the age of 62.

Morris' photographs today

Many readers have likely seen some of Morris' open range photographs. The Blaine County Museum has several at various places in its collection. Most of Morris' photographs were copyrighted and have his name and Chinook location on them. His post cards, if authentic, use the 'bucking bronco' logo he developed from the photo that won the prize at the Lewis and Clark Exposition.

The Blaine County Museum, through a gift from Chuck and Laura Palm, acquired a collection of some 300 post cards that showcase the variety of Morris' work. Museum Director Jude Sheppard noted, "We have a grant to build a display for the cards, I'm still trying to find someone to build the case."

At the University of Montana's Museum of Art and Culture, Director Barbara Koostra told, "We have a collection of some of Morris' equipment, photographs and a few glass negatives. We've applied for a National Endowment of the Humanities grant to hire staff to organize the collection for display." Much of the collection was purchased and donated to the museum by Lloyd and Helen Schermer. Schermer was publisher of the "Missoulian" newspaper and later became CEO of Lee Enterprises, publishers of 50+ newspapers and some 300 other publications.

The impact of

Morris' photography

Diana Morris Mann, Charles Morris' granddaughter, said, "My dad wrote ""True, Free Spirit," (a book about Charles E. Morris with 100 of his photos) to share my grandfather's story. Grandfather's photographs have been seen by many people, but the story of the man who did the photos and how he came to record the end of the open range is not well understood. My sister and I are trying to educate people about the contribution he made recording the open range."

Gene Gressley, Founding Director of the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming, wrote the foreword to "True, Free Spirit." Reflecting on Morris' photographic record, Gressley wrote, "Morris...was devoted to recording the frustrations and weariness he discovered on the open range. ...as the reader leafs through the pages...they will discover the West that was-not the West of imagination." Morris had an eye for detail as he recorded life on the open range. The viewer is often forced to look with great care to find small insights about life in that era.

Morris was not without a sense of humor, and often his posing cowboy friends played on the romanticized image of the cowboy-facing each other over a card game with guns drawn, for example. A 'retouched' photo of a wagonload of potatoes shows the vegetables the size of vehicles. The photo, on a post card, is titled "A wagonload of spuds, Chinook, Montana."

So, hopefully the next time you see an old photograph of a panoramic view of a herd of cattle or sheep, or a weary cowboy, or a native in full regalia, you'll know...this was a photo by the Charles E. Morris, "photographer of the open range."

Copies of Bill Morris' book about his grandfather, "True, Free Spirit," are available at the Blaine County Museum and the Chinook Pharmacy. Contact Charles Morris' granddaughter, Diana Morris Mann, at 805 Montana Avenue, Deer Lodge, MT 59722.