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An overview . . .
This is the story of two of the luckiest . . most industrious . . . and most intrepid . . . brothers ever to set up shop in the great state of Arizona.
Emery and Ellsworth Kolb established and ran a photography business on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon that endured and prospered from 1903 until 1976. Along the way, they produced a body of work that may well last for ages.
In 1911 they ran the Colorado River - and brought back the first "motion pictures" of the Canyon the world had ever seen. Movies were a wonder then -- and this one played to packed houses wherever it went. They showed those movies all over the country -- including on the stage of the Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsbrugh.
The Kolb movie caught the eye of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell and his son-in-law, Dr. Gilbert Grosvenor, the head of the National Geographic Society. This led to almost an entire issue of the magazine being devoted to the Kolbs' adventure.
Ellsworth returned alone to Needles, California the following year and finalized the trip to the Gulf of California. Later the same year he wrote the book, Through the Grand from Wyoming to Mexico.
After the big run down the Colorado, the Kolb brothers expanded their studio and added a small theater in order to show their movie at the Canyon.
A long string of colorful Kolb adventures spiced up the entertainment at their studio as it grew . . . clinging precariously to the rim while the years rolled by.
In addition to the fine Canyon views they sold at the studio, the Kolbs photographed mule parties headed into the Canyon on a daily basis the entire time they were in business. A list of those photographed at the canyon records the better part of a remarkable century, on a human scale -- Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryant, Emerson Hough, Owen Wister, John Muir, John Burroughs, Ida M. Tarbell, Thomas Moran, Harold Bell Wright, Frederick Remington, James Swinnerton, and many others.
The photos and films they left behind have had a long journey - as technology passed them by, most of them gradually lost some of their original luster. But as time goes on their value rises once again.
To learn more about the Kolbs' adventures continue -
Heading West - 1901-1902
Excerpts from:
Garrison, Lon. "A Camera and a Dream: The Story of the Kolb Brothers of Grand Canyon." Arizona Highways, January 1953.
