Early life and photojournalism Harry Hale Buckwalter was born in
Reading, Pennsylvania to Andrew Collins and Mary Elizabeth (Ritter) Buckwalter. He left for the
American West at the age of 16. In
Colorado Springs he met his future wife, Carrie Emmajean Fuller, born in
New York in 1868, whom he married in 1889. They moved to
Denver and had two children, John in 1894 and Margaret in 1899. In 1892, he became interested in photography and began his career at
The Denver Republican as a printer, and then as a reporter and photographer at the
Rocky Mountain News of
Denver, the first daily newspaper founded in
Colorado. His photos were first reproduced by artists using wood block illustrations, and later in
halftone as printing technology in the region advanced. In 1894, Buckwalter teamed with balloonist
Ivy Baldwin for a series of aerial photographs of Colorado. Baldwin's balloon was not capable of lifting both men, so Buckwalter made a solo ascent launching from
Elitch Gardens in Denver. His article "Dancing in the Air" and photographs of the experience was one of the first examples of photojournalism in the American West.
X-ray lawsuit In 1895, Buckwalter took interest in
X-ray technology, after its discovery by professor
Wilhelm Röntgen earlier that year. Sponsored by the
Rocky Mountain News, Buckwalter partnered with physician C.E.Tennant and the Homeopathic Medical College of Denver on a series of X-ray photograph experiments. For the experiment Buckwalter produced
X-ray tubes locally using leaded glass which was previously thought to be unsuitable, but the experiment proved that leaded tubes could produce a clear image. The X-ray images were the first produced in the American West and among the earliest in the country. After the
Rocky Mountain News published the results of the experiment, Buckwalter and Tennant were contacted by attorneys
Ben Lindsey and
Fred W. Parks to examine a client in a malpractice lawsuit with the new technology. The lawsuit represented James Smith, who had fractured his leg after falling from a ladder. He was examined by Dr. W.W. Grant, who misdiagnosed the fracture, insisting the leg was merely stiff. Instead of immobilizing the limb he prescribed exercises which exacerbated the injury. Case number 24159 was heard in the District Court of Arapahoe County (now Denver) on December 2, 1896, by Judge Owen Le Fevre, who allowed Buckwalter and Tennant to testify as expert witnesses and present their findings. The defense objected unsuccessfully to the court, arguing X-rays were the "testimony of a ghost". The X-rays along with the testimony of Buckwalter and Tennant proved that there was a fracture in the leg. The landmark case marked the first time that X-ray evidence was admitted into a court of law.
Travelogues Buckwalter began making
travelogues for railway companies documenting the scenes of the West, where he experimented and made improvements to high speed camera shutter designs. Many of these early films were featured in
Hale's Tours of the World, an early amusement ride that took place inside a replica train car. In 1900, Buckwalter started a collaboration with the director and producer
William Selig, a filmmaker in Chicago and became the Western agent for
Selig Polyscope Company, selling and distributing Selig projectors and films to theaters in the region. By 1902 Buckwalter founded a studio called Buckwalter Films and began directing and producing silent films shorts beginning with
The Girls in the Overalls, a story of seven sisters who run a family ranch after the death of their parents, in one of the earliest
western films in America. The
Royal Photographic Society awarded
Panorama of the Royal Gorge and
Panorama of Ute Pass top prize at an exhibit in 1903. Several of Buckwalter's documentary films were exhibited at the
1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
Later life In 1905, Buckwalter was invited to film and document President
Theodore Roosevelt's hunting trip in western Colorado. In 1910 Buckwalter Films became part of
General Film Company. His last known film, a documentary on the construction of the
Panama Canal, was shot in 1913, while he was simultaneously carrying out a photographic report on the subject. The
History Colorado Center with the
Denver Public Library hold a collection of Buckwalter's photos and glass plate negatives. Many of Buckwalter's films are considered
lost. Harry Buckwalter died on March 7, 1930, at the age of 63. == Partial filmography ==