Wild West Cowboy Cabinet Photo

Hello again everyone!

Hope you are all keeping warm with this cold weather sweeping the nation!

Purchased this photograph today while out browsing flea-markets.

Couple questions:

1) Looks to be a saddle, as well as other tack on the ground behind the man with the gun belt. There is also some sort of sign, with words, but no matter how much I clean it up... I can't get the words to be clear enough to read.

2) On the circular object near the saddle, there looks to be a image of a man. Am I seeing it correctly (Please see altered photo I've attached of the area)

3) Are those spent shell casings under the horse of the man with the gun belt?


4) Last but not least, does anyone recognize the rock that is balancing?


There is a number "burned" into the image by the photographer at bottom left, but not sure if that will help a great deal!

Any help and or opinions would be wonderful as always!

Thanks in advance!

 

Does anyone else think both those horses are standing unnaturally still and they both have half closed eyes? As for the pile of junk, one item looks like a spool of wire. The other stuff just looks like scrap metal.

 

Haha yeah, the only movement I can see is from the ones tail. Seems to be swishing back and forth a bit.

 

Or blowing in the breeze. They look dead or drugged. Sorry. Just me being weird.

 

Could be, not sure if the giant rock behind the fellow would be blocking such a thing or not. I think they are alive, as I can see veins in the stomach of the horses. Stuffed they wouldn't have those.

 

Also, does this rock look the same to you lovely people?

 

I do believe you found it!

 

Colorado Springs, Colorado it is! Garden of the Gods, (Before it existed)

Looks like it was private property till 1909 or so.

 

I think it's a very interesting photo. It does look staged. Maybe the photographer found an interesting site and "enhanced" it with props.

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Posted before I saw that photo, but maybe it mostly still applies.

 

I wonder if there's anything interesting tucked into that crevice

 

Paul Georke tourist photo? https://www.google.com/search?q=balanced+rock+colorado+springs+"1900"&biw=1600&bih=702&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=yejjVKjcJMejNvzHgtgN&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&q=balanced+rock+Paul+Georke+&imgdii=_

 

The weird thing about his photos, their doesn't seem to be large rocks and trees around the boulder at that point....

Did they clear the area at some point?

 

Maybe they're props too.

 

You know what, I think you are right... the more and more I look at it. Looks like it may be Paul Georke

 

"Maybe they're props"


The angle from which a lot of the photos in that search were taken puts them out of the view of those trees near the horses, though.

 

"Published reports say 14-year-old Curt Goerke began taking photos of tourists with the rock in the 1890s, charging 25 cents apiece. Demand for photos was so high that his father, Paul Goerke, bought Balanced Rock and nearby Mushroom Park for $400.


Within a few years, they built a photography shop, attached to adjacent Steamboat Rock, where they processed the photographic wet plates and developed prints. Business was lucrative and they opened a concession stand, sold photo supplies and even cut stairs into Steamboat Rock and erected a telescope on top.


As cameras became cheap and popular with tourists, Curt Goerke built a tall wooden fence, estimated at two miles long, surrounding his property and Balanced Rock to prevent freeloading. He charged 25 cents admission and put dozens of signs advertising the “wonders” inside the fence, prompting complaints from area residents and visitors who wanted access and who objected to the commercial nature of the site.


Read more at http://gazette.com/balancing-act-ic...en-and-how/article/131306#AGf76rz3UUwKIEBT.99"


Maybe it's a photo by Curt Goerke who began taking them in the 1890's?

 

Some of them also show steps carved into rocks near where the people are standing. The cowboys may have been there at an earlier time?

 

Ah! Interesting history, Scantic!

 

Haha yeah, it sounds like these photographers were businessmen. Seems strange they would leave bunch of scrap metal and a spool laying in the background of their "perfected" pictures.

I'm thinking you may be right that it's a bit prior to him purchasing the land.

 

I don't think they are the same boulders.

1. The tree to the left in the Scans picture looks to be an oak.
The trees in Georke's appear to be pines.

2. The size proportion to the people seems different. Scan's the rock does not appear as big as the rock in proportion to the group shot.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VICTORIAN-cabinet-card-BALANCED-ROCK-photo-P-GOERKE-4-/390273921504

3. As noted above the surrounding rock formations do not appear to match.