Item #7554 [Stereoview of Ute men in front of Gurnsey’s photo studio.]. photog Gurnsey, Byron H.
[Stereoview of Ute men in front of Gurnsey’s photo studio.]

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Gurnsey, [Byron H.], photog.

[Stereoview of Ute men in front of Gurnsey’s photo studio.]

Colorado Springs, Colorado, [ca. 1875]. Stereoview, 3.875” x 7”, albumen print on paperboard mount; photographer’s separately printed lable on verso, reading “Gurnsey’s Rocky Montain Views. Published at Colorado Springs, Colorado. Pike’s Peak Ave.”; early ownership inscription in ink on verso, reading “E. A. Gallaway”; early pencil inscription on verso reading “Ute Indians.” CONDITION: Very good, slight wear at edges.

A rare and evocative western stereoview showing a group of Ute braves in front of Byron H. Gurnsey’s photography studio in Colorado Springs.

Most of the men shown here are holding weapons, one of them has both a Maynard Carbine (the first one with a folding sight) and a Colt Model 1860 army revolver. Some men hold bows and arrows, and several are wearing scarves and beaded jewelry around their necks. Three signs featuring numerous photo specimens are seen outside of Gurnsey’s studio, which was on Pike’s Peak Ave. A portion of Gurnsey’s sign is visible in the window, reading, “B. H. Gurnsey’s Views.”

Byron “Ben” H. Gurnsey (ca. 1830–80) was active in Berthold, Dakota, Fort Sully, Fort Rice, Union, and Yankton, Dakota Territory (1861–72); Sioux City, Iowa (1865–72); Winnebago Agency, Nebraska (1870); Pueblo, Colorado (1872–75); Colorado Springs, CO (1872–80), and Pueblos de Taos, New Mexico (1878). Gurnsey was a partner in Gurnsey & Illingworth (with W. H. Illingworth), which was active in Sioux City around 1860, and also formed a partnership with Eugene Brandt in Colorado Springs in 1875. Mrs. B. H. Gurnsey was active in Colorado Springs from 1881 to 1882, continuing the photography business after her husband’s death.

Colorado’s oldest residents, the Ute people inhabited the mountains and vast areas of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona. In 1849 a peace treaty was signed between the U.S. and the Utes forcing the Utes to recognize the sovereignty of the U.S. and establishing boundaries between the U.S. and the Ute nation, confining the Utes into increasingly smaller territories. Ute reservation boundaries were again reduced following the Colorado Gold Rush of 1858–59, while the creation of the Colorado Territory in 1861 displaced many Ute people. In 1863 and 1868, treaties were signed that terminated Ute claims to mineral rights and lands; however, the latter treaty failed as the Utes refused to give up their rights to the lands in question. The Brunot agreement of 1873 was negotiated with the Utes and the U.S. and was ratified by the U.S. in 1874; the agreement is seen by Utes as the act by which their land was fraudulently taken away. While four million acres of land not subject to mining were to remain Ute territory under ownership of the tribe, the Utes were eventually forced to give up the land to the U.S. government.

PROVENANCE: Ex Robert N. Dennis collection (see the Dennis Collection at the New York Public Library online).

REFERENCES: Mautz, Carl. Biographies of Western Photographers (Nevada City, CA: Carl Mautz Publishing, 1997), pp. 196, 286, 287; “Ute History and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe” at Colorado Encyclopedia online.

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