Myron Holly Kimball (1827-1912) was an American photographer, real estate speculator, and collector.
Myron Holly Kimball (1827-1912) was an American photographer, real estate speculator, and collector.
In 1856, Kimball was associated with George Iles in a photography studio at 347 Broadway, New York City. [1]
One of his photos, "Emancipated Slaves Brought From Louisiana by Col. George H. Hanks," is in a collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It depicts a freed man, Wilson Chinn, whose forehead had been branded with the initials of his previous "owner". [2]
As part of a fund-raising project in New Orleans for the Freedmen's Bureau, he made other photographs of freed slaves as well. [3] [4]
Kimball also engaged in the real estate business while in New York City and continued in that occupation, with an office on Spring Street, after he and his wife moved to Los Angeles, California, near the beginning of 1874. He became partnered with James Chapin, a "gentleman of extensive means" who had recently arrived from Vinton, Iowa. Kimball had "an active identification" at that time with the city's trade and development, according to the Los Angeles Herald. [5]
He was listed as a hotel keeper in the 1879 list of Los Angeles city electors, [6] and the succeeding listing had him as a capitalist. [7]
In the 1880s Kimball was a partner with attorney B.L. Peel as a mining operator, insurance agent and real estate broker in Tombstone, Arizona. [8] [9] He was said to possess "rich mines" in Cochise County. [10]
Kimball returned to Los Angeles in late 1881 [11] and soon placed his home at 131 New High Street, [12] the Kimball Mansion, on sale as:
The most elegant private boarding mansion in Southern California; contains 18 rooms, fine parlors, large dining room, complete kitchen and laundry; black walnut furniture, Brussels carpets, marble mantels , grates and gas throughout; during the past seven years has enjoyed an extensive first-class patronage. [13]
It was not sold, however, and three years later, this ad appeared:
KIMBALL MANSION REOPENED: Mrs. M. H. Kimball, having retaken charge of the Kimball Mansion, 131 New High street, announces that the Mansion will again be run on first-class principles. Rooms en suite or single, with our without board, at reasonable rates. [12]
In October 1866 one of the guests committed suicide by strychnine. [14]
Kimball was born in Oneida County, New York, in 1827, the son of David M. and Sarah Kimball. [ citation needed ] He was married on June 25, 1857, to Eliza Robb, who, born in Ireland, was one year younger than he. [15] [16]
He registered for the draft on July 1, 1863, in New York City, [17] where he and Eliza were living in 1865. [15]
The couple celebrated their silver anniversary with a party at their home, the Kimball Mansion on New High Street on June 26, 1882. [16] [18]
By 1888, the couple had moved to Santa Monica.[ citation needed ]
Kimball was in charge of the art gallery of the Los Angeles County Fair in 1877, [19] and in 1880 he presented a display of minerals he had collected in Arizona from more than three hundred mines, enough to fill "a four-horse wagon." [20] [21]
Tombstone is a city in Cochise County, Arizona, United States, founded in 1879 by prospector Ed Schieffelin in what was then Pima County, Arizona Territory. It became one of the last boomtowns in the American frontier. The town grew significantly into the mid-1880s as the local mines produced $40 to $85 million in silver bullion, the largest productive silver district in Arizona. Its population grew from 100 to around 14,000 in less than seven years. It is best known as the site of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and presently draws most of its revenue from tourism.
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was an American lawman and gambler in the American West, including Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone. Earp was involved in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which lawmen killed three outlaw Cochise County Cowboys. While Wyatt is often depicted as the key figure in the shootout, his brother Virgil was both Deputy U.S. Marshal and Tombstone City Marshal that day and had considerably more experience in law enforcement as a sheriff, constable, and marshal than did Wyatt. Virgil made the decision to enforce a city ordinance prohibiting carrying weapons in town and to disarm the Cowboys. Wyatt was only a temporary assistant marshal to his brother.
Morgan Seth Earp was an American sheriff and lawman. He served as Tombstone, Arizona's Special Policeman when he helped his brothers Virgil and Wyatt, as well as Doc Holliday, confront the outlaw Cochise County Cowboys in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. All three Earp brothers had been the target of repeated death threats made by the Cowboys who were upset by the Earps' interference in their illegal activities. The lawmen killed Cowboys Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton. All four lawmen were charged with murder by Billy's older brother, Ike Clanton, who had run from the gunfight. During a month-long preliminary hearing, Judge Wells Spicer exonerated the men, concluding they had been performing their duty.
Josephine Sarah "Sadie" Earp was the common-law wife of Wyatt Earp, a famed Old West lawman and gambler. She met Wyatt in 1881 in the frontier boom town of Tombstone in Arizona Territory, when she was living with Johnny Behan, sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona.
John Harris Behan was an American law enforcement officer and politician who served as Sheriff of Cochise County in the Arizona Territory, during the gunfight at the O.K. Corral and was known for his opposition to the Earps. Behan was sheriff of Yavapai County from 1871 to 1873. He was married and had two children, but his wife divorced him, accusing him of consorting with prostitutes. He was elected to the Seventh Arizona Legislative Assembly, representing Yavapai County. In 1881, Wyatt Earp served for about five months as undersheriff of the eastern half of Pima County. When Wyatt resigned, Behan was appointed to fill his place, which included the mining boomtown Tombstone. When Cochise County was formed in February 1881, Behan was appointed as its first sheriff. Tombstone became the new county seat and the location of Behan's office. Sadie Marcus was his mistress, possibly as early as 1875 in Tip Top, Arizona, and certainly from 1880 until she found him in bed with another woman and kicked him out in mid-1881.
The Earp Vendetta Ride was a deadly search by a federal posse led by Deputy U.S. Marshal Wyatt Earp for a loose confederation of outlaw "Cowboys" they believed had ambushed his brothers Virgil and Morgan Earp, maiming the former and killing the latter. The two Earp brothers had been attacked in retaliation for the deaths of three Cowboys in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. From March 20 to April 15, 1882, the federal posse searched southeast Cochise County, Arizona Territory for the men they believed were responsible for the attacks on Virgil and Morgan. Several suspects had been identified and were charged, but were soon released by the court, owing in some cases to legal technicalities and in others to the strength of alibis provided by Cowboy confederates. Wyatt hoped that the legal system would bring the Cowboys to justice, but after suspects in both ambushes were freed, Wyatt resolved to take matters into his own hands.
The Tombstone Epitaph is a Tombstone, Arizona, monthly publication that covers the history and culture of the Old West. Founded in January 1880, it is the oldest continually published newspaper in Arizona.
Henry King was a blacksmith who in 1878 became the third chief of police in Los Angeles, California. He served two terms of more than two years each, from December 5, 1878, to December 11, 1880, and from December 11, 1881, to June 30, 1883.
The Los Angeles Examiner was a newspaper founded in 1903 by William Randolph Hearst in Los Angeles. The afternoon Los Angeles Herald-Express and the morning Los Angeles Examiner, both of which had been publishing in the city since the turn of the 20th century, merged in 1962. For a few years after this merger, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner claimed the largest afternoon-newspaper circulation in the country, publishing its last edition on November 2, 1989.
George Whitwell Parsons was a licensed attorney turned banker during the 19th century Old West. He kept a detailed daily diary of his life in the west, especially while he lived in Tombstone, Arizona Territory from 1879 to 1887. He described life in Tombstone in detail, including his interaction with individuals who became famous such as Wyatt Earp and Ike Clanton.
Camillus "Buck" Sydney Fly was an Old West photographer who is regarded by some as an early photojournalist and who captured the only known images of Native Americans while still at war with the United States. He took many other pictures of life in the silver-mining boom town of Tombstone, Arizona, and the surrounding region. He recognized the value of his photographs to illustrate periodicals of the day and took his camera to the scenes of important events where he recorded them and resold pictures to editors nationwide.
The Cochise County Cowboys is the modern name for a loosely associated group of outlaws living in Pima and Cochise County, Arizona in the late 19th century. The term "cowboy", as opposed to "cowhand," had only begun to come into wider usage during the 1870s. In that place and time, "cowboy" was synonymous with "cattle rustler". Such thieves frequently rode across the border into Mexico and stole cattle from Mexican ranches that they then drove back across the border to sell in the United States. Some modern writers consider them to be an early form of organized crime in America.
George Emory Goodfellow was a physician and naturalist in the 19th- and early 20th-century American Old West who developed a reputation as the United States' foremost expert in treating gunshot wounds. As a medical practitioner in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, Goodfellow treated numerous bullet wounds to both lawmen and outlaws. He recorded several significant medical firsts throughout his career, including performing the first documented laparotomy for treating an abdominal gunshot wound and the first perineal prostatectomy to remove an enlarged prostate. He also pioneered the use of spinal anesthesia and sterile techniques in treating gunshot wounds and is regarded as the first civilian trauma surgeon.
Joseph Bayer (1846–1900) was an importer and wholesaler of wines and liquors, in 19th century Los Angeles, California. He emigrated to the U.S. from the Kingdom of Württemberg.
Boothill Graveyard is a small graveyard of at least 250 interments located in Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona. Also known as the "Old City Cemetery", the graveyard was used after 1883 only to bury outlaws and a few others. It had a separate Jewish cemetery, which is nearby.
Sonoratown was a neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles, California.
Mary Edith "Mollie" Fly (1847–1925) was a late 19th and early 20th century American photographer who co-founded and managed Fly's Photography Gallery in Tombstone, Arizona, with her husband, photographer C.S. "Buck" Fry. She ran the studio alone after his death in 1901. There were few women photographers in this period, and her contributions were recognized in 1989 when she was inducted into the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame.
Wilson Chinn was an escaped American slave who became known as the subject of photographs documenting the extensive use of torture received in slavery. The "branded slave" photograph of Chinn, a former slave from Louisiana, with the initials of his owner branded on his forehead, Volsey B. Marmillion, wearing a punishment collar and posing with other equipment used to punish slaves, became one of the most widely circulated photos of the abolitionist movement during the American Civil War and remains one of the most famous photos of that era. The New York Times writer Joan Paulson Gage, noted, "The images of Wilson Chinn in chains, like the one of Gordon and his scarred back, are as disturbing today as they were in 1863. They serve as two of the earliest and most dramatic examples of how the newborn medium of photography could change the course of history."
Media related to M. H. Kimball at Wikimedia Commons