Donald Sawyers Posted April 7, 2022 Share Posted April 7, 2022 While looking through a web site on historical Wyoming, I saw this photo and thought it might be interesting to share with the forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 Impressive moustache. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyBones Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 That forge hood does not look very efficient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 Why do you say that Billy, the smoke drifting away from the hood to the left? What drew my eye right off is how high the anvil appears to be mounted but that could be camera angle. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 It's not a high anvil; it's a short blacksmith! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 What’s that laying on the table in front of the anvil? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 Looks like a thrust spring adjuster for a elevator magneto from here. The question I have is, who's the guy on the right? Looks familiar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 Actually, I think the identification may have been flipped. In 1913 Mr. Bastalich would have been 25 years old. The gentleman on the left looks older than that (although it could be the moustache) and the fellow on the right could be that age. Also, the man on the right is on the normal side of the anvil for a right handed smith and is holding a hammer in his right hand. The left hand guy is in the usual position for a striker and appears to be holding the handle of a sledge hammer. Also, the fire in the forge appears unusually large. BTW, Reliance, WY was a coal mining town a few miles north of Rock Springs. Almost all of the coal went to Union Pacific locomotives. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 Maybe The mustache grew while he was waiting for that old timey camera to to hurry up an take the picture! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 I'm told people aged fast back then due to hard work and a shabby diet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 Lol That’s prolly more likely then my explanation, although IIRC I thought I had read somewhere that you had to stand still for a very long time to take a picture in those days! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 Daguerreotypes? I saw an episode of Wild Wild West where one of those cameras shot something other than photos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 Poison darts !!! Well I guess that’s one way to get your subject to set still while the camera does it’s thing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 How did you know? Lol.... I think there was pink knockout gas that came out of it too.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 That photographer must’ve taken some real “killer” photos! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 On a serious note, thank you, Donald for posting that photo. I have a huge digital collection of vintage industrial photograghs. Blacksmith, logging, mining, steel production, etc. and thats an addition. Also George, thanks for the bit of background. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 As further historical background, there were a lot of immigrants in Wyoming in the late 19th and early 20th century from the Balkans, often Serbia or Croatia. They are sometimes referred to as "Austrians" in contemporary newspaper accounts since those countries were or had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Many of them worked in the coal and metal mines. Slavic names are still fairly common in the Rock Springs, WY area and IIRC there is still a Serbian Orthodox church. There was a story in today's Laramie paper about a young man in Rock Springs who was born in Crimea and his family immigrated to the US in the '90s. He is planning on returning to Ukraine to volunteer to fight the Russians. Props to him. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted April 8, 2022 Share Posted April 8, 2022 37 minutes ago, Nodebt said: digital collection Any way of posting some here? We all love old industrial photo's. There are a couple of threads with them in, but I can't remember which ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 George, I appreciate the further information. Duly noted. Kudos to the young man from Rock Springs. As it happens, we have a member in our family that was in the special forces and wanted to go. Watching the news, you can't blame him. It got so bad my sister arranged to have him go to a retreat. He has a daughter with severe problems and he needs to be here. That's all I'll say because I like being on ifi. Irondragon, I worry about copyright issues every time I post a photo on here I didn't take or I would be happy to oblige. I hope someday to put them all into a book form but dont even know if it's possible. I may slip a few interesting ones in here and there.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 Same here, Ive been saving photos of blacksmiths on war ships that I come across, their all old black an whites from the American civil war up to ww2 photos but I didn’t know if it was okay to post them or not Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 I was the same way during the Gulf War. I was an old fire horse smelling smoke. But my wife was pregnant and I was new in a good job and family won out. Besides war is a younger man's game and i was close to the end of my military career. Also, posting old photos to the forum should pose no copyright problems. It is not for profit and most of the photos are probably old enough that they have been out of copyright for decades. This is known as the Doctrine of Fair Use. Slag, if he sees this, should have some comments since this is more up his legal alley. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 1913 photography didn't require long motionless exposure times and neither subject is standing so a brace wouldn't be visible in the pic. It wasn't a fast exposure but probably not more than a second or the rising smoke off the fire wouldn't have any features. Another question is of what kind of print is this reproduction? Being a portrait I'd assume large format plate camera Photo chemicals used to make plates got better until you get to today's that will take millisecond exposures. I don't know if they used projectors to make prints from plate exposures in 1913 maybe but they could be contact prints in which case the print would be a reverse of the plate negative. The original photo may be from a newspaper and may be available in the local archives. Were reversed images in newspapers, albums, etc. common? Oh yes, maybe not in 1913 but I'm sure there were plenty of photographers using older equipment. There is a really famous example of a probable reversed image that is strongly suggested by evidence. The 1877 photo of William Bonney, AKA Billy the Kid posed with the rifle in his left hand. It turned out the print was reversed as there was no evidence he was left handed and more photos have emerged showing a dominant right hander. The latest pics with the rifle in his right hand are modern enhancements. In the last 10 or more years more photos of him have emerged the family croquet picture shows him holding the mallet in his right hand. Anyway, there's a good chance the pics of the blacksmiths and shop is reversed and the person writing the caption may have been using the reporter's notes and not on the scene. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Brouwers Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 Can someone show me the thread where more of these pictures were shared? I really, really like your idea Nodebt. It would be really cool to see those, here or maybe we can private message about them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 I still think that the more probable explanation is that the description was erroneous rather than the negative being flipped. If it had been flipped it would mean the man on the right in the current image would be holding a hammer in his left hand which is not impossible but the percentage of south paws in the population is about 10%. The orientation of the anvil and the fact that the man in the off side of the anvil appears to be holding a sledge in his right hand argues for me that the smith is on the right of the current photo and the striker is on the left. And man on the right appears to be more the age that Mr. B would have been in 1913. I'd say the preponderance of the evidence is that someone got the left/right description of the caption wrong. The only way to definitely resolve it would be to research the Sweetwater County archives and other collections to see if Mr. B. sported a mustache in that period or otherwise resembles one of the men in the photo. Until then this is all mere speculation. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Brouwers Posted April 9, 2022 Share Posted April 9, 2022 Hopefully this picture isn't too big....I just looked up John Bastalich Sweetwater County Wyoming and found this picture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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