The life of F.M. Steele
By JIM HOY
© Plains Folk
In 1981 Barbara Oringderff, in an article published in the August/September edition of "Kansas Territorial Magazine," recognized the work of Francis Marion Steele as "one of the world's largest and finest collections of original photographs of early-day cowboys." She also noted that "the life of F.M. Steele is an enigma."
That life is, however, less an enigma now than it was a quarter of a century ago.
Francis Marion "Frank" Steele was born Sept. 14, 1866, in Stanton, Ill. When he was four he moved with his mother (Sarah) to Urbana, Mo., a year after his father (Marion) disappeared or was killed while in St. Louis — the mystery of his disappearance was never solved.
At 13 young Frank began learning photography from G.T. Atkinson of Kansas City, Mo. Just why he decided to come west is not known, but as early as 1890 he arrived in Dodge City and a year later he had begun his peregrinations throughout the southwestern plains in a wagon that served as a traveling studio/darkroom.
Throughout the 1890s Steele plied this itinerant trade, sometimes basing his operations from studios in Ashland and Meade. In May of 1895, at age 28, Steele married 24-year-old Pink Fletcher of rural Meade. A premature, three-pound daughter (Edith) was born seven months later. Another girl (Zula Belle) was born in 1897. Frank and Pink divorced later that year.
Three years later he married Sadie Harp of Burrton in Harvey County, about the same time that he joined the Masonic Lodge in Greensburg, where he had been employed by the Rock Island Railroad as a special photographer. This union produced a son, Marion, born in 1904.
In 1935, the Steeles returned to Kansas after some 10 years in McCook, Neb.
In September 1935, the 69-year-old photographer took a job with Dodge City to encourage the tourist trade. Steele planned to install on Boot Hill a display that would represent Dodge City during its cow town days. Included in the display would be a completely outfitted chuck wagon, saddles, spurs, ropes, other droving paraphernalia, and some 40 of his historical photographs.
During the off season, he intended to present programs at area schools with his collection of artifacts and photographs.
Before his plans could be put into effect, however, Steele and his wife died from asphyxiation in their rented Dodge City rooms on Jan. 2, 1936. Steele had arisen to make coffee, then gone back to the bedroom to help Sadie, who was not in good health, prepare for the day. Apparently the coffee boiled over, extinguishing the flames of the stove and thus allowing gas fumes to permeate the apartment.
Steele set up shop or went on location at one time or another (sometimes more than once) in, among other places, Ashland, Bucklin, Coldwater, Dodge City, Englewood, Garden City, Greensburg, Hutchinson, Liberal, Meade, Montezuma, Mullinville, Plains, Protection, and Syracuse in Kansas and in Beaver and El Reno, Okla.
For 10 years beginning in the mid-1920s, he also had a studio in McCook, Neb. I have thus far located more than 200 extant Steele photographs, out of a body of work that undoubtedly must have numbered in the scores of thousands.
In 1897, for example, the editor of the Comanche County Clipper, noted that Steele had "finished about 4,000 pictures in Ashland and still had about 1,500 more to do." I would be pleased to learn from readers of other Steele photographs.
