Stories for my grandchildren - Basil Clemons

This photo of  downtown Breckenridge in 1920, which I first showed you in Stories for my grandchildren - Thurber Brick was taken by a man named Basil Clemons. Mr. Clemons was the resident commercial photographer in Breckenridge from about the beginning of the oil boom in 1920 until 1949. I was only eight years old when blindness ended his career, so I never knew about him from his photography business. What really stood out about Basil Clemons was that he lived in a wagon - think iron-wheeled Gypsy Caravan-type wagon - that was parked in a field on North Breckenridge Avenue.

There are various descriptions of the wagon - some say it was a gypsy wagon - others that it was originally a canvas-covered cook wagon from cattle drive days. I don't clearly remember and there does not appear to be a picture of it available. I do remember that there was a stove pipe on one side of the wagon and that there were wooden steps placed at one end. This was home, darkroom and office for Clemons, and he lived there until his death in 1964.

Clemons learned his art in Hollywood at the beginning of the movie era. Later, he trooped with the Tom Mix Wild West Show. In 1909 he departed for Alaska, recording in pictures gold discoveries in the Yukon River area. He introduced motion pictures to Alaskan residents by making and developing the first movies shown there. The Handbook of Texas writes about Clemons:

"In 1919, while traveling with a circus ... he headed west to Breckenridge. He chronicled on film every aspect of life in the small town as it boomed from oil production in 1920. When the oilfields declined, he remained and continued to photograph everyday happenings. His photographs included not only oil-derrick scenes, weddings, downtown display windows, rodeos, parades, and portraits of prominent citizens, but also funeral processions, Ku Klux Klan rallies, lakeside picnics, and the entire public school student body.

To develop photographs, he never measured the chemicals poured from jars. By tasting the finger he used to stir the mixture, he determined the correct proportions. He developed black-and-white and sepia-toned photographs. He also produced pictures on fabric and did hand-colored tinted prints. His skill was so perfected that he formulated a process for color developing before the Eastman Kodak Company. When he received a letter from Kodak in 1936, offering a fabulous amount, plus royalties, for his technique, Clemons had his teen-aged helper, Frank Pellizzari, Jr., type a refusal to the offer with the remark that the Kodak chemists should "figure it out for themselves." The trademark of his work was marking negatives with a fine pen and India ink so that the developed prints bore the subject label, date, and his signature in white lettering."

"Our Fire Chief - Heaven Bless Him for Doing the Best He Can With What He Has To Do With. In Front Of Another Notorious Breckenridge, Texas Fire 4-22-21."

The Pelizzari family were Italian immigrants who lived across the street from Clemons. They owned the shoe shop in town and I remember seeing Clemons sitting at that shop while Frank Junior and his father plied their trade.  After his death, the thousands of photos and negatives that were piled in Clemons' wagon were acquired and cataloged by the University of Texas at Arlington.