Clemons, Basil, 1887-1964

Commercial photographer, Breckenridge, Texas; born Basil Edwin Clemmons in Lauderdale County, Alabama.

Basil Edwin Clemons was born July 22, 1887, in Lauderdale County, Alabama, to Lemuel Joseph and Sarah Alice Clemmons. In researching their ancestry, Clemmons family members found that official documents list the name with two m's although Basil spelled it with only one. The family moved to Ridgeway, Texas, while Clemons was a child. In 1903, at age sixteen he left Texas and the family's cotton fields behind for California. He witnessed the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, learned photography in Hollywood, and trooped with the Tom Mix Wild West Show. Around 1909 Clemons drifted to Alaska where he photographed gold mining camps, Indians, Eskimos, and dogsled races. While in Alaska he joined the U.S. Army and trained at Fort Liscom, Alaska. After his army discharge in 1918, he moved to Seattle, Washington, where he established a photograph studio. While traveling with a circus in 1919, he returned to Texas. After receiving word that his studio in Seattle was destroyed by fire, he headed toward the oil boom town of Breckenridge in Stephens County, Texas. There he photographed the oil fields, the town, and its surrounding communities, until blindness and other health problems ended his career in 1949.

Clemons lived and developed his photographs in a gypsy wagon without benefit of running water or electricity. Unfortunately, there are no photos in the collection of this wagon other than small portions of the interior or exterior in an occasional print. His photographs epitomize small town America, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s. Clemons utilized some techniques largely unknown to the photographic profession. In 1936 he turned down an offer from Eastman Kodak Company for his process for color developing. The collection contains only a few examples of his color prints which are now badly faded. He spent a lifetime capturing the vitality of Breckenridge and neighboring communities in Stephens County with his portraits of people and their lifestyles.

Basil Clemons died June 22, 1964, in Breckenridge and is buried beside his parents in Hopkins County, Texas.

Sources:

Doodle & Cactus Berries by Betty Elliott Hanna (Nortex Press, 1975), and a biographical sketch by Jean Ann Pellizzari Credicott, daughter of Frank Pellizzari, Jr., former assistant to Clemons (see collection holding file).