Clemons, Basil

Basil Edwin Clemons (1887-1964) was born in Lauderdale County, Alabama, and raised in Alabama and Texas. In 1903 he moved to California, eventually becoming a photographer in Hollywood. In 1909 he traveled to Alaska, where he spent nearly a decade photographing gold mining camps, Alaska Natives, and dogsled races, particularly in the Ruby and Iditarod regions. During World War I he joined the Army and trained at Fort Liscum, near Valdez, Alaska. Following his discharge in 1918, he moved to Seattle, where he established a photography studio. The studio burned in 1919, while he was visiting family in Texas. Rather than return to Seattle, he migrated to the oil boom town of Breckenridge, Texas, which he proceeded to document photographically for the next 30 years. (From the publication Stephens County: Much to Be Cherished [Breckenridge, Texas: Breckenridge/Stephens County Sesquicentennial Committee, 1987, p. 55].)

Basil Edwin Clemons was born July 22, 1887 in Lauderdale County, Alabama. Around 1909 Clemons drifted to Alaska where he photographed gold mining camps, Indians, Eskimos, and dogsled races. He joined the Army and after his discharge in 1918, he moved to Seattle and established a photograph studio. When his studio was destroyed by fire and he moved to Breckenridge in Stephens County, Texas and 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, utilizing 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. He died June 22, 1964, in Breckenridge. [From: Shirley Rodnitzky, Archivist, Special Collections Division, Univ. of Texas at Arlington.].