Kiser, Fred H.

Brothers Fred H. (1878-1955) and Oscar H. Kiser (1883-1905) started photography as a hobby, but Fred gained recognition as one of the most successful commercial photographers and one of the best artistic mountain photographers in the nation during the first quarter of the 20th century. Through his Kiser Photo Company and other enterprises, he produced and sold prints, albums, stereographs, postcards, and glass lantern slides, many of which were hand-colored in oils. As the official photographer for the Lewis and Clark Exposition at Portland, Or., in 1905, Kiser gained a wide audience. His photographs helped promote Crater Lake National Park and establish Glacier National Park. During World War I, Kiser also served as director of photography for the Emergency Fleet Corporation’s Oregon Division.

Before he was ready to embark on a career in photography, Fred studied business and commercial law at Portland Business College from 1898-1901. He and his brother, Oscar, explored photography as a hobby, which developed into a business in 1902, when they discovered that scenic images of the Columbia River Gorge appealed to visitors at their parents’ Columbia Beach Hotel in Warrendale, Or. One of their early commissions established Fred’s on-going relationship with Crater Lake National Park in 1903, when photographer and park promoter William G. Steele invited them to photograph a promotional expedition from Medford, Or. to the newly-created national park. Fred and Oscar Kiser also established a studio in the Abington Building in Portland in 1904, under the name of Kiser Bros., Scenic Photographers. They issued a hardbound book of scenic views taken during the 1903 Crater Lake expedition, Pacific Coast Pictures, under their own imprint, Wonderland Souvenir Company, Inc., the first of many businesses that Fred created during the next three decades. In 1904, Fred Kiser worked as the official photographer at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis, Mo., and in 1905, he established the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition Official Photographic Company during the exposition's duration in Portland that year, with himself as vice-president and director of photography. The company published many of his photographs in a Souvenir Book of Views of the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition and Oriental Fair .

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