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Here is a quite rare cabinet card photo of a man standing next to a camera. It is marked Ometh Cokato, Minn. From research thru the Minnesota Archives of Photographers, this is from Elbert E. Ometh (also spelled Osmeth ), and is dated in 1894 to 1895. These are the only two years he had a studio in Cokato, Minnesota. This may be Elbert himself in the portrait, standing with a camera on a tripod.
As described in the Cokato Historical Museum:
The longest operating studio in nineteenth-century Cokato, Elbert. E. Ometh ran his business from April 1893 to October 1898. At the same time, he ran a studio in Waverly.
A native of Norway, Ometh arrived in the United States with his family in 1869, settling in Cumberland, Wisconsin. After learning the photography trade there, he removed to Rush City (Chisago County) in 1890, and came to Cokato via the purchase of Stadon’s studio in 1893.
By all accounts, Ometh was well-liked and respected. An 1894 biographical sketch stated “his steadily increasing patronage proves the merit and appreciation of his work.” Ometh’s marriage to Alice Erickson of Dassel, in December 1897, prompted the Enterprise to describe him as “one of the most popular men of the town...”
Ometh left Cokato in late October 1898. He moved to Sparta, Wisconsin—near La Crosse—to open a soda-water business. The Enterprise noted how the community was “sorry to loose (sic) a man so proficient in the picture business as Mr. Ometh...”
This possibly unique photo is in very good condition with some surface marring/scuff lines, and lite loss as seen in the listing photo.
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