Several months ago, a vintage photo of eight cowboys in downtown Globe, dated 1883, was discovered in the Arizona Silver Belt offices. Some of the story behind it has been learned, but there is one unanswered question: Who took the cowboys’ picture?
The young town had its share of photographers, including men like Charles Farciot and Cicero Grime. Both are stories in their own right, but neither was in Globe in 1883. Grime was in Yuma Territorial Prison, doing time for his part in an 1882 robbery-murder; Farciot was even farther away, in Alaska. There is another possibility, though: a photographer who was definitely in town that year, J.C. Burge.
“Burge…has some of the best views of Arizona scenery ever taken,” the Silver Belt declared on April 14, 1883. In May, the paper called his studio “the neatest little gallery in Arizona.” Whether or not he took the cowboys’ group photo – that has yet to be established – Burge offered “a great diversity of stereoscopic views of a highly interesting character (Arizona Silver Belt, Sept. 1, 1883).”
Joseph Campbell Burge, born in Virginia in 1838, captured several images of Apache scouts in the area. He also, according to the Silver Belt, went north to photograph the Arizona Mineral Belt Railroad and Tonto Natural Bridge. [Burge was listed under Photographers, doing business in Globe, in the 1884-85 Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming and Arizona Gazetteer and Business Directory.] Burge left Globe for Flagstaff in April 1884, the Silver Belt reported. He eventually set up shop in
Southern New Mexico. Later, while in El Paso, Texas, he photographed the body of John Wesley Hardin after the latter was shot by John Selman in 1895.
