Arts & Culture

Frank Matsura

Okanogan’s Storybook Hero
Every corner of the world will claim that it has a unique story, a colorful hero who ignites the imagination and inspires the best in all of us. A hero who has traveled far from home to find adventure and is popular among men and women for his wit and intelligence, athleticism and good looks, talent and generosity. This storybook hero brings out the best in everyone around him - his good humor is infectious, and his generosity far reaching. In Okanogan County, Frank Matsura is our storybook hero.

An immigrant from Japan, Frank Sakae Matsura settled in Okanogan County in 1903. Having studied the fine artistic points of photography in Japan, Mr. Matsura continued his love of looking through the lens by documenting life in his new home. Over the course of ten years, Mr. Matsura would capture over 1800 images of changing life in North Central Washington during the early pioneer years of the twentieth century. The self portraits of Mr. Matsura show an amicable character with an easy smile just at the edges of his lips. In an age where all the portraits were rigidly posed with stern faced people, Mr. Matsura chose to show the connective humanity of his friends and subjects who lived on the other side of the lens. His photographs of people are playful: young Indian girls from the nearby tribe relaxing on a chaise lounge, reading a popular magazine of the time, young men dressing up in costume and play acting, young ladies laughing. Amongst his collection of bountiful landscapes, ambitious construction projects, and working mines are pictures of bicycles and picnic baskets, baseball games and community dances, dogs with hats, and children playing dress up. During an era when many of us envision territorial wars, oppressive working conditions for migrants, and harsh conditions of pioneer living, Mr. Matsura tells us a different story about the development of pioneer regions in the Pacific Northwest. Mr. Matsura’s photographs are significant artistic and historical documents of the changing frontier era in early 20th century Eastern Washington.

Mr. Matsura came to Conconully in 1903 to work as a cook for Jess Dillabough at the Hotel Elliott. Mr. Matsura sought out the social life and attended local parties, dances, and city events, documenting the social scene of Okanogan County and making many friends along the way. Mr. Matsura documented virtually all aspects of life in Okanogan County with portraits of townspeople, ranch hands, Native Americans, celebrations and parades. Mr. Matsura also carefully documented historical infrastructure projects such as the construction of Conconully Dam, and the incoming stagecoaches and riverboats that brought materials and people to the rapidly expanding region of Okanogan.

In the beginning, Mr. Matsura developed his photographs in the laundry room of Hotel Elliott. But he quickly outgrew that small space as he became a popular and often sought out photographer. He needed more room for his art and business, so in 1907, Mr. Matsura purchased a small plot of land on 1st Avenue in Okanogan and constructed a small studio and darkroom. To the side of the studio he planted a large flower garden with colorful sweet smelling blossoms and a small vegetable patch. Although he had no children of his own, Mr. Matsura installed a swing set and climbing bars to create the town’s first playground in his downtown garden on 1st Street. Years later, people fondly remembered playing in the garden as children and lining up to pose for stamp photos that Mr. Matsura would hand out to them. It was during this time that Washington State had passed laws forbidding Japanese to own property. It is a testament to the outstanding character of Mr. Matsura that he earned the support and love of the community as he developed his property and ran a prosperous business.

The Okanogan Record, the regional paper at the time, gives clues to how Mr. Matsura may have been received or treated in the county at the time. In June, 1904, Mr. Matsura is first mentioned in the paper as “Frank, the Jap photographer”. This sounds like an offhanded credit to any immigrant. But Mr. Matsura quickly gained recognition as a professional photographer. A month later, in July of 1904, Mr. Matsura gifted the paper with a stunning panoramic photograph of Conconully. The Okanogan Record printed, “We have on our desk a panoramic view of Conconully the compliments of Mr. Frank Matsura which is a very credible piece of work. Frank is one of the most successful amateur photographers in this section.” From then on, The Okanogan Record routinely published Mr. Matsura’s landscape and civic project photographs with the byline, “Frank S. Matsura, publisher”, a vast improvement in professional recognition from just one year ago.

Mr. Matsura was an active and well-loved member of the Okanogan community. He volunteered for civic projects, performed in minstrel shows, and played on the baseball team. Mr. Matsura’s studio was a popular place for everyone to gather and take playful pictures. Unlike many other studio portraits taken at that time which posed subjects in all seriousness, Mr. Matsura enjoyed taking humorous photos with his many friends. Many studio portraits show Mr. Matsura and friends dressed in strange hats and costumes, most everyone is smiling or holding a playful pose. Even the pets of friends got to play dress up. In one series of photographs, Judge William Compton Brown's dog, Mickey, wears a hat and poses with a pipe in his mouth. Mr. Matsura’s photographs provided a unique record of the Washington frontier development. His landscape images capture the end of the pioneer era, and his portraits of Native Americans remain some of the finest portraits during his generation.

Well-known and popular with his neighbors, Mr. Matsura’s photographs of scenes, inhabitants, and events of the North Central Washington region spurred his regional popularity as a photographer. The Okanogan Commercial Club and later the Great Northern Railway used Mr. Matsura’s photos to promote the Okanogan region in trade and travel shows around the country. At the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, held in Seattle, the A-Y-P‘s official photographer said Mr. Matsura ‘s photos of Okanogan County were the best of photos he received from hundreds of entries around the state and country.

Mr. Matsura's sudden death in 1913 shocked the community. Mr. Matsura was summoned for help after a break in at a local store. He ran for help, but before he reached his destination, he collapsed on a neighbor’s porch. No one imagined how sick he had been. Mr. Matsura had suffered from tuberculosis for about a year, but was so genial and upbeat it was difficult for friends to recognize how ill he was. At the young age of 32, Mr. Matsura was gone. Over 300 mourners attended Mr. Matsura’s funeral that next week. The June 20, 1913 edition of the Okanogan Independent printed an article that voiced the high regard in which Mr. Matsura’s community held him:

A shadow of sorrow was cast over the community early in the week by the sudden death on Monday night of Frank S. Matsura, the Japanese photographer who has been a part and parcel of the city ever since its establishment seven years ago.... Although an unpretentious, unassuming, modest little Japanese, Frank Matsura's place in Okanogan city will never be filled. He was a photographer of fine ability and his studio contains a collection of views that form a most complete photographic history of this city and surrounding country covering a period of seven or eight years. He was always on the job. Whenever anything happened, Frank was there with his camera to record the event...He has done more to advertise Okanogan city and valley than any other individual. Furthermore, Frank Matsura was a gentleman in every sense of the word. He held the highest esteem of all who knew him. He was one of the most popular men in Okanogan and was known from one end of this vast county to the other.... He was well educated, being a graduate from a Japanese college at Tokyo, and had done newspaper work in his native land. He came from a wealthy and aristocratic family in Japan.

Mr. Matsura‘s photographic prints and negatives went to his friend Judge William Compton Brown, who later donated the prints to the Washington State University Libraries’ Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC). A collection of Mr. Matsura‘s images are available online. Following Mr. Brown‘s death in 1963, Mr. Matsura‘s glass plate negatives were donated to the Okanogan County Historical Society. Many of these are published in the book, Frank Matsura, Frontier Photographer by JoAnn Roe. His images and glass plate negatives are currently archived and preserved at Okanogan County Historical Society and Washington State University.

Sources:
JoAnn Roe, /Frank Matsura, Frontier Photographer/ (Seattle: Madrona Publishers, 1981), 5-7, 13-22; Frank S. Matsura Image Collection, Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University. By Kit Oldham, March 04, 2003

Okanogan County Historical Society, Frank S. Matsura, A Scrapbook, Compiled by Georgene Davis Fitzgerald, 2007

Wikipedia, accessed June 2, 2011

HistoryLink, accessed June 2, 2011