Charles W. Miner and the new courthouse

1894 — 1912

The photographer of the courthouse's first days: Charles Winslow Miner was born at Columbia City on 26 January 1866. He began as a traveling photographer, visiting Canada and specializing in landscape work. Arriving in Fort Wayne in the early 1890s, he worked for Felix Schanz, then opened the Miner & Dexter studio with William G. Dexter in 1894 at 44 Calhoun — the same address that had held Poston's and Jones's studios before it. Three years later he bought Dexter out and moved to 23 West Wayne Street, renumbered 102 West Wayne in 1902. Miner is best known for his extensive photographs of the new Allen County Courthouse at the time of its opening, published with a souvenir booklet — the definitive visual record of the building's first appearance. Griswold wrote in 1905 that for eleven years Miner "has watched his business grow constantly," with "a studio built for him according to his own plans, equipped with all of the most modern appliances and conveniences." He renamed the business Miner's Studio in 1909. On his death the sources divide: Beatty's directory gives 22 May 1912, aged forty-seven, after a long illness, while the Allen County Genealogical Society's biographical sketch, drawn from Tom Castaldi's account in the History Center's Notes & Queries blog, gives November 1911. Both dates stand in this record with their sources, as the directory and the sketch give them. A large photograph of the interior of Miner's studio survives in the Indiana Historical Society's digital collections — the photographer's own room, preserved as carefully as the courthouse views he made in it. His studio continued under his former employee Henry Y. Ozaki, whose entry follows below.

Sources:

1. John D. Beatty, Directory of Fort Wayne Photographers 1843–1930 — entry for Charles Winslow Miner, citing Griswold, Some Fort Wayne Phizes, p. 37, and Fort Wayne city directories, 1894–1916.
2. Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, M-surnames biographical page — Charles Winslow Miner, after Tom Castaldi, "Charles W. Miner, Fort Wayne Photographer," History Center Notes & Queries blog, 29 March 2016.
3. Indiana Historical Society, Digital Image Collections — "Interior of Charles Miner's photographic studio in Fort Wayne, Indiana."