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1853–1934 floor; 1861–2026 boundary
Fort Wayne's long succession, directory by directory, runs as follows. Carl Sommer (Charles Sommers; b. Baden or Württemberg, 1830; in Allen County by 26 December 1849) advertised daguerreotypes at one dollar to close out stock in October 1853; the 1860 census lists him as a book binder; he returned to photography 1869–70 at Calhoun and Columbia, worked at 3 Phoenix Block to 1877 and at 30 Calhoun until the 1894–95 directory, when fire in the Vordermark block destroyed the business. Beatty calls him one of the most enduring photographers in the city in the nineteenth century, and flags his obituary's claim that he was the city's first photographer as incorrect; he died 14 March 1897. William Salzmann (b. Germany, October 1834; immigrated 1868) opened at 150 Calhoun in 1879 catering to the city's large German population — the photographer to the German city — and in 1883 moved to 164 Calhoun, opposite the Cathedral, becoming a favorite of local Catholics; his best-known photograph is the Centlivre Brewery, 1897; directories carry him to 1905, and he died at Dearborn, Michigan, 17 December 1915. Felix Schanz (b. Alsace-Lorraine, 15 April 1861; immigrated 1879; Fort Wayne 1881) worked for Barrows, bought the studio at 60 Calhoun in November 1886, and in 1889 built a ground-floor studio at 112 Calhoun, renumbered 922 in 1902; the Schanz Studio of 1913 at 309–311 W. Washington had the most advanced equipment in the city, motion-picture apparatus included, and room for vehicles to be driven in. His son Paul and daughter Elfrieda ran it after him; his series of glass-plate photographs of city sites survives in the History Center collection; he died 14 March 1935, one of only five recipients of the International Photographers' Association Distinguished Service Award. George J. Parrot worked at 62 Calhoun 1894–1901, took the former Barrows rooms at 21–23 W. Berry in 1901, and ran the Parrot Studio & Art Store at 225–227 E. Berry 1905–1917; Griswold praised his speciality in photographing children — "his studio oftentimes resembles a nursery" — and the 1908 directory carried his "Babies Pictured as Babies" line. Parrot died 8 November 1915, aged 45; the studio passed to William Van de Grift and then to Edward Perrey. Edward F. Perrey (b. Fort Wayne, 28 July 1868; d. 26 February 1934), trained under Barrows and Shoaff, kept the Perrey Studio at 62 & 64 Calhoun (renumbered 734–736 in 1902) from 1897 to 1933: the city's commercial eye, maker of the large photographs of buildings, graduation classes, employee groups and industrial settings, often contracted by the local newspapers, with wide scenic views taken on a hand-cranked panning camera.
The nearer boundary's long studio outlasts them all. Albert J. McDonald (b. Rochester, New York, 1841) came to South Bend at nineteen and purchased a studio in 1861 — the McDonald Studio, advertised in the 1863 Valley Registrar and in Turner's 1867 directory at 107 & 109 Michigan Street, where the succession at that one address ran A. VanSickle to Paul Beckwith (1873) to McDonald (1875). McDonald built what a 1993 owner account called the city's first ground-floor studio at the southwest corner of Michigan and Wayne (torn down ca. 1920), and the firm passed to his son E. C. (Edwin) McDonald, then to Rode (ca. 1910–1929), then through the war years under Thompsett, and in 1946 to Raymond F. and Beulah Patnaude; their son David and his wife Ann joined in 1975 and announced their retirement in September 2026. The studio, at 326 Lincoln Way West, South Bend, was honored in the Congressional Record of 5 October 2026 (Rep. Yakym) for 165 years as the longest-operating photography studio in the state; a 1959 fire ruined its early negatives (Indiana Album, CATNUM 672). A 1907 portrait inscribed "Photo by McDonald Studio, South Bend, Indiana" is held by the Notre Dame Archives.
Against this, the townships' column in the same directory succession — Polk and Michiana city directories and the county directories, read as dated snapshots from about 1900 forward — is empty for Clay and Harris: no studio, gallery or photographer heading attaches to the ground until the modern home-studio and corridor layer of the present century (art-63-9). Granger families sat for the cities' cameras; the record shows no camera of their own to sit for.