Peter Britt, namesake of the Britt Festivals summer concert series, was an extraordinary man of vision and accomplishment. His curiosity, motivation and experimental nature matched with a keen business sense allowed him to merge broad-ranging interests into a wide assortment of successful endeavors. Britt is best known as a pioneer photographer. For nearly half a century, from the early 1850s to 1900, he took remarkably expressive photographs of the people, activities, and landscapes in Southern Oregon. With his camera lens, he captured the diversity and detail of everyday life as the region grew from rugged mining district to prosperous commercial center. He left for future generations a rich pictorial history of a very real frontier community.
The attached print, SOHS 731, is the first paper print Britt made. The man, an unidentified person, posed so Britt could try his new equipment (or so the story goes).
