[A crisp clear albumen photograph of a steam wheat thresher operating near Stayton, Oregon. Several wagons of unprocessed grain in the background, sacked threshed grain piled neatly alongside, and steam traction engine and operator in the right foreground].

Stayton, OR: A.M. Brown, Photographer, [ca. 1891]. Oblong 4to. 1 boudoir sized albumen photo sized 5 x 8 in. mounted on 8 x 10 in. re-used studio mount, corners carefully rounded, and albumen portrait photo mounted on verso crossed out in pencil by the photographer (very minor dustsoiling, slight stain to left margin of board), still VG bright image. By 1890, Marion County, and farms near Stayton, Oregon had become known for their wheat made into buckwheat flour which drew premium prices wherever sold. This image shows wagons loaded with loose grain being hauled to the thresher, or separator, where it was loaded into the feeder, an adjustable hopper, and then the separated kernels were loaded into stacks. This image shows the traction engine connected by wide leather (possibly rubberized) belt to the threshing machine itself. Brown (1860-1931) only operated as a professional photographer in Stayton, Oregon in 1891, before moving to Salem where he continued until about 1896. He later became an itinerant preacher in Clark County, WA, opened and ran a second hand store before World War I in Brownsville, OR, before moving to Stockton & Manteca, CA. No examples of similar Brown photos in institutional holdings; See: Mautz, Biographies of Western Photographers (2018); Mathilda Siegmund-Jones, History of Stayton (1955).