Pioneering Photographer is Honored With Headstone 102 Years After Death

A pioneering photographer, who opened one of the first photography studios in the southwestern United States, has been honored with a headstone commemorating his achievements more than a century after his death.

George Herman Rothrock was one of the first professional photographers in Phoenix, Arizona. He operated the first photography studio in Phoenix, photographing Arizona’s people, landmarks, and daily life from about 1876 into the early 20th century. While working in Arizona, he photographed the cliff dwellings at Montezuma’s Castle and Tonto Natural Bridge, transporting his heavy photographic equipment by mule to reach these sites.

Rothrock, who died in 1924, is finally receiving long-overdue recognition. According to a report by Arizona’s Family, the trailblazing photographer, who captured Arizona’s territorial days before it became a state in 1912, was honored on Monday with a new grave marker at Mesa Cemetery. It was exactly 102 years after his death.

The tribute was organized by the Arizona Photography Alliance, whose members noticed the photographer’s previous marker had become dilapidated and eroded over the years, making it hard to read. The news outlet reports that the group raised more than $3,500 to pay for the new headstone by auctioning their own work and collectibles donated by members.

‘An Impact That People Don’t Understand or Don’t Know’

In an interview with KJZZ Phoenix, Jeremy Rowe, a member of the Arizona Photography Alliance says that Rothrock documented Phoenix and the wider Arizona region from around 1875 to 1890, producing small portrait photographs and more than 250 different stereoscopic views that created a three-dimensional effect when viewed through a special device.

Rowe says Rothrock’s photographs provide some of the best visual records of Arizona during this period, but they are often reproduced in books and articles without crediting the photographer or acknowledging the stereoscopic format. Rowe says Rothrock is the second photographer that the Arizona Photography Alliance has commemorated with a headstone, after Frank Hartwell, who also operated a studio in Phoenix in the 19th century.

“I think raising awareness of the photographic history of Arizona is really important, and these [Hartwell and Rothrock] are two of the sort of pioneer photographers that really had an impact that people don’t understand or don’t know about,” Rowe tells KJZZ Phoenix.