Wilhelm Hester photographs, circa 1893-1906

Between 1893 and 1906 Wilhelm Hester documented both the maritime activities of the Puget Sound Region and of his time spent in Alaska during the gold rush of 1898. He left a remarkable collection of early photos of Nome, Alaska and the surrounding region and a valuable record for the history of ships and shipping in Washington state.

He was born in Germany in 1872, and moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1893 with his brother Ernst. There he photographed the tall ships that sailed the Northwest coast loading lumber and grain for markets abroad. Operating from studios in Seattle and Tacoma, he established a commercially successful business by taking and selling photographs of ships from around the world and their crews at various Puget Sound ports, often offering them as souvenirs to the sailors themselves. Many of the photographs depict ships in the ports of Seattle, Tacoma, and Port Blakely, and reveal details of ships' decks, ship construction and rigging, interior views of masters' salons and cabins, the faces of the ships' captains and their families, and sailors from Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and France. In 1898, Hester joined the throngs of gold seekers heading to the Klondike. His mining claims at Anvil Creek and Snow Creek in Alaska - in addition to other business ventures - earned him a tidy profit, and he returned to the Puget Sound area in 1899 to resume his commercial photography career. Some of his Alaskan photographs show that he must have returned to the Nome, Alaska vicinity around 1900 to take additional documentary photographs of the region.

He retired from the photography business in about 1905 or 1906 to pursue real estate speculation, only occasionally taking photographs in subsequent years. In his retirement he lived in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. He died in Seattle in 1947.