Burton Frasher
Burton Frasher may not have been the first man there, but in many cases he was the first man there with a view camera…
Frasher and his camera went everywhere in the California desert wasteland and that was long before pavement and four-wheel-drive vehicles.
The sandy washes of Death Valley knew Frasher in 1920 when the best way to get there was up the washboard roads out of Barstow, over flinty Jubilee Pass and through the sugary sand into Furnace Creek Ranch and its little date palm grove. On his many trips into the desert country Frasher’s cars broke down, became stuck in the sand, were slowed by weather stopped by wind. but he kept going back into the desert with camera and film “on any excuse.”
