ROCHESTER, Pa. — The Civil War had ended only 27 years earlier, Benjamin Harrison was president of the United States, telephones and automobiles and the electric light bulb hadn’t yet become mainstream, and the very first immigrants were arriving on Ellis Island outside New York City.
It was in 1892, only 70 years after the invention of photography, that Graule Studios opened its doors as a commercial photo business on Hinds Street in Rochester. Since then, the business and its owners have documented nearly 125 years of Beaver County’s history and the lives of its residents.
The studio, which is the seventh-longest continually operated in the country, will shutter its doors this summer, and with it goes tens of thousands of pictures captured since the studio opened.
Owner Kevin Cooke made it clear he isn’t completely going away, as he still plans on operating his photo business out of his home. But a building that dates back to 1892 and all the history that goes with it will be soon be empty.
Cooke gave a tour of the building last week and proudly displayed a studio that still has glass from the ceiling to the floor on the north side of the facility.
Known as a “north light studio,” the building was specifically built this way to allow for an abundance of natural light. Before modern electricity, it was the only way to provide sufficient lighting for indoor pictures.
That aspect is just one of many that show just how old and historical the business is. Tucked away in cabinets and boxes inside are tens of thousands of pictures.
There is a picture showing President William McKinley’s wife in the late 1800s, portraits of infants from the 1920s, pictures of Rochester virtually under water during the historic flood of 1936 and a picture of President John Kennedy speaking to a local crowd in the early 1960s.
“You wouldn’t believe the things we’ve unearthed,” said Barbara Cooke, Kevin’s wife, as the couple cleaned out the studio.
Cooke started adding to the historical collection in 1986 when he bought the business. Alongside a photo showing Joe Namath playing high school baseball, Cooke has his own pictures of the Pittsburgh Steelers in their glory days of the 1970s.
