Alfred Tobert Proctor
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A.T. Proctor was operating a photography studio on Capitol Street
in Charleston when he took this photo of an unidentified
man with a handsome walrus mustache. Proctor
later moved his studio to Huntington.
Cabinet Card Gallery
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Photographer Alfred Tobert
Proctor was born in 1864 in Catalpa,
Virginia. Where he got his training in photography isn’t known.
Sometime about 1888, he moved to West Virginia, opening
a photo studio on Capitol Street in Charleston.
There he was a successor to the former
Becker & Fell studio.
Originally he partnered
with Elmer B. Tully under the name
“Proctor & Tully.”
Later, the two men moved their business to
Huntington, leaving photographer William Erskine to
run the Charleston studio. In 1897, Erskine
left Charleston to join his two partners in
Huntington. Ultimately the three-way
partnership ended and the three
men went their separate ways
Proctor originally
operated his Huntington studio in the
Caldwell Building, constructed in 1887 on the
northwest corner of 4th Avenue and 9th
Street in the heart of the city’s small-
but-growing downtown.
The three-story structure
was built by prominent Huntington
businessman J.L. Caldwell. From the late 1880s to the
turn of the 20th century, it housed the city’s second
post office and was even referred by some people
to as the Post Office Building. Meanwhile, the
building’s second and third floors contained
office spaces housing doctors, dentists
and other professionals.
In the 1920s, Proctor moved his studio to 1148 3rd Ave.,
operating it there until he had a fatal heart attack in 1933.
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Note: This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on Nov. 19, 2024.
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