For your consideration is this original Albert Schlechten photograph of Middle Creek in Montana circa 1911. In 1876 and 1877, the brothers Albert and Alfred Schlechten were born in Switzerland. In the 1890s, they immigrated to America, where they almost immediately started working as photographers. The brothers declare themselves to be photographers on the 1900 U.S. census, despite being in their early 20s. In Centralia, Missouri, a small town west of St. Louis, Albert and Alfred were taking pictures at the beginning of the 20th century. They soon moved to Bozeman, Montana, where they opened the Schlechten Studio at 128–130 East Main, which is now the location of the Fechter Hotel. The Schlechten Brothers are referred to in a 1902 Bozeman city directory advertisement as "the leading photographers of Bozeman and Gallatin County." Schlechten Studio relocated once more in the following two years, this time to a structure on Black Avenue just south of Main Street, where they remained for almost twenty years. Gallatin County's southern region in the early 1900s can be seen in Albert Schlechten's sometimes hand-colored photographs of Gallatin Canyon. "A Clover Field in Montana" and "A Ranch in Montana," two of Albert's landscape pictures, first appeared in National Geographic magazine in 1917. While his older brother Albert Schlechten excelled outdoors, Alfred Schlechten displayed the same talent indoors. Hundreds of Bozeman residents' faces and personalities were captured in Alfred's portrait photography over the course of his decades-long career. In the mid-1940s, Albert Schlechten retired and left Montana. He passed away at age 86 in Mesa, Arizona in 1962. Alfred continued his portrait and commercial photography work in Bozeman with his son Chris until well into the 1950s. He passed away at age 93 in Livingston, Montana in 1970. The photo shows a shot of Middle Creek, with the background full of large trees. The bottom left of the photo is stamped and reads, "Schlechten / Bozeman" while the bottom right reads "Middle Creek" in pencil. The photo shows good condition overall with some slight wear from its age and use over the years, but no signs of obvious damage are present. The photo measures 13 3/4" L x 10 3/4" W.