For your consideration is this original Albert Schlechten photograph of Mystic Lake 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 scene at Mystic Lake, located in the Beartooth Mountains. Mystic lake is the second deepest lake in the Beartooth Mountains, and is utilized by the Montana Power Company with a large dam. The scene shows a man in a canoe, while a group of six people stand on the shore near the water. The photo is marked on the bottom right hand corner reading, "Mystic Lake, Mont. A. Schlechten, 82". The photo shows fair condition as it has had rips repaired throughout and is missing bits of the photograph on the edges. The photograph measures 10 5/8" L x 13 3/4" W.