W. R. Cross Photograph Collection

William Richard Cross, photographer of the Nebraska-South Dakota frontier, was born in Bennington County, Vermont, in 1839. His older brother, Daniel H. Cross, taught him photography. In 1867, Cross married Jennie Church, of Hartland, Maine, and moved to Omaha, Nebraska. He was one of the first professional photographers to live on the Great Plains.

Cross and his wife moved to Creighton in 1871 where they spent seven years. Cross took his tent gallery around Knox County photographing the area and its people. Announcements run in the Niobrara Pioneer would notify local people that he was coming to their area.

Cross also photographed Native Americas. He belonged to a circle of other professional photographers that wished to satisfy the demand for photographs of Native Americans. On February 14, 1878 Cross and his family left Creighton for the Spotted Tail Agency, which became Rosebud, in Todd County, South Dakota. There they stayed for four or more months so Cross could photograph Native Americans.

Cross spent next twelve years, beginning in July 1878, in Niobrara, in northern Knox County, Nebraska. His gallery was opened on July 4, but began traveling again by the end of that month. Cross went to the Santee Agency where the Minnesotan Santee Sioux were moved after the uprising in 1862. These were very productive years for Cross and he was held in high esteem among the local residents.

In 1886, after some more traveling to photograph Native Americans in the Niobrara-Valentine area in north-central Nebraska, where Cross met his apprentice, John A. Anderson, he opened a studio at Fort Niobrara. In 1888, Cross and Anderson conspired at Fort Meade, proximal to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Anderson left to become a civilian photographer for the U.S. Army and became a well-known photographer while living on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Cross spent the remainder of the decade photographing in the Hot Springs, South Dakota area.

Cross acquired a gallery that belonged to J.W. Pike in Hot Springs, where he chose to live in proximity to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Toward the end of 1890, there was tension building amongst white settlers and the military in regard to Ghost Dance movement of the Sioux. It was here, on December 29, 1890, on Wounded Knee Creek that U.S. soldiers slaughtered Big Foot's group of Miniconjou Sioux. No photographers were present for the bloodshed. Although another photographer, George E. Trager of Chadron, Nebraska, was credited with photographing the first images of the slaughter's aftermath, Cross reportedly visited the site in mid-January of 1891. The number of photographs Cross took on that venture is unknown.

After this, Cross did not seem to travel anymore, but kept busy in Hot Springs. He spent time on landscape photography and compiled a sizeable collection of Black Hills Views. In November of 1900, Cross opened another studio on Minnekahta Avenue in Hot Springs, where he worked until his death. He died of pneumonia, at the age of sixty-eight, on December 23, 1907. According to an article in the Hot Springs Weekly, printed on August 1904, “Mr. Cross of this city is a pioneer photographer of the Black Hills Country and occupies a foremost position among business men identified with that line of work.”

Cross had three daughters, Florence, Cleva, and Mrs. L.G. Miller, and son, George. William and Jennie's first child, which was a son, died before they moved to Creighton. Although many scholars neglect the importance of Cross's work, he was, according to William C. Darrah, “one of the most prolific and unappreciated western photographers.”

Information from: Mitchell, Lynn Marie. "William Richard Cross, Photographer on the Nebraska-South Dakota Frontier." South Dakota History 20, no. 2 (1990): 81-95.