Although my notes say this is a portrait of my great grandfather Lewis Logan Slater (1855-1905) as a baby, I don't think it is. For one thing, Lewis Logan had light eyes and this little guy clearly doesn't. Also the photographer was in Wichita, Kansas, and the Slaters didn't leave Illinois until Lewis Logan was 28. And this photograph doesn't look like it dates from the mid-1850s.
[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]
A search for a photographer in Wichita named Rawlins in Langdon's List of 19th & Early 20th Century Photographers brings up only two names, both at the same address in an 1890 city directory.
Under the heading of Photograph Galleries in an 1889 Wichita city directory there's a listing for W. J. Rawlins.
[Directory of the City of Wichita, 1889. Source: Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.]
And there's only one Rawlins listed in the general pages of the same city directory.
[Directory of the City of Wichita, 1889. Source: Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.]
So I believe I've disposed of the idea that this photograph can possibly be a picture of my great grandfather and was likely taken around 1890. But I'm no nearer figuring out who he is.
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