Early Bird Photographers 
Seventy-five years ago, two young men braved storms, cliffs, and 
mosquitoes to photograph birds — and sometimes themselves 
by Worth Mathewson and Margaret Thompson Mathewson 
To the student of nature of three 
generations ago, the names of William 
L. Finley and Herman T. Bohlman 
were instantly recognizable. Today, 
Bohlman is almost entirely forgotten, 
and save for the William L. Finley Na- 
tional Wildlife Refuge south of Corval- 
lis, Oregon, and a rather obscure memo- 
rial marker at the edge of a vast desert 
marsh named Malheur in southeastern 
Oregon, Finley’s name too has faded 
from the public memory. Their contri- 
butions to the young art of bird photog- 
raphy, however, and Finley’s efforts on 
behalf of conservation both in his home 
state of Oregon and on the national level 
should have earned them a permanent 
place in the minds of all interested in 
natural history and concerned with the 
preservation of wildlife. 
Finley and Bohlman were boyhood 
friends in Portland in the last quarter of 
the nineteenth century. Bohlman had a 
camera and Finley an interest in birds. 
During the years 1898 to 1912, they 
worked closely together on several pho- 
tography projects that gained fame for 
Finley and that, by calling the attention 
of the American public and Pres. Theo- 
dore Roosevelt to the plight of our na- 
tive birds, advanced the cause of wild- 
life protection. Finley came to be known 
as a dedicated conservationist through 
photographs (produced first in collabo- 
ration with Bohlman and later on his 
own), writings, films, and political ac- 
tivities. Bohlman (who went on to be- 
come a plumber and a landscape 
painter) never achieved the national rec- 
ognition that Finley enjoyed for most of 
his life, but the excellent photographs of 
the early period were clearly the result 
All photographs from the Oregon Historical Society 
William L. Finley (center), Herman T. Bohlman (right), and an 
unidentified colleague wade to a hawk’s nest in 1902. 
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