H. Frank Beidel

American, 1857-1931

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Advertisements for the Shippensburg, Pennsylvania gallery of H. Frank Beidel are found starting in 1882. In 1888, while still a photographer, Beidel and four others incorporated the Cumberland Valley Hose Co., a private fire department. In May of that year he took views along the Cornwall & Lebanon Rail Road. In July, 1889 it was noted that Beidel's employee and brother-in-law John Stitzel would take over the gallery, though it remained in his name. Beidel was relocating to Chambersburg, where he took over the studio of F. A. Souders. When Stitzel died of consumption in April, 1891, the Shippensburg gallery was run by Hiram L. Smile. Beidel sold the gallery in 1892 to Frank Gaugler, formerly a photographer in Carlisle. In 1893, he sold his Chambersburg studio back to its previous owner, F. A. Souders, perhaps owing to the declining health of his wife, who died in August. On the eve of the opening of a new studio on April 1, 1896, the building was destroyed by fire. There is scant mention of him again in newspapers until May, 1907 when it was noted that he took photographs of the aftermath of another fire which destroyed Chambersburg's largest industry, a lumber mill. In 1926 it was noted that he had been in the photography business for fifty years. He died in 1933.