Cody Culpepper
1888-1973
Pictured Longview For Half Century

Longview Morning Journal
July 7, 1968

These were his instructions, "Shoot anything you can get out on the front porch."

Were these orders for a Bonnie and Clyde Robbery or a gangland massacre? No, they were only instructions to traveling photographer Cody B. Culpepper from his boss to photograph as many people as he could lure out on their front porches. That way someone was sure to buy his picture.

From 1915 to 1931, Culpepper was the only photographer in Longview except for the fly-by-night traveling photographers. He was Longview's photographer and Longview's historian. Culpepper took pictures of buildings that have long since disappeared from the Longview scene. He recorded Longview's history when it was nothing but a little town straining for its existence in impossibly muddy streets.

He took so many pictures he stopped counting them long ago. They were pictures of a way of life that resembled frontier living, a way of life now seen in historic photos such as Culpepper's.

And he took pictures of young husbands and brides and families and babies. He was Longview's baby photographer, and your baby hadn't really had his picture taken unless Culpepper took it.

And the babies grew up and came back years later for Culpepper to photograph their babies. And those babies eventually brought back babies of their own for Culpepper to pose before his camera. He has been the photographer for generations of Longview families.

The man who for years was unofficially recognized as Longview's official photographer, began his careen in 1907 as an $8 a week traveling photographer in Southwest Texas.

"In 1906 I was taking a bookkeeping course in Tyler, and I transferred to Dallas in 1907 to do a little more studying and get a job as a bookkeeper," Culpepper said. "While I was working there, I saw an ad in the paper one day that called for a nice-looking young man who was free to travel and work around the Texas area,"  he reminisced. "You know I was sort of stuck on myself in those days, and so I answered the ad for a good looking young man."

Culpepper's job was to be a door-to-door traveling photographer with a "caller." Although he didn't know one thing about photography, he took "learn quick" lessons and was soon adept enough to begin calling on houses in Southwest Texas. He also figured he would learn through experience.

Culpepper explained the caller's job. "The caller was a man who preceded the photographer into a neighborhood. He would knock on each door and yell out to the occupants, "We're gonna be takin' pictures of this house in a little while. If ya'll would like to get out on the front porch, we'll take your picture too.."

Culpepper continued, "Later I would develop all the pictures I took, and we would take them back around to the houses to see if the people liked them and would buy." He smiled, "It was a pretty good business, and that's where I learned my photography."

In 1908, he quit his house-to-house photography job and returned to his home near Spring Hill to raise a cotton crop.

Culpepper was born November 2, 1888, in Cypress Bottom close to Ore City. His family later moved to Spring Hill where he was reared on a farm and attended the Spring Hill and Judson schools.

He said, "When I was a small boy, I had seen traveling photographers and the pictures they took. I had a dream one night about washing the pictures in a quick-running stream. Now that was a peculiar dream, because I never knew that photographs had to be washed before they could be made into pictures."

Culpepper credits this childhood dream to have perhaps been a sign that photography would be his life's work.

After clearing money on his 1908 cotton crop, he went to Big Sandy, rented a tent and took pictures for six weeks. He commented, "I cleared $90 in six weeks, and that was pretty good."

He came to Longview in 1909 and bought out the old Otho Dickerson photographic studio the day before his twenty-first birthday. The studio was in a tent on unpaved and muddy Methvin Street. Young Culpepper stayed about one year at that location and then moved his studio to where the Hurwitz Man's Shop is presently located. Culpepper stayed there until 1914, when his studio was burned out. He re-located his business on a site which the Longview National Bank now occupies.

"In 1920, I sold out to a fellow named Mims and went to Vernon, Texas to work. I stayed there for six weeks and came back to Longview. Then I went to Sweetwater and worked 15 months. After that I came back to Longview and bought my studio back from Mims. I bought it back for $100 more than he paid me for it," Culpepper said.

Culpepper was home to stay, and he kept the same studio location for 25 years. In 1948, he moved the studio into his home on North High Street and kept it in operation there until 1960.

"In 1960, Maud, my wife, got sick. I just didn't have time to run the studio and take care of her, too, so I closed up," Culpepper explained.

He said, "She hasn't been in good health since she broke her wrist in 1959." Culpepper said his wife of 58 years is presently in the Holiday Lodge Nursing Home. "She hasn't been able to come home for three years now. at first she spent a long time in the hospital and then moved to the nursing home." He said, "The doctors say she has some sort of sickness where her white blood cell count is abnormally low. I visit her everyday at the Holiday Lodge."

"I've been here all by myself for three years, I do all the cooking myself and most of the housekeeping. But once a week I have a maid come in and sweep out the sand," he said and laughed.

He will be 80 years old on his next birthday. "I try to keep myself in pretty good shape," Culpepper said. "I used to walk about two miles every day, but I don't do that any more. I still walk to the post office every day for my mail, and I still mow my yard." He said the doctor told him to mow for 20 minutes and rest for 20 minutes, but Culpepper complained, "I can't do it that way. When I mow the yard I have to do it all at one time and get the job done."

He said, "You know I must be healthy, because I've never been in the hospital a day in my life except to visit other people." He said his days aren't usually too busy and that is schedule is nearly the same every day.

Why did he choose photography as his career? Culpepper explained with a laugh, "Well, I could do two things - take pictures and plow. And I didn't have a place to plow."

Culpepper Ancestry. Cody Bryant Culpepper is the son of Elbert Bartow Culpepper, and their further ancestry may be seen in the Culpepper Family Tree.