Maplewood History: A Rare Image of William Koester Comes to Light

Recently I was pleased to renew a friendship with a man who I once had as an instructor of digital photography, John Nagel.  In the spring of 2007, I was enrolled in my second semester of Photoshop at St. Louis Community College – Meramec. It was the last semester that John taught before retiring.  I was very lucky to have gotten there before he left.

John is well known in his field.  For 30 years he was a professor of fine art photography at STLCC – Meramec.  More recently he retired as the executive director of the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum.  He was instrumental in bringing the museum to St. Louis.

Sometime in the past, John had acquired an original photograph of Maplewood’s William Koester standing in front of his office on Sutton.  Readers of my blog or books will be familiar with this image. The image I used is in the collection of the Maplewood Public Library but I’m fairly certain that it is not an original.

John is very kindly donating his copy to my effort to preserve the history of our community.  In addition, he has used his skill with Photoshop to print as good a version as one can get. I intend to send the original to the State Historical Society at UMSL.  John’s excellent reproduction of it, I will add to our library’s collection.

The original has a feature that is interesting and unique. This type of photograph is known as a contact print because the negative is laid in contact with the photographic paper while the print is being processed.  In this instance, Koester and his office were not the only items captured.  Have a look.

Mosquito season is upon us.  In my mind it’s a small price to pay for the summer weather.  I am aware that there are those of you out there that feel differently.

Much thanks to John Nagel for the original and the excellent restoration that he made from it.

Doug Houser      May 23, 2022