George Lytle Beam made photographs professionally for 30 years, and within that body of work, valuable records of historical data are mixed with gems of artistic sensitivity. Many of the Beam images in our database were un-printed glass or nitrate negatives that had been in storage and unseen for decades, with many rapidly deteriorating into un-useability. We are delighted to have rescued these long-lost gems of one man's acheivements, and share them with the world.

George Beam was born the youngest of three children, on May 18, 1868, in New Paris, Ohio. When Beam was 5 years old his family moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where he grew up and attended school and then established himself as a dealer in new and used domestic and foreign postage stamps. In 1889, after the death of his mother and siblings, George and his father moved to Denver, Colorado.

Upon his arrival in Denver George Beam worked as a stenographer for Chain Hardy & Co. Soon after, he took a position as a stenographer with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. He left the railroad in 1893. After a brief period as an independent photographer he returned to the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in 1894 as Secretary to the General Passenger Agent, a position he held until his death in 1935.

It is unclear when George Beam began to photograph for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, however the earliest image appears to have been taken in 1898. By 1905 Beam was the Company Photographer, a position he held with that of Secretary to the General Passenger Agent, until the end of his career.

Beam had a real interest in the ancient Ancestral Puebloan ruins of the Four Corners. He photographed Mesa Verde in Colorado, and his photographs of Tsankawi in New Mexico appeared in the September 1909 issue of National Geographic.

George Beam is most noted for his photographs for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad (later Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad). These images include not only an extensive collection of railroad trains and tracks, but also numerous scenic photographs of the areas that tourists might visit while using the railroad. His final project for the railroad was the documentation of the construction of the Dotsero Cutoff and its' dedication in 1935.

The library has 3393 digitized Beam images which include 2189 glass plate negatives kindly loaned to the Denver Public Library for digitization by James Ozment from the James Ozment Collection of George Beam photographs.