As noted perhaps more than necessary, Horace Sykes moved to Seattle from Salem, Oregon in 1923, where he had been a Deputy State Fire Marshal. In Seattle he joined Northwest Mutual Insurance as an adjuster. Although I have yet to find any paper that proves it, I think it likely that some of his slides from the 1940s were taken while on trips connected with his job settling claims. Horace was born in 1886 in a Pennsylvania town named for his family: Sykesville. When he was still a lad the family moved to Salem, and it was in Oregon that he was educated and grew up. He graduated in law from Willamette University. Horace wrote well and explained things well. He wrote at least two learned essays in periodicals that covered photography. (You can Google him and fine at least one of these.) Some of his earliest pictures, like this one, were studied portraits. Of course, we know neither the date nor name of the girl posing. The slide is not protected in the standard Kodachrome cardboard holder. The sepia coloring is almost certainly pre-Kodachome.
