The "Photocar" and the Lotus Studios in Fairview, and Morrill, Kansas

Judson Henry Holt started the Lotus Studio in a "Photocar". The Photocar seems to be a shed containing a photographic studio built on top of a horse-drawn wagon. Judson Henry probably moved to northeastern Kansas in the early 1880s and was probably using the Photocar in that area. He married Elmina Wallace in 1884 and by 1885 he had settled around Holten, Kansas. In the next decade he opened branch photographic studios in buildings in Morrill and Fairview, Kansas.

Several pictures we have from that time are identified as having been taken in the photocar. This picture shows Judson's father Henry Sparks Holt with Judson's firstborn son Kenneth. It must have been taken within a few month's of Kennth's birth in 1895.

The Lotus Studio in Morrill, Kansas, proclaimed its name on its roof. We do not know, however, exactly when it opened for business or closed for good.

When the Fairview Lotus Studio opened, Judson created a private mailing card to advertise the opening. Unfortunately, he neglected to include the year that it opened but we know that as of 1900 he was advertising in local papers.

The studio in Fairview, Kansas was in part of a sturdy brick building. A picture of the old Fairview Hotel that burnt down in the 1920's shows the Lotus Studio in the background.