Rodeo photo, ca. 1925, of Clyde Hamilton Smyth (top right).

Clyde Hamilton Smyth was a bronco buster on the Western rodeo circuit in the middle and late 1920s. An amateur photographer, in 1928 he shot the only known motion-picture film footage of the Baker Ranch Rodeo, which later became the Saugus Speedway.

Smyth hailed from Pennsylvania and settled in Pasadena, Calif. He was father to Santa Clarita mayor and high school district superintendent Dr. Hamilton Clyde Smyth, and grandfather to California Assemblyman Cameron Smyth.

About the photographer: Thomas H. Rutter frequently photographed American Indian subjects. [From the University of Washington Libraries]: Rutter, a British veterinarian, came to the United States from Australia in the late 1860s. After photographing in Montana in the 1870s and 1880s, and Tacoma, Washington, in the 1890s, Rutter opened a studio in North Yakima (now Yakima). He retired around 1906 and died in 1925. {Steven L. Grafe, "Lee Moorhouse: Photographer of the Inland Empire." Oregon Historical Quarterly 98, no. 4 (Winter 1997-98): 477; Carl Mautz, Biographies of Western Photographers, p. 502.}

Note: The initial estimate of the date of this photo was 1926-27, which places it after his death — and two decades after his retirement. It may have been shot by an anonymous photographer from the studio that bore Rutter's name.