page_title: Orlando Scott Goff
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Orlando Scott Goff / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Sitting Bull by Orlando Scott Goff 31 July 1881 Bismarck, Dakota Territory
context_page_description: Orlando Scott Goff was a 19th-century photographer of the American West.
context_section_description: He first returned to his native Connecticut but half a year later relocated to Lyons, New York where he would remain for the next two and a half years. It was there where he learned the trade of photography. By 1868 he moved to Portage, Wisconsin where he practiced his trade of photography, also operating a small gallery in nearby Columbus. While in the latter place he met and engaged as an apprentice his future business partner, David Francis Barry. In 1871 he moved to Yankton in Dakota Territory and in 1873 to Bismarck where he established a photographic studio and gallery. In 1875 he accepted the position of post photographer at Fort Abraham Lincoln while Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer and several units of the 7th Cavalry Regiment were stationed there. Goff took the last pictures of Custer and his officers and men prior to their engagement at the Battle of the Little Bighorn against Sitting Bull’s allied Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho. Goff returned to Bismarck to attend to his studio. In 1877 he took the first photograph of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce people and on July 31, 1881 a photograph of Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa band of the Lakota people. He often embarked on travels outside of his studio, capturing images across the Plains and of Native Americans.
caption: Sitting Bull by Orlando Scott Goff, July 31, 1881 Bismarck, Dakota Territory
exif: {"Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "LiquidPixels LiquiFire 2.18", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "130", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB"}