Filmmaker Beth Harrington’s discovery of Frank Matsura’s photographs at the Washington State History Museum in 2002 marked the beginning of a decades-long fascination with the enigmatic artist. Among a collection that included works by Edward S. Curtis’s contemporaries, Matsura’s images "just leapt out" at Harrington, possessing a "completely different character" that captivated her.

Matsura, a Japanese immigrant who lived and worked in Okanogan County, Washington, from 1903 to 1913, captured the lives of both white settlers and Indigenous peoples of the Colville Reservation with remarkable warmth and intimacy. His black-and-white portraits reveal a deep connection to his subjects, often featuring him playfully posing alongside them. Despite creating thousands of images, little of Matsura’s personal life was documented before his death from tuberculosis at the age of 39, yet over a century later, the communities he photographed still hold his memory dear.

"Frank Matsura is just somebody that you fall in love with," Harrington commented, reflecting on the profound impact of his work. After moving to the Northwest from Boston in the early 2000s, Harrington dedicated nearly twenty years to unraveling Matsura’s legacy, culminating in the 2025 release of her feature-length documentary, Our Mr. Matsura. The title itself speaks to the collective intimacy people feel with the photographer, suggesting that "everyone thinks they have a little window into who he is," fostering a shared understanding of his essence through these individual impressions.

The documentary screened to a receptive audience of approximately 300 people at the restored Omak Theater last September. Douglas Woodrow, a lifelong resident of Okanogan, shared his personal connection to Matsura’s work. As a child in the late 1950s, Woodrow would bike to the locations depicted in Matsura’s photographs, often published in the local newspaper. He recalls being "astounded" by the changes over time, particularly envisioning the grandeur of the three-story Bureau Hotel, which tragically burned down in 1924, as having once lent "a bit of elegance in an otherwise dusty little town."

Returning to Okanogan decades later, Woodrow reconnected with "Frank," as he is affectionately known by his admirers. While volunteering with the Okanogan County Historical Society, Woodrow unearthed a "literal shoebox" of undeveloped Matsura photographs. Upon sequencing these images, they revealed the construction of the Conconully Dam in 1910, an early Bureau of Reclamation project on Salmon Creek. This discovery "lit me up," Woodrow stated, leading him to present these historical photos to community groups, marking his initial involvement in preserving Matsura’s legacy.

Woodrow’s dedication extended to a pilgrimage to Matsura’s birthplace in Tokyo, accompanied by his friend and fellow enthusiast, Tetsuo Kurihara, a Japanese photographer he had met during Kurihara’s research trip to Okanogan. Back in Washington, Woodrow spearheaded efforts to honor Matsura’s memory, including the erection of an interpretive site near his former studio and the creation of a walking tour featuring 21 mural-sized photographs. Woodrow emphasized Matsura’s "extraordinary" social mobility, noting his ability to photograph "everyone in town," from tribal members to newly arrived businessmen, miners, and saloon patrons, demonstrating his inclusion in "just about everything that happened in town, by all the social strata."

Randy Lewis, a Wenatchi elder and member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, is among the descendants of Matsura’s subjects featured in Our Mr. Matsura. Lewis has actively participated in community screenings of the film, including a "barn screening" in Winthrop, Washington, followed by a salmon bake. His family’s story exemplifies the enduring connection to the world Matsura captured. The film includes a photograph of Lewis’s great-uncle, Sam George, with his family in a buckboard wagon, which Lewis described as "the F-250 of the time." He recounted how the photograph hung in his family home during his caretaking of George in his final years, serving as a touchstone for memory. George would "sit there staring at that picture," using it to recall the names and birthdays of everyone in the wagon, a testament to the photograph’s power to preserve familial history.

Sam George, who passed away at the age of 108, was born in 1860, predating the establishment of the Colville Indian Reservation in 1872. His long life encompassed significant historical shifts, including the reservation’s reduction, the allotment era, and the influx of prospectors and homesteaders. His family, like many Indigenous families, continued traditional seasonal fishing practices, maintaining a fishing platform at Celilo Falls until its inundation by The Dalles Dam in 1957, which destroyed one of the continent’s most vital fishing grounds. Matsura arrived in the region during a period of profound cultural transformation, as Lewis observed, where "both cultures," Native and settler, were evolving, and "he was capturing that. It wasn’t the death toll of the Indians. It was life going on."

Our Mr. Matsura serves not only as a portrait of the photographer but also as a vivid depiction of Okanogan County itself, highlighting the isolated and rugged beauty of a landscape that has remained largely unchanged since Matsura’s time. Jean Berney, a long-time rancher and farmer near Conconully, described the area as "off the beaten track for a lot of people." A member of the Colville Confederated Tribes, Berney married into a non-Native cattle-ranching family and established her own successful herd, earning national recognition as a conservation-minded rancher and dedicated supporter of the 4-H program. Her property was once the site of the Conconully Naturpathy Institute, known locally as Casselmann’s Sanitarium, where Dr. Casselmann, a German immigrant, treated tuberculosis patients beginning in 1906. Many believe Matsura may have been a patient, drawn to the region by its dry climate. Berney often contemplates Matsura’s experiences traversing this landscape, wondering if he ever discussed his condition with Dr. Casselmann and for how long he was ill, acknowledging the unanswerable questions that linger about his past.

Harrington’s documentary contributes to a growing body of work dedicated to Matsura, building upon the efforts of volunteers at the Okanogan County Historical Society and the scholarly research of Michael Holloman, an art professor at Washington State University. Holloman, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, co-curated a significant exhibition of Matsura’s work at Spokane’s Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in 2023 and published the book Frank S. Matsura: Iconoclast Photographer of the American West in 2025. Holloman advocates for embodying Matsura’s spirit today, stating, "We need people to be like Frank right now, to engage multiple communities and be able to find life, vibrancy, in a world that is in transformation and change."

The wide release of Our Mr. Matsura was initially planned for The American Experience on PBS, but federal funding cuts led to the discontinuation of the long-running series last summer. Despite this setback, Harrington remains optimistic that the film will reach its audience through film festivals, streaming platforms, and special screenings like the one held in Omak. She acknowledges the increased difficulty of this path, emphasizing that "There’s a lot of worthy things that we can’t put a dollar value to," and that "These stories… we’re poorer for them when we don’t have them."

During the Omak screening, Harrington was thanked for "mirroring" the trust that Matsura had cultivated with his subjects over a century prior. However, the filmmaker was quick to reciprocate the sentiment, stating, "The story is not just about Frank and his charisma and his incredible body of work. It’s about the way people uphold his memory and still talk about him 112 years after his death." This enduring connection underscores the profound impact of Matsura’s photographs and the communities’ commitment to keeping his legacy alive.