Fargo Film
Finishing Company
| Business years | 1927 - 1940 |
| Business address | 609 2nd Avenue North: 1927-1938 |
| 20 1/2 Broadway: 1938-1940 |
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The Fargo Film Finishing Company’s advertising slogan was “Demand our trade-marked prints from your druggist.” The company was founded in 1926 with partners, Owen M. Hostler and H. W. Headen. Mr. Hostler had move that year to Fargo from Jamestown, N.D. where he had been a salesman for retail drugs.
In the 1928 city directory Headen is replaced by T. Lawton MacDonald, and by 1930 only Hostler’s name is given, as manager. The 1929 Fargo telephone directory gives the business address as 608 Front Street.
On December 28, 1938, fire destroyed the business. Mr. Hostler continued the company for a short time in the Herbst Department Store building, before moving to Watford City, N.D. in 1940. There he established Owen’s Studio. He continued in business until 1969 when he was forced to retire due to ill health.
Owen M. Hostler was born January 22, 1894 at Ida Grove, Iowa and moved with his parents as a boy to Jamestown, N.D. At Jamestown, Mr. Hostler also played with a theater group and professional dance orchestra.
He married Ellen M. Peterson, and they had a daughter Elaine and a son. Ellen and Owen were divorced in April 1938. On May 6, 1938 he married Cathryn Yoerg in Fargo, they raised two daughters, Diane, and Amy.
Mr.
Hostler died at Watford City, N.D. on April 4, 1974.
1920s, 1930s & 1940s photographers
Fargo 2001