Charles L. Franck Photographers was a commercial photography studio founded in 1905 by Charles L. Franck Sr. For most of the first half of the twentieth century, the firm photographed the face of New Orleans for a variety of clients. Construction, demolition, and existing condition photographs of buildings were a significant part of the firm’s production.

This photograph is from an album of several dozen images commemorating the opening in 1918 of the Public Grain Elevator on the Mississippi River at the foot of Bellecastle Street in Uptown New Orleans. Franck’s approach to photographing this massive structure combined the precise documentary evidence that his eight-by-ten-inch view camera was capable of recording with the visual acumen of a seasoned photographer in selecting a stunning composition.

After Franck's retirement in 1946, the studio was purchased in 1955 by Albert Bertacci and resumed operation as Franck-Bertacci studios. It operated under that name until the early 1990s, when the business closed.