Charles M.Hobart, photographer, Ottawa, Illinois
THE OTTAWA FREE TRADER, Saturday, January 3,1885,p.8
Charles M.Hobart, the photographer, now a resident of Chicago but here on a visit to his parents, showed us some fine photographic views of the Pittsburg Landing and the Shiloh battlefield which he had recently taken in Tennessee. A party of gentlemen including Colonel T.Lyle Dickey, General Prentiss,General Tuthill and others contemplate the cycloramic reproduction of that battle (1862). similar to the BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG cyclorama in Chicago, and have employed him to do the photographing.The work will cost about $125,000, and will take about six months to complete. The photos are excellent. Charley knows how to do it.//I am writing the first book from the American point of view about 19th century rotunda panoramas.These were the biggest paintings in the world, 50 x 400=20,000 square feet, housed in their own rotundas which were 16-sided polygons. Chicago in 1893 had 6 panorama companies and 6 panorama rotundas.