In 1880 the family was living in Cordova, Minnesota, part of Le Sueur County, and Johnson Curtis was working as a retail grocer.

In 1911, Asahel established his own studio in Seattle and employed a team of developers and colorists, including his sister Eva.

Curtis was a keen observer of people, places and events, Asahel documented the Washington timber, agriculture, fishing and mining industries.

He photographed historic events such as presidential visits, the building of the dams on the Columbia River, and Seattle's ambitious Denny Regrade project.

Here where vegetation makes its last stand amid a world of ice and snow, with the lower world stretching away to the distant horizon, nature unfolds in all her beauty.Curtis's involvement in the Seattle-Tacoma Rainier National Park Committee (later the Rainier National Park Advisory Board) strained his relations with the Mountaineers.

The committee, which Curtis chaired from 1912 to 1936, was formed by community business interests to take advantage of the park's tourism potential.

His opposition to the expansion of the Olympic National Park in the late 1930s as a representative of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and the timber industry led to a further deterioration of relations with the Mountaineers.

It also caused a rift between Curtis and his fellow Mount Rainier boosters and effectively ended his involvement in park affairs.

Curtis owned a small orchard in Ellensburg, and he believed that the productivity of Central Washington could be improved by building irrigation projects to turn the arid region into cropland.

[3] The Asahel Curtis Trail is located in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, near the heavily travelled Snoqualmie Pass along Interstate 90.