He was born at Donnelsville, Ohio in 1849, the youngest son of David Grabill, a carpenter by his wife Catherine, née Kay.

Grabill had studios in Buena Vista, Colorado, Sturgis, Deadwood, Lead City and Hot Springs, South Dakota and Chicago, Illinois.

He was the official photographer of the Black Hills and Fort Pierre Railroad and the Homestake Mining Company in South Dakota.

[9] Grabill was involved in mining and prospecting in the Aspen, Climax and Buena Vista, Colorado area as early as 1880.

[16][17] Grabill grubstaked Nelson ("Nels") Wanemaker to stake three claims on Mount Antero for gold.

Nelson Wanemaker is credited with the discovery of aquamarine and other beryllium minerals on Mount Antero in Chaffee County.

[28][29] Before opening his studio in Sturgis, he went on a "typographical tour that included Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas and Texas but found no country that pleased him better than the Hills".

[30] Grabill bought the McIntyre building in Sturgis, South Dakota and remodeled it as a residence and photographic studio in November 1886.

[41] While Grabill was in Hot Springs three of his employees, Mr. Rogan, Hugh Callaly and Sadie Clayton, quit.

[53][54] In 1893 Grabill sued the Wild West Show in Federal court for copyright infringement and sought an injunction against Buffalo Bill for copying and distributing his photographs of Indian scenes at Pine Ridge and South Dakota.

For example, the Elmo Scott Watson collection at the Newberry Library in Chicago contains an original sepia-tone print of his iconic photograph "THE COW BOY" with this stamp.

[57] His son Ralph was raised by a maternal aunt in Denver and was educated at the University of Colorado in Boulder attaining a degree in engineering.

His mother Catherine relocated to Chicago and operated a boarding house for a number of years in that city, only to return to Champaign where she would remarry in 1879 to the widowed windmill manufacturer Daniel L. Roots.

In November 1893 Catherine Grabill got involved in a domestic dispute between one of her lodgers and the latter's estranged husband who murdered both women in the course of an altercation.

Grabill lived In St. Louis, Missouri between 1901 and 1903[66] working as a salesman for Fairbanks, Morse and Company who manufactured, among other things, hydraulic pumps which were used by the mining industry.

His mental health had deteriorated causing him to be institutionalized in February 1903[67] at the St. Louis City Insane Asylum where he died on August 23 of that year.