Ogle Winston Link, who was known as O. Winston Link, was a civil engineer by training who became a world-renowned photographer best known for capturing the end of the steam locomotive era in Virginia and surrounding areas. Link was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, but traveled extensively as a commercial photographer. One of his assignments led him to Staunton, where he began his journey of railroad photography. Link had the technical mastery and creative vision to capture dramatic, large-scale photographs that documented the last of the Norfolk and Western Railway’s steam locomotives, as well as a disappearing way of life along the railway line. From 1955 to 1960, Link took approximately 2,600 images later captured in Winston Link, Life along the Line: A Photographic Portrait of America’s Last Great Steam Railroad (2012). Link continued work commercially once his N&W project came to an end. He photographed bridge construction and building projects throughout New York. In his later years, Link struggled with a difficult divorce after he discovered he was being defrauded by his second wife. Despite these hardships, he always felt at home in Virginia and made frequent visits to stay with friends. Link died of a heart attack on January 30, 2001, at the age of 87 and was buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
