On this day, November 19, 1878, illustrator Wilhelm Heinrich Detlev Koerner was born in Lunden, Holstein, Germany. His family immigrated to the U. S. when he was a young child. At 20, Koerner worked for the Chicago Tribune as a staff artist. He moved to New York where he worked and studied at the Art Students League, then with Howard Pyle in Delaware. He specialized in illustrations of western subjects.

Koerner