TOKYO - Nearly a century after his death, George Masa, a Japanese immigrant photographer who played a key role in establishing the U.S. most visited national park, continues to fascinate people as new details about his life emerge.
Emmy-winning filmmaker Paul Bonesteel has long been fascinated by the mysterious figure who helped establish Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He believes Masa's passion for and devotion to the natural world helped him overcome adversity, including personal loss and racial hostility, to achieve something greater than himself.
Through stunning photographs of landscapes that many had never seen firsthand, Masa helped convince the public of the need to raise money to purchase land for a national park. His contributions have been recognized by U.S. leaders, including former President Barack Obama.
Living in western North Carolina near the park, Bonesteel frequently heard Masa's name mentioned in connection with the early conservation movement. But a newspaper photograph of the Japanese man riding a go-cart particularly caught his attention. Combined with the mystery surrounding Masa's life, the image convinced him that the photographer's story deserved to be told on film.
"That's the guy that is so unusual. I got to know more about that guy," recalled Bonesteel, who had already released several films at the time, describing his first impression of the photograph.
In late September, his documentary, "A Life Reimagined: The George Masa Story," was screened in Tokyo and two other locations in Japan -- Shizuoka in Shizuoka Prefecture and Iiyama in Nagano Prefecture -- with discussions featuring the director after each screening.
Some students from Shizuoka High School, Masa's alma mater, told Bonesteel that the film had given them hope that they, too, could venture out into the world and overcome the limitations they faced.
"I don't know what that means to a Japanese person but I know he did express, he did play along with the American dream," Bonesteel said in an interview in Tokyo, expressing hope that the film would encourage greater appreciation of people whose contributions have not always been fully recognized.
Masa, who worked at the historic Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, from 1915 before opening his own photography studio, captured the beauty of the southern Appalachian Mountains around the Smokies and mapped the surrounding terrain.
His connections with guests at the inn also played a role in efforts to establish the national park. John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated $5 million to purchase private land in the region, while President Calvin Coolidge signed legislation authorizing the park in 1926.
Carrying a camera and wooden tripod on his back, Masa hiked for miles through the mountains in search of the perfect shot. He also teamed up with local author Horace Kephart to document streams, mountains and valleys within the proposed park boundaries, which straddled North Carolina and Tennessee.
"He was just so much better at what you considered the basics -- exposure, focus and sharpness. I see patterns in his work, where he seems to not overemphasize an object but tries to create balance in the image," said Bonesteel.
In 2011, Obama praised the conservationist duo in remarks on his America's Great Outdoors initiative, noting that they had helped rally people in one of the country's poorest regions behind the cause.
Bonesteel, who received a Midsouth Emmy Award in 2025, released his latest documentary in the United States this year. It is his second film about Masa, following "The Mystery of George Masa," which aired on PBS in 2003.
The 87-minute documentary sheds light on previously unknown aspects of the photographer's life before his arrival in Asheville, including a possible reason for his move to a town with no established Japanese immigrant community.
Born in Tokyo in 1885 Masa was adopted by a family in Shizuoka Prefecture and given the name Shoji Endo. He may have developed his love of mountains while growing up near Mt. Fuji, Japan's tallest and most iconic mountain, according to researchers involved in the latest film.
Where and how he learned photography remains unclear, but Bonesteel believes Masa was largely self-taught. He may have honed his skills by observing prominent American photographers Edward and Asahel Curtis, who photographed numerous expeditions, through the Mazamas, a mountaineering club he joined in Portland, Oregon.
Bonesteel discovered Masa's original identity after his 2003 documentary aired, when a member of a household where the photographer had once rented a room contacted him to say they had preserved documents belonging to Masa.
The documents suggested Endo was connected to an incident in which money went missing at a Japanese American baseball club he played for in the Pacific Northwest. The incident may have prompted his move east, Bonesteel said.
Masa died alone of an illness at age 48 in a sanitarium, a year before Great Smoky Mountains National Park was officially established in 1934.
Before his death, Masa had been praised as the "best mountaineer" on the North Carolina side of the mountains by a senior official of the National Park Service, according to Taiichi Ito, a visiting professor at Edogawa University's National Park Research Institute.
"One of the obituaries talked about how much he loved America. Maybe he felt (the United States) gave him a freedom that he needed even with all the trouble," Bonesteel said.
A 1,733-meter peak named Masa Knob now stands in the park in his honor, commemorating the photographer's legacy in a landscape that attracted more than 11 million visitors in 2025.
