CDV on cardstock mount showing Ouray, or Arrow, Head Chief of the Uncompahgre Ute. Verso with Gurnsey's Colorado Springs, Colorado imprint, ca 1879. Ouray died the following year, while returning from a trip to Washington, DC.

Chief Ouray was a leader within the Ute tribe, specifically over the Uncompahgre band of Utes, then located in western Colorado. In his youth, Ouray worked for Mexican sheepherders, and went on to fight the Kiowa and the Sioux before taking over his father's position as chief in 1860. Ouray was not only recognized as a leader by his own people, but by the United States government, as he met Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Ulysses S. Grant as a representative of his people.