George Masa was a diminutive native of Japan who made a monumental contribution to the Smokies. His reputation has been ascending recently, but the release this week of a full-length documentary on his life may finally bring him the recognition many believe he is due.

“The Mystery of George Masa” by Paul Bonesteel of Asheville will provide the most detailed investigation to date of the artist whose early photographs of the Smokies provided many with their first look at the Southern Appalachians. During the 1920s and 1930s, his photos accompanied articles by writers such as his good friend Horace Kephart that appeared in many national publications. His photos also adorned travel brochures and postcards and wound up in the private scrapbooks of dozens of close friends and hiking companions. In addition to his photography, Masa helped establish the Appalachian Trail and worked on a committee that named many of the landmarks in the Smokies.

But mystery shrouds much of his life, and that is what inspired filmmaker Bonesteel.

“He kind of faded from the screen of local history,” said Bonesteel. “His is a fascinating story. First, there are the photographs that are so impressive. But secondly, there were just a lot of unanswered questions.”

The filmmaker was led to Masa’s story after reading an account written by William Hart Jr. in the book May We All Remember Well, A Journal of the History and Culture of Western North Carolina. That volume was published in 1997, and a second volume has since come out.

Masa, whose real name was Masahara Iizuka, came to the U.S. around 1905 to attend college in Colorado and study mining engineering. He was 24 at the time. When his father died, he quit school and began traveling. He wound up in Asheville in 1915 and got a job at the newly built (1913) Grove Park Inn as a valet and laundry presser.

According to Hart’s article, Masa began a part-time business processing film for tourists at two local hotels. The business grew, and he expanded into photography. It was taking pictures that became his passion, and by the time he died penniless in 1933 in the Buncombe County sanitarium, he had produced an archive of about 6,000 images, according to Bonesteel. However, with no will and no inheritor, the images were scattered.

“What exists now is a small percentage of that,” said Bonesteel.

As he began making phone calls and doing research to determine if there was enough information about Masa to make a film, Bonesteel found that the record of his life was incomplete. Several factors contributed to the lack of details: the scattering of his estate after his death, that Masa told his friends little about his personal life, and because of the length of time since his death.

Part of Bonesteel’s research entailed unearthing enough photos to do a documentary, and that may add as much to Masa’s legacy as the film itself.

“When we started, we knew of about 50 to 100 photographs. Of those, 20 to 30 were exceptional. Since then we have found several hundred more,” said Bonesteel.

The photographic excavation and the compelling life story kept Bonesteel interested as the work progressed.

“We soon saw that we would be breaking new ground with this, that it would be investigative journalism. As we worked we began revealing new things about his life,” said Bonesteel.

Even though he died broke, part of what makes Masa’s story intriguing is how he rose from a valet and laundryman to a friend of the social elite in Asheville and the surrounding region.

“It was quite a climb,” said Bonesteel. “In 18 years he went from laundryman to a key person in the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Appalachian Trail. He was associating with people like the Vanderbilts and the most impressive visitors to the Grove Park.”

As the movement for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Appalachian Trail grew, Masa played a key role. He wrote letters, became a member of different groups advocating for preservation, even sent photos to Calvin Coolidge’s wife, and drew his own maps and trail guides.

An image many acquaintances related is that of a tireless Masa hiking to remote areas of the Smokies and always patient enough to wait hours for just the right light for his photographs. While getting to those out-of-the-way locales, Masa was always gripping the handlebars of his self-styled bicycle wheel odometer, a camera strapped to his back and tiny tins of caviar for food.

“I hope that this is a story good enough to capture a lot of people’s attention,” said Bonesteel.