Killing Time in Montana's Past

If you have ever had to spend several hours in a waiting room, you know that it can be grueling.  I do it for almost five hours three times a week while my husband undergoes his dialysis treatment.  I know I should be working on my new book or some other more productive pursuit, but sometimes I just need a diversion. While trying to pretend I was doing something worthwhile, I started doing random searches on Google for historical photographs of Montana. Now I find myself doing it each time I sit down at the computer to work. I have made a little game of it to test my Montana history knowledge. When I see picture that interests me I try to figure out as much as I can before I click on the photo.  

Sometimes I just enter a broad subject in the search box, something like "historical Montana photos" sometimes I enter a narrower topic like "historical Anaconda Montana photos."  I am never disappointed. It is fun to find subjects that are familiar and you give yourself a mental pat on the back when you recognize a person or place from Montana's past and it is exciting when a photo links you to a new destination or a new story.  

Bannack State Park Reopening Today

Bannack State Park is reopening today.  On July 17, 2013 a flash flood poured down Hangman's gulch and raged down the main street of Bannack, washing away boardwalks and one building and leaving mud and destruction in its wake.  I cried when I watched the news that night. Bannack has always been the place I have gone when I felt the need to get away.  Like a religious person needs a church as a tangible touchstone, I need my preserved and restored historic sites to connect with Montana's history.  I wish I could be in Bannack today to see for myself what has transpired in Bannack's latest page in history.

As devastating as the flood was to the town, it was just that, another page in Bannack's history.  Like every town that has ever existed, there have been periods of growth and prosperity and times of despair and disaster. The difference with Bannack is that there has been so much work preserving the past and it was all jeopardized by an act of nature.  I am sure that the Montana State Park personal responsible for the care of Bannack has done a fine job of getting the park ready to reopen.  I suspect there might be some new photos in the visitor center of the flood and it's aftermath.

Kalispell Cemetery Tours

I learned of a series of Cemetery Tours this weekend while watching the evening news.  This time the tours take place in Kalispell at the C.E. Conrad Memorial Cemetery.  The most recent tour focused on the Women in Kalispell's history.  The next one, scheduled for July 20, 2013 at 10:00 am focuses on Civil War Veterans.  I love a good cemetery tour but I am afraid it is too far for me to travel for this one.

The thing that strikes me most about these tours is that the Cemetery Association is making sure that the stories of the people didn't die with them.  Everyone has a story and sadly those stories are seldom remembered for long after a person passes.  I have to admire the researchers who work to find the stories and pass them on. I also like that the tours each have a theme. I hope that this tradition of tours goes on for a long time. This is what history is really all about.

June 19, 1938 Olympian Train Disaster

It was seventy-five years ago today that a flash flood on Custer Creek in Eastern Montana weakened a trestle and caused the worst train disaster in Montana History. When the Milwaukee Railroad's luxurious Olympian reached the weakened trestle it gave way and several cars were swept away by the swollen creek.

An account of the Olympian Disaster can b found in my book, Montana Disasters, Floods, Fires and Other Catastrophes which is available at bookstores and libraries in many locations throughout the state or online. 

Back in 1938, there wasn't the same kind of warning systems that we have in place today.  When the railroad employee checked the tracks just hours before the disaster there was nothing to indicate that a storm  was brewing upstream, intense enough to turn Custer Creek into a raging wall of water.  We are lucky enough today to have easy access to National Weather Service Flash Flood warnings at our finger tips.  

Ghost Signs

An interesting aspect of some of Montana's historical towns are usually overlooked or I suppose I should say under-looked.  That is to say the if you don't look up, you might miss some interesting ghost signs.  Butte has a bunch of ghost signs and so does my home town of Livingston Montana.  These signs painted on the buildings that once housed the businesses advertised are the only thing that is left of the original occupants. Ghost signs are most commonly found on brick structures but I suppose you might find them on any surface that has withstood the elements.


These are some of the ghost signs found in Livingston:

Last Chance Tour Train, Helena

It summer time again and for many of us that means vacations or long weekends to travel.  For those of you who have never spent any time in Helena Montana, you are missing a great historical destination.  If your visit falls on any day but Sunday, be sure to check out the Last Chance Tour Train.  It departs from in front of the Montana Historical Society Museum for one hour tours that provide an overview of the city.  If you only have a few hours to spend in Helena, the time would be well spent at the Museum and a ride on the Tour Train.  If you are lucky enough to be spending a day or two, the tour will give you an idea of where you might want to spend more time exploring. The "engineer" also serves as the the tour guide and every time we have taken the tour, the guide was very knowledgeable and entertaining.

For more information about the Last Chance Tour Train and other tour information I suggest visiting their website for tour details, schedules and contact information.

http://www.lctours.com

For visitors with disabilities, the museum is handicapped accessible but the tour train is less so.  My husband Frank was able to board the train with his walker and a little help, but special arrangements would be necessary for anyone with mobility issues.

Technology and History

Last night I stayed up late watching the breaking news about the capture of the suspect in the Boston Marathon Bombings.  Along with the live coverage of the manhunt in Watertown, the news teams showed how cellphone photos and surveillance footage was used to identify the men suspected of this horrible deed. Imagine what it would be like if that same technology had been around when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

In the unlikely event that John Wilkes Booth had gotten past modern type secret service agents, and taken his deadly shot, everyone in the theater would have taken out their smart phones, video taped his escape and had them uploaded to U-Tube before he even left the building.  How far would Booth had gotten, if everyone was aware of what had transpired within minutes?

My point is that technology is not only effecting our everyday lives, it is changing the way is history is made and how it is recorded. The Montana Post, published in Virginia City, Montana Territory, carried the news of Lincoln's assassination on the front page of the April 29, 1865 edition. It is hard to imagine that people in Montana Territory did not even know that President Lincoln had been assassinated until two weeks later.  Can you imagine what it would be like to have access to the live coverage of the pursuit of Booth and a press conference in front of the boarding house where Lincoln was taken after being shot.

While I sometimes think that we are slaves to our devices, spending more time than we should tweeting and checking our email, it is times like these, when history is being made, that I am glad that I am alive during a time where we can be witnesses to the events that effect our lives and lives of future generations.

A New Blog and and Additon to This One

One of the things that my husband, Frank, and I have always shared is a love for Montana Travel.  When we were younger, many summer weekends were spent exploring the state and points beyond on a Honda Gold Wing. Unfortunately those days are far behind us and diabetes complications have taken their toll on Frank.  These days his form of transportation is a battery operated scooter.  We have had to cut back on our travel, but that hasn't stopped us. 

You are probably wondering why I am mentioning all of this in a history blog.  Many of the locations that I mention are handicapped accessible.  Some are not.  In future blog posts I will include accessiblily information about any destination that I am recommending.   I would also like to share my new blog, www.MTBarrierFree.blogspot.com with any of my followers who might have mobiltiy issues or other disabilities.  It is dedicated to sharing information about all that Montana has to offer to everyone, regardless of any special needs. 

Glacier National Park Mystery 1924

Wouldn't it be grand to solve a mystery that took place almost  90 years ago. In August of 1924, two brothers from Chicago disappeared during a hike in Glacier National Park. The brothers set off from Granite Park but never arrived at their destination, the Lewis Hotel on Lake McDonald.  An extensive search was conducted, the FBI was called in, yet no evidence ever surfaced to close the case.  It remains to this day unsolved.

I first read about the Whitehead brothers, Joseph and William in the book, Roadside History of Montana, written by Don Spritzer and published Mountain Press. You can read more about the Whitehead mystery on page 110.  If you haven’t read this book, I recommend it highly.  It is full of Montana history, organized to follow highways and roads where the events took place.

I seriously doubt that anyone would be able to piece together what happened to the Whitehead brothers so long after the fact, but wouldn't it be something if someone came upon some missing bit of information that finally solved the mystery of their disappearance.

Photo Mystery, What is This?

For years, every time I drove east on Interstate 90 near Three Forks I would notice this structure on the hillside near the highway and I would tell myself that next time I would stop at the Three Forks Museum and ask if someone could tell me what it is.  By the time I visited the area again I would forget to stop, or I would pass through the town when the museum was closed.  So I am asking anyone out there if they can solve this mystery for me.  

Structure on hillside south of Interstate 90,  just east of  Three Forks,  Montana

I always assumed that the structure had something to do with the limestone business because of the proximity to Trident and its cement plant but I could be way off base.  Any thoughts on the matter?

Montana UFO's and Extraterrestrials- recommended reading

A few weeks ago, I was at the library, (that being the Livingston -Park County Public Library) doing some research.  After I finished and my computer was installing its automatic updates, I had a few minutes to kill so I wandered upstairs  to see what was new in the new book section.  Usually I check to see if there are any new arrivals from my favorite authors as well as anything relevant to Montana history.  As I was browsing the selves, I came across a book entitled  Montana UFOs and Extraterrestrials.  I picked it up and looked at it and set it down again.  I am not sure why I hesitated, I suppose partially because I really have plenty to read and partially because I thought I didn't  want to waste my time reading about something that may or may not even exist.

For some reason I mentioned the book to my husband and he said that he would like read it, so the next day I went back and checked it out. When I brought it home I took a closer look.  What first caught my attention was the credentials of the author, Joan Bird.  Ms. Bird is about as far from being a crackpot as a person can be, she holds a PhD in biology and has worked the scientific field for years.  She has approached the topic in a well researched and organized manner. Her facts are well documented and  the book is interesting and thought provoking.  My husband hasn't had the chance to tell me what he thinks of the book because once I started reading it, I didn't want to put it down until I was finished. 

I can even justify the time I have spent reading the book and then writing this post for my Montana History blog by telling you that  the events that are documented in Montana UFOs and Extraterrestrials is in fact part of Montana history.

Before Montana History- Montana Before History

As a writer who specializes in Montana history, I have never spent much time reading accounts of Montana Prehistory.  I tend to leave that part of Montana’s past to those who are the experts.  I have, however, always wondered about what happened before the recorded history of Montana.  When I discovered the book, Montana Before History, 11,000 Years of Hunter-Gatherers in the Rockies and Plains on the library shelf, I knew I had found a book that would fill me in on the prehistory of Montana , giving me some basic knowledge without making me wade through volumes of scholarly papers.  The book is a slim volume having less than 200 pages, but it is a good book for people like me who want to know a little about the subject, or a starting point for who wants to delve deeper.  

According to the author’s bio at the back of the book, Douglass H. MacDonald lives in Missoula, where teaches in the Anthropology department at the University of Montana.  He holds a PhD from the University of Washington . I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to take a brief journey back to the time before Montana History.

One tip I would like to share, when I read a book like this on an unfamiliar subject, I read through the glossary first, that way I don’t have to keep going to the back of the book. 

Montana Before History

11,000 Years of Hunter-Gatherers in the Rockies and Plains

Author: Douglass H. McDonald

Published by Mountain Press Publishing Company.

 

Helena fire January 9, 1874, Historic losses.

At 7:00 am, January 9, 1874 fire erupted in the Chinatown district of downtown Helena, Montana. Getting the fire started for the day, the Chinese cook used too much coal oil, causing an explosion and igniting one site of the room. He grabbed a bucket of what he thought was water to dose the flames but it was more of the oil.  Fueled with the additional oil the building was quickly engulfed in flames. Before the fire was stopped it had destroyed most of the city's businesses and 150 homes.

While the destruction of the homes and businesses was devastating, buildings can be rebuilt, after all this was the third time Helena had suffered a great fire and yet she always managed to rise from the ashes.  What could not be replaced were records of the Montana Historical Society which were kept in the law office of Wilbur Fisk Sanders.  Also destroyed were all of the books and record of the Montana Masonic Grand Lodge.  For someone researching early Montana history, the thought of all those early documents going up in flames is heart wrenching.

There was only one casualty of the fire, Konrad Knipper, was trapped in the International Hotel where he was employed.  

Helena's Guardian of the Gulch behind another Helena landmark, the Bluestone House.
The tower was built to after Helena's devastating series of fires to alert the citizens.

Check it out - Lost and Found Montana

I recently encountered a brief mention of the Lost and Found Montana project in a newspaper insert.  While this project is news to me, it is not new news.  Way back in August, the story of Jeremy Lurgio,’s project appeared in the Missoulian.  Lost and Found Montana is a multimedia presentation and website documenting 18 towns that the Department of Transportation planned to eliminate from the state road map. Lurgio is an associate professor of photojournalism and multimedia at the University of Montana. His Lost and Found Montana Exhibit was unveiled at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography in Missoula and at the same time he launched his website lostandfoundMontana.com. The exhibit ran through October and netted Lurgio second place at Atlanta Photojournalism contest for Multimedia Interactive Presentation.  I have visited the website and I encourage everyone else to do so too.  It is a reminder that even though towns can seem to vanish, their people and their stories do not.  The wide expanse that is Montana is full of remnants of towns that have all but disappeared.

www.lostandfoundmontana.com

County Name Quiz Answers

I hope you enjoyed the County Name Quiz.  Here are the answers:

1.  Judith Basin County was named for the Judith River.  The river was named by Meriwether Lewis for his cousin, Judith Hancock of Faircastle, Virginia.

2.  Garfield County was named for President James Garfield who was assassinated in 1881 after serving less than six months in office.

3.   Ravalli County was named for the Jesuit Missionary, Father Anthony Ravalli,  who arrived in the Bitterroot Valley in 1845. You can learn more about Father Ravilli at:
                      http://www.saintmarysmission.org/PhotoTourRavalli.html

4.  The name for Mineral County was suggested by George Willett, a railroad employee who was elected to serve in the state legislature.  Willett had served in the Philippines during the Spanish American War where he contracted leprosy.  It took years before the symptoms of the disease developed and Willet had just been elected for a second term when he became ill. At that time there was no known cure for the malady.  After living in quarantine near Alberton,  he and his wife were forced to move to a leprosarium.

5.  Lincoln County was named for President Abraham Lincoln.

6.  Sanders County was named for Wilbur Fisk Sanders, nephew of the first territorial governor, Sidney Edgerton.

7.  The counties that were named specifically to attract homesteaders were Richland, Golden Valley and Treasure.  (I guess with the Bakken (check the spelling) oil boom, Richland County  has really lived up to its name.)

8.  Toole County was named for J.K. Toole, Montana’s first Governor.

9.  The obvious answer for this question is Lewis and Clark County.  The not so obvious one is Chouteau County which was named for Augustus and Pierre Chouteau,  fur traders, American Pioneers and founders of the city of St. Louis.

I hope you enjoyed this quiz. On a final note here is some food for thought.  If part of the county you live in were to break off to form a new county what would you suggest for the new county’s name?

Montana County Name Quiz

As a diversion from all the holiday hustle and bustle, I thought you might enjoy a short quiz to test your knowledge of Montana County history.

1.  There are twenty six counties in Montana that were named for men, either directly or indirectly. (By indirectly, I mean that a county was named for a river or other feature that was named for a person.  An example would be Madison County which was named for the Madison River which was by the Lewis and Clark Expedition for then Secretary of State James Madison).  Only one Montana County was indirectly named for a woman. Can you name that county?

2.  Of the counties named for U.S. Presidents, which one bears the name of an assassinated president that did not play an important role in Montana history?

3.  Which county was named for an important religious figure who figured prominently  in Western Montana history?

4.  This is a hard one, don’t feel bad if you don’t get the answer.  Which county, formed in 1914, was named by a man who served in the state legislature from that county and later was quarantined there because he suffered from leprosy?  (I warned you it was a hard one.)

5.  Which county was named for the U.S. President who signed the bill making Montana a territory?

6.  Which county was named for a man who was a vigilante, a lawyer, first president of the Montana Historical Society, and  represented the state of Montana in the U.S. Senate?

7.  There were three counties whose names were chosen to attract homesteaders. Can you name at least two of them?

8.  Which county was named for a Montana Governor?

9.   This is another tricky one.  Which two counties were named for two men?

I will post the answers in a couple of days so that you can see how you did.

Remnants and Relics

Montana is full of remnants and relics of its colorful past.  I am not referring to the obvious ones like the well preserved ghost towns or the highly recognized landmark’s like the head frames that  loom over the city of Butte, or Helena’s old fire tower, The Guardian of the Gulch; nor am I referring to out of the way places where no one ever goes.  The remnants and relics that we often overlook are clearly visible from the streets of our towns or the highways connect our towns.

To give you an example, in Carbon County, just off of Highway 212 between Joliet and Rockvale, there are the remnants of a restaurant and hotel.  The restaurant and hotel were part of a Hot Spring Resort called Montaqua .  The resort came into being when a local prospector  named Major Keown, drilling for oil in 1904, instead tapped into a  natural hot springs.  Seeing it as a way to cash in on his discovery he built a spa.  In time a hotel and restaurant were added on.  While that in itself makes the remnants an interesting spot, the event that destroyed the business is equally compelling.  In August of 1959, the devastating earthquake near the Montana - Idaho border  caused a  major landslide, burying the campers who were trapped there.  Highways and buildings in the area were destroyed and a new  lake, Earthquake Lake, was formed.  More than a hundred miles away, the hot waster supply was cut off to Montaqua when the ground beneath it shifted.   As devastating as that was, the final blow came as a natural gas fissure opened up after the quake.  The gas was accidentally ignited and the explosion destroyed the spa.

There are many other examples of remnants and relics with interesting stories behind their demise and I will be sharing these stories from time to time.

Part of the information for this entry came from the brochure :Driving Tour of Historic Carbon County, published by the Carbon County Historical Society and Museum

Montana's First Vigilante Hanging, and no it wasn't George Ives

It is that time of year again when the cold winds and the short days cause me to ponder the events of  the winter of 1863-64 when Montana’s famous vigilantes dispensed with twenty-one of the territory’s allegedly most despicable road agents.  For a long time I thought that those hangings were the first vigilante activity in what is now Montana, but I recently discovered that there was an incident that predated those hangings by  sixteen months.

Admittedly this first vigilante justice differed from the latter hangings. It was a single event, spontaneously carried out, rather than a group of hangings carefully orchestrated by a large organized committee.  I came across this historical information while reading the book Shallow Diggin’s, Tales from Montana’s Ghost Towns, compiled by Jean Davis and published in 1962 by Caxton Printers Ltd., Caldwell Idaho.  I read this book back when I was in high school, (a historical fact in itself, considering how long it has been since I was in high school) but for some reason I had forgotten about the event in question.

In the first chapter, "Gold Creek", James Stuart’s diary contained an account of  two men coming into Gold Creek seeking some men that had stolen horses.  The men approached Stuart and asked for help from the citizens in apprehending the men in question. Stuart assured the two that they would have all the help they needed.  The three alleged horse thieves were apprehended,  but not without  incident.  One of the men pulled out his gun and was shot dead.  The other two men were kept under guard until the following morning when their fate was decided.  During the proceedings, one of the men testified that he had  no knowledge of the theft, he had only been traveling with the other two for a short time.  Evidently his story rang true and he was given six hours to leave the territory (which would have been Idaho Territory at that time.)  A man named Spillman, who had come to Gold Creek to run a gambling game, was found guilty of horse theft and was hanged at 2:22 p.m. on August 26, 1862.

The book, Shallow Diggin’s  is a wonderful book full of first hand accounts of events that took place in the gold camps during Montana’s early years.  It may not be readily available for purchase,  but  it should be available at most  Montana  public libraries.

The very first "Cats-Griz" game

The very first Cats-Griz football game took place on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1897. Off field, the attitude of the teams was much more cordial than it is today.  The game was played on a makeshift field in Missoula. There was no stadium, no tailgate parties, not even bleachers. The day before the game the Bozeman team traveled by train to Missoula where they were greeted by some women students and taken to Judge Knowles home for a reception. The next day their hosts provided a tour of Fort Missoula before the game. It wasn’t even a Cats-Griz game at that point because the Bozeman team was referred to as the
"Aggies" and the Missoula team was called “Varsity”. (It wasn’t until 1912 that the Missoula team was nicknamed the Bruins, which evolved into the Grizzlies. Shortly after that the Bozeman team became the Mountain Lions, a name that never caught on. The name Bobcats was chosen by a student body vote.)

The off-field demeanor of the two teams is not the only thing that was vastly different from contemporary games. Instead of having four quarters in a game, the early games were played in two twenty-five minute halves. Touchdowns were worth only five points and there were three downs instead of four. The biggest difference in the actual game is that forward passes were illegal. The ball could be passed laterally but the only way to advance the ball was to carry. Needless to say, this produced more injuries, since the players did not have the type of safety gear that they use today.

There was no coaching staff, the coaches were teachers who volunteered to work with the teams. The “Varsity” players probably had the advantage because their coach, Fred Smith, had played football at Cornell University. They also had the advantage of having fans on the sideline since it is unlikely that many Aggie fans made the trip.

In spite of all of the differances, the game was undoubtably very exciting, and it was the beginning of one of the most intense rivalries in the country.  The final Score Varsity-18, Aggies-6

Sedan, Montana

This morning while driving between Wilsall and Bozeman Montana via Highway 86, we passed the Sedan School.  I have never stopped there, but I know from recent research that the school is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Seeing the school again whetted my curiosity about the community of Sedan.

The first source I checked for information was the book, MONTANA PLACE NAMES, FROM ALZADA TO ZORTMAN, which was published by the Montana Historical Society in 2009.  I am fascinated in how a name is chosen when a new community springs up.  According to this source, the name Sedan was chosen by an early settler, for his former home of Sedan, Kansas.

A quick internet search netted me the following information:

The area was first settled in the mid 1880's and the post office was opened there in 1891.  By 1895, Sedan had its first school and by 1898, construction had begun on a Methodist Church. Sedan never became a real town, with houses and such.  Instead it was a small hub for the farmers and ranchers who made their homes in the area.This didn't stop them from being a real community, They even built their own telephone system, The East Flathead Telephone Company, in 1905 so that the area farmers could keep in touch. A cheese factory was opened in 1914, creating a market for the dairy farmers. It was in business until 1926.  Over the years there were a store, a community hall, and a gold mine.  It is hard to imagine, with only one building still standing, that Sedan was a lively place that hosted dances, rodeos, church and 4-H clubs. Now even the post office is gone, the mail coming from Wilsall, but the ranchers who live in the area probably still consider themselves residents of Sedan.