Posted By admin on January 29, 2010
Thanks to Minie Smith for pointing this out. She’s been researching the Fires of 1910 for the Fort Missoula museum and came across a large ad in the Aug. 20, 1910, Missoulian (the day the fires took off).
There’s a photo of the Merc in the middle top with “1885″ on one side and “1910″ on the other.
The copy above the photo reads, in part: “The Missoula Mercantile Company rounds out a Quarter-Century of Successful Merchandising in Missoula. A concern nearly forty years old — Always Foremost and Best — and grown as from acorn to oak.”
Under the photo: “Twenty-five years ago today the MIssoula Mercantile Company made its initial bow to the good people of Missoula and Western Montana. It was, however, a new concern in name only, succeeding to the business of Eddy, Hammond & Co., founded some ten to fifteen years earlier and which first occupied the site of the present store thirty-three years ago, just following the memorable raid of the Nez Perce Indian Chief, Joseph, during which the unoccupied building was the haven of safe retreat for women and children fearing for their lives — a frontier expression of the regard held always for this store’s safety, whether in a physical or commercial sense.”
Next in the ad come two letters to the public, each dated Aug. 20, 1885. The first is signed “Eddy, Hammond & Co.” and the second by “Missoula Mercantile Co.” with the Merc’s first officers on the letterhead: A.B. Hammond, Pres.; R.A. Eddy, Vice-Pres.; J.M. Keith, Sec. and Treas.; C.H. McLeod, Manager.
From what I’ve read, the “Co.” in Eddy, Hammond & Co., was Edward L. Bonner, who with Hammond and a few others was in the process of launching the lumber mill in Bonner in 1885. He had started as a merchant in Missoula, Deer Lodge and Butte (after building a ferry business across the Kootenai River in northern Idaho in the 1860s), and Bonner had a large stake in the Northern Pacific Railroad that had been completed in 1883.
The Eddy, Hammond & Co. letter read: “We give notice to our patrons and the trade that we have this day sold our business, stores, goods, book accounts, notes and good will to the MISSOULA MERCANTILE COMPANY, who are authorized to collect all accounts due us and who will pay all debts we owe for merchandise.
“Before severing our business relations with our patrons, we desire to thank them all for the very liberal patronage and kind treatment always extended our house, which has enabled us to make our business a success. We commend to their good will our successors, the Missoula Mercantile Co.”
The Merc’s letter: “Having purchased the business, book accounts, notes and good will of Eddy, Hammond & Co. we take pleasure in announcing to the public that we are prepared to offer the same terms as have heretofore been extended by them. With the past experience of the late firm before us — the members of which are directors in our company — and with ample capital to do our business so as to reach manufacturers and to buy for cash, we solicit from the public a continuance of that liberal patronage and confidence so generously extended to the firm we succeed.”
I’m guessing the two letters were written by the same hand.
Category: 1870s-1880s, Commemorations, Missoula Mercantile, Missoula history, Missoulian, Montana, Montana Territory, Montana local history, Northern Pacific Railroad, Railroads, Western Montana history |
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Tags: A.B. Hammond, C.H. McLeod, Chief Joseph, Edward Bonner, J.M. Keith, Missoula Mercantile, R.A. Eddy
