Montana Yesterday

Posted By admin on December 6, 2011

Charles Dowd joined the U.S. Navy in January 1941, shortly after he turned 17. But he didn’t do it to fight in a war.

“Never thought of it,” said Dowd when Missoulian photographer Michael Gallacher and I sat down with him Tuesday at his home in Anaconda.

Dowd, a Pearl Harbor survivor, comes to Missoula on Wednesday to talk at the Rocky Mountain Museum of Military History at Fort Missoula at 2 p.m. (see story in Wednesday’s Missoulian).  He told us he and others felt “pretty secure” until the devastating Dec. 7 morning when Japanese planes launched an all-out attack on the ships and military installations near of Honolulu.

To those in Hawaii, the war in Europe must have seemed like an abstraction, even for military personnel like Dowd. They knew Japan was trying to expand its empire, he said. It had overrun Manchuria 10 years earlier, and in late 1937 captured the former Chinese capital of Nanking, a victory that was followed by six weeks of mass murder, genocide and atrocities that are remembered as the Rape of Nanking.

“That was pretty horrific,” Dowd said, “so to punish them we cut off their oil, their scrap metal. We cut off a lot of things to them, and I think that’s what helped bring them against us.”

But Japan’s direct attack on the U.S. territory of Hawaii at Pearl Harbor wasn’t even on the radar screen. Literally.

In a narrative Dowd wrote in 1991 to mark the 50^th anniversary of the attack,  he remembered the early 1940s as a “slow, lovely, easy time to live.” He waxed nostalgic about an era in which kids hung out at soda fountains with jukeboxes, and people danced to the sounds of the Big Band Era. Dowd loved that music and loved to sing along. Just last year he donned his Navy uniform and sang a tribute to the 1940s at the Elks Club in Anaconda. Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Bennie Goodman – they were all favorites, he said.

It’s easier, then, to understand the shock, rage and fury that Americans felt when planes of a nation that wasn’t widely viewed as an enemy threat suddenly appeared and bombed that world away.

Category: 1940s, Aviation, Commemorations, Historic presentation, history milestones, War, World War II | No Comments »
Tags: 1941, Anaconda, Artie Shaw, Bennie Goodman, Fort Missoula, Glenn Miller, Manchuria, Montana, Pearl Harbor, Rape of Nanking, Rocky Mountain Museum of Military History, War in the Pacific, World War II

Posted By admin on March 21, 2011

A reader thought others might be interested to hear the story about the bodies that were found when the city was digging to lay the foundation for Rattlesnake School.

On Oct. 14, 1992, a story written by Donna Syvertson appeared in the Missoulian. It was about a memorial at Rattlesnake School dedicated to the dead who were buried where the school was later built. The memorial, described below, still stands with a dedication plaque that says the cemetery was used from 1888-1930.

Here are the first few paragraphs:

“Rattlesnake School dedicated a memorial Tuesday to the hundreds of dead who are buried in its schoolyard.

The memorial consists of a 6-foot concrete arch with 10 faces on it; the faces represent different ages and races of the people in the cemetery. A smaller arch signifies a bridge from one kind of existence to another. Much of the work was volunteered.

Pieces of human skeletons were discovered in 1989, when Chlo Murdock and her daughter were walking through the school grounds, where a new addition to the school was being built. After finding a skull bone, Murdock reported the findings to the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office.

Murdock and Susan Liles began to research the graveyard, which was a potter’s field on the grounds of the old Missoula County Poor Farm, Detention House and Hospital. It was used through the early 1930s. The cemetery’s register could not be found. But old funeral home records, which started in 1901, turned up 454 people buried in the cemetery. There is a possibility 750 bodies actually were buried there, Murdock said.

Not all of them are poor people. Many died without family or friends to care for them. Railroad accidents claimed 56 men. The bodies of children filled 37 graves and women, 19. Chinese people accounted for 14 graves while Indians and four blacks were buried in the field.”

On its website, the Missoula Cemetery offers an intriguing synopsis of local historical cemetery sites. It says there was also a graveyard beneath what’s now Prescott School in the lower Rattlesnake that was used as early as 1883, when the railroad first came through.

“The site was chosen by the local Chinese immigrants due to its clear and prestigious view of the valley,” it says.

There is also evidence of an Indian burial ground where the former Safeway Store on West Broadway was built. The city-founding Higgins family had its own private cemetery at the base of Whitaker Hill (the bodies were ultimately removed to the Missoula City Cemetery).

Go to: http://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/DocumentView.aspx?DID=406

Category: 1870s-1880s, Chinese in Montana, Missoula history, Missoulian, Montana local history, Native Americans, Northern Pacific Railroad, Railroads, Uncategorized, Western Montana history | No Comments »
Tags: Chinese in Missoula, Chlo Murdock, Detention House and Hospital, Indian burial round, Missoula City Cemetery, Missoula County Poor Farm, Missoula County Sheriff's Office, Missoula Higgins family, Missoula poor farm, Missoula Safeway on West Broadway, Northern Pacific Railroad, Rattlesnake School, Susan Liles

Posted By admin on March 21, 2011

It wasn’t always a straight shot down South from the Missoula County Fairgrounds to Fort Missoula. (Come to think about it, it’s STILL not, what with the rerouting of traffic at Malfunction Junction.)

Local roads sleuth Jim Habeck dug up this from the Missoula-Sentinel archives. It’s dated Oct. 28, 1930, and it begs the question how exactly one did travel from the generally unpopulated area around the fairgrounds to the Fort.

Headlined “Fort Missoula Road Finished by County,” the two-paragraph story noted, “One of the most valuable improvements of the roads in the vicinity of Missoula has been the recent completion of the South avenue project by the county commissioners. This road extends from the fairgrounds west to the Fort Missoula entrance.

“A great deal of work was done on this section of highway, which is about a mile long. Previously the road followed the rolling contour of the country, but now has been graded level. Curves have also been eliminated and the road is now a mile-long straightaway. All the fort traffic follows this highway.”

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
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Posted By admin on February 22, 2011

Feb. 22,1889
Ten days before he left office, and 100 years after George Washington became the nation’s first president, Grover Cleveland marked Washington‘s birthday by signing an act enabling Montana, South and North Dakota and Washington to be admitted to the union – if they could come up with constitutions.

“These four states will therefore come into the Union during the centennial year of our national government,” noted the New York Times. “But for the narrow strip of Idaho which stretches to the northern border between Montana and Washington, they would carry the union of states continuously across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.”

Cleveland’s signature came after years of political maneuvering in Congress, where Republicans were reluctant to admit a territory that leaned Democratic. Likewise, Democrat lawmakers were opposed to a package deal that would make states of Republican territories.

When Republicans gained control of Congress in 1888, lame duck Democrats dropped their objections to the admission of the Dakotas and Washington, which were all Republican.

It was the farthest Montana Territory had proceeded in four attempts to gain statehood – and it ultimately succeeded. A constitutional convention met in Helena in the summer to hammer out a constitution. Statehood followed on Nov. 8.

Category: 1870s-1880s, history milestones, Montana, Montana Territory | No Comments »
Tags: 1889 Montana, Dakotas, Feb. 22 1889, Grover Cleveland, Montana statehood, Nov. 8 1889, Omnibus Bill

Posted By admin on February 21, 2011

Feb. 21, 1882
This was the day the first telephone exchange in Montana was installed in Butte by the Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone Company.

The event came exactly four years after the first genuine experiment with telephones in Helena. There were 14 subscribers to the Butte system, most of them businesses.

Service was not immediately available, since arrival of the transmitters was delayed by a snow blockade on the Utah and Northern rail line 150 miles south of town. The U and N, Montana’s first railroad, had made its appearance in Butte in late 1881. One week earlier, a Butte newspaper reported that subscribers were being enlisted for an electric light system in town.

Category: 1870s-1880s, Communications, Helena history, history milestones, Railroads, Telephones, Western Montana history | 5 Comments »
Tags: 1882 Montana, Butte history, Helena history, Rocky Mountain Bell, Telephone history, Utah and Northern Railroad

Posted By admin on January 24, 2011

This was in the Jan. 24, 1924, Missoulian, under the headline “1,000 At Missoula’s First Ice Carnival: Exceptional Weather Brings Out Large Crowd to Initial Rink Event”

Missoula’s first skating carnival was a success.
Any doubt in the matter will be settled affirmatively by the crowd of nearly one thousand that lined the circumference of the rink last night and stayed until the finish of the last event. True, the weather was a little cold, but by dancing and prancing the spectators kept their blood circulating rapidly enough for them to enjoy the contests.”

The rink was built at the city park, home of a baseball field in the summer time, on the block south of the NP depot at the top of Higgins Avenue. Pattee Street was lined with autos, “and each machine was filled to the guards with rooters,” the unidentified reporter said. (All reporters went unidentified back in those days.)

James Phelan was proclaimed the outstanding performer of the meet. He “displayed an excellent knowledge of racing in the 10-tap, free-for-all race,” whatever that was. Rosalind Reynolds, a local university student, received a basket of roses as “the pretties girl to take part in the contests.” She also took first prize in the women’s single fancy skating contest, presumably the precursor of figure skating.

See if you recognize the family names of some of the other winners, kids by the names of Lloyd Yerkes, Warren Sumner, David Evans, Mary Gibson, Tad Meeker, Arthur Simerson, Pat Thibodeau, Roberta Tait; and men and women named Esmond Dahlberg, Bill Walsh, Olive Gibson and Alice Marion.

Category: 1920s, Missoula history, Missoulian, sports, Western Montana history | No Comments »
Tags: Alice Marion, Arthur Simerson, Bill Walsh, David Evans, Esmond Dahlberg, Higgins Avenue, ice carnival, James Phelan, Lloyd Yerkes, Mary Gibson, Missoula 1924, Missoulian, NP station, Olive Gibson, Pat Thibodeau, Pattee Street, Roberta Tait, Rosalind Reynolds, single fancy skating contest, Tad Meeker, Warren Sumner

Posted By admin on January 24, 2011

From the New York Times on Jan. 22, 1911, under the headline “Last Buffalo Hunt Now On: Michel Pablo Killing Off His Herd in Spite of Montana Authorities”

CALGARY, Alberta, Jan. 21 – The last act of a spectacular deal is now being enacted on the plains of the Flathead Reservation in Montana, where Michel Pablo … who sold to the Canadian Government 500 head of Buffalo, the last existing herd in the United States, is now, in face of warnings and threats from the authorities of Montana, killing off some twenty bulls which he was unable to corral and ship to Canada.
The last big buffalo hunt in the history of the world, which was proposed by Pablo, was called off by the Montana authorities on the ground that it would be a violation of the game laws of the State, but for three weeks Pablo has been hunting and shooting down these bulls, and has already killed half a dozen or more.”

According to a story the Missoulian’s Vince Devlin wrote in 2008, on the occasion of the National Bison Range’s 100th anniversary, Pablo and Charles Allard bought 13 bison in 1884, even as the last ones disappeared from the plains. They grew the herd to 300 by the mid-1890s. Allard died in 1896, and some of his portion of the buffalo were sold in 1901 to Charles Conrad of Kalispell. When the Flathead Reservation was opened to non-Indian settlement in 1910, Pablo was told he couldn’t raise buffalo. He eventually sold the herd to the Canadian government, which was establishing a herd of its own near Edmonton, Alberta. Apparently, he couldn’t catch 20 of them.

Category: 1870s-1880s, 1910s, Buffalo, Flathead reservation, Montana tribes, Uncategorized, Western Montana history | No Comments »
Tags: 1911, Buffalo, Charles Allard, Charles Conrad, Edmonton, Flathead reservation, Michel Pablo, Missoulian, Montana, National Bison Range, New York Times

Posted By admin on October 29, 2010

Oct. 29, 1867
There are eight school districts in Madison County, but as far as A.M.S. Carpenter can tell, none are open in Beaverhead County and none have even been organized in Chouteau County.

In fact, Carpenter knows of only two of Montana’s 10 counties that have schools. So he has noted in a report that Gov. Green Clay Smith receives today in Virginia City, the first from a superintendent of public instruction in Montana.

Carpenter, appointed in March, complains that only one county superintendent has even submitted a report to him, and the November Legislative session is fast approaching. He plans to submit a bill to establish a complete system of public schools.

“We all believe and know that there is hidden in the rock-ribbed hills of our Territory such countless treasures as shall draw thousands upon thousands of settlers within our borders to build up our future State,” Carpenter wrote. “What every lover of Montana wants today is that a class of emigrants who desire above all things that their children shall be educated may be induced to settle among us.

“Those men who never inquire, ‘Can my children have there the advantages of good schools?’ when determining where they shall find a home, are not the men who build up great States.”

Category: 1850s-1860s, Mining, Montana Territory, Virginia City | No Comments »
Tags: A.M.S. Carpenter, Beaverhead County, Chouteau County, Gov. Green Clay Smith, Madison County, Montana schools, Montana Territory, superintendent of public instruction

Posted By admin on October 26, 2010

Oct. 26, 1903
This was the day F. Augustus Heinze stood on the balcony of the Butte courthouse and warned 10,000 laid-off miners: “If they crush me today they will crush you tomorrow.”

Four days earlier Heinze’s nemesis, the powerful Amalgamated Copper Company, shut down all its enterprises in Montana, eventually laying off nearly four-fifths of the wage earners in the state.

The “Great Shutdown” was the response by Amalgamated, a holding company for Standard Oil, to unfavorable mining claims rulings in Butte district court. The rulings were made by judges allied with Heinze, Amalgamated’s chief antagonist.

“They will cut your wages and raise the tariff in the company stores on every bite you eat and every rag you wear,” Heinze told the miners. “They will force you to dwell in Standard Oil houses while you live, and they will bury you in Standard Oil coffins when you die.”

The shutdown would last until Nov. 11, the day after Gov. Joseph Toole agrees to call a special legislative session for Dec. 1 to consider the Amalgamated-backed Fair Trials Bill. The law allowed either party in a lawsuit a change of venue if it thought the judge was prejudiced against its case. The law passed quickly and remains in effect today.

Category: 1900, Butte, Mining, Montana | 1 Comment »
Tags: 1903 Montana, Amalgamated Copper Co., Butte courthouse, F. Augustus Oil, Gov. Joseph Toole, mining layoffs, Montana's Fair Trials Bill, Standard Oil

Posted By admin on October 25, 2010

Oct. 25, 1923
Construction of the USS Montana at a shipyard north of San Francisco is halted by terms of a naval arms limitation treaty. The second American war vessel to be named after the Treasure State is more than one-quarter completed.

Had she and the other South Dakota-class ships finished, the Montana would have been the largest, most heavily armed and armored battleships in the Navy between world wars. Its main battery was to consist of 12 and 16-inch guns. The Washington Naval Treaty limited the ocean fleets of most of the world’s powers. It was signed by Italy, Japan, Great Britain and France at a conference in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 22, 1922.
The United States would build no battleships again until 1937.

The first USS Montana was launched in 1906 and served extensively during and after World War I to transport soldiers home from Europe. It was later renamed the USS Missoula. A cargo ship christened the USS Montanan was sunk by a torpedo in 1918.

Five Montana-class battleships will be designed before U.S. entrance into World War II, but their keels will never be laid. The Navy will scrap them during the war in favor of aircraft carriers.

Category: 1920s, Uncategorized, War, World War I, World War II | No Comments »
Tags: South Dakota-class ships, USS Missoula, USS Montana, Washington Naval Treaty