Montana Yesterday

Are you thinking it’s Little Bighorn time?

admin | May 27, 2010

I especially get the urge to get back to the battlefield this time of year. My daughter and I drove right by 10 days ago — in a nice electric storm on the plains, not the snowy white palette pictured to the right. We couldn’t stop. Here’s a tidbit that I found and am including [...]

Late-breaking developments from Fort Benton & Mullan Road conference

admin | May 9, 2010

The Mullan Road conference, marking the 150th anniversary of the road’s construction, is May 20-22 in Fort Benton and there’s still time to register.  They want the registration forms by May 17 for those who want to take part in the whole shooting match, which includes what should be a great bus trip to the [...]

Lewis, Clark, Moulton and Sacajawea

admin | March 20, 2010

In the post below, I noted that Gary Moulton is working on a narrative of the day-by-day travels of Lewis and Clark. At a conference called “Science & Humanities: Inseparable by Nature” last Sunday in Great Falls, he talked about another research project concerning Sacajawea. How many times, he asked an audience that was clearly [...]

From Carl Haywood, David Thompson scholar from Thompson Falls

admin | January 25, 2010

Carl Haywood of Thompson Falls (“Sometimes Only Horses to Eat”) sent this note in last Thursday: Wanted to share an exciting bit of information with friends and relatives I think might be interested. An hour ago I received an e-mail inviting me to present a paper on Explorer David Thompson (the subject of my book) [...]

What was Montana like when Mullan came through?

admin | December 8, 2009

We’re in the early stages of the 150th anniversary of construction of the Mullan Road (see story in Missoulian, Dec. 5) and if you’re like me you get to wondering what it was like around here in 1859-60. George Weisel’s trusty “Men and Trade on the Northwest Frontier,” a  remarkable study based on the ledger [...]

The road to the Griz-Cat game

admin | November 19, 2009

Thought I’d trot this one out again. We ran it in the paper in the lead-up to  the 2001 “Brawl of the Wild.” Not everyone in Montana gives a damn about the Grizzly-Bobcat football game. But folks from all walks of life do, and don’t our peculiar walks define us? I’ve long thought the home [...]

1809: He’s here

admin | November 9, 2009

OK, does this sound familiar? Yesterday was a day of misty weather, cloudy but fine in the Thompson Falls area. Today is a fine day again, but unmisty and not so cloudy. It’s what folks in T-Falls are experiencing this morning in 2009, and what David Thompson encountered exactly 200 years. It wasn’t easy at [...]

Nov. 4 with Dafydd ap Thomas (DT’s given name)

admin | November 4, 2009

Nov. 4, 1809 — David Thompson’s expedition of traders left early from an overnight camp on the Clark Fork River at Herring (Heron) Rapids, near the Idaho-Montana border. According to “Sometimes Only Horses Eat,” Carl Haywood’s 2008 book about Thompson in western Montana, the traders reached the camp of an old friend, Jaco Finlay, at [...]

July 29, 1868: The demise of Fort Smith

admin | July 29, 2009

As Oglala Sioux war chief Red Cloud watched from a distance, U.S. soldiers packed up and left Fort C.F. Smith, beginning the abandonment of military posts along the Bozeman Trail. Early the next day, Red Cloud and his warriors swooped down on the fort and burned it in celebration. For two years they’d resisted construction [...]

July 28, 1877: A fort fizzles

admin | July 28, 2009

Will Moss’s story in Sunday’s Ravalli Republic and Missoulian told of the end of the 2009 Chief Joseph Trail Ride at the Big Hole National Battlefield on Sunday. Today marks the anniversary of a notable Saturday night in the flight of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce. Anybody out there have any Fort Fizzle anecdotes [...]