Ellen Baumler's Blog, page 31
October 7, 2013
Meriwether Lewis and a Forensic Mystery
The Masonic Grand Lodge in Helena owns one of Montana’s most mysterious and intriguing treasures. Meriwether Lewis’s Masonic apron is not only a historically significant artifact, it is also a beautiful piece of artful handiwork. Hand-painted symbols and emblems significant to Masonry embellish the hand-sewn silk apron. In times past, members wore their aprons to reveal Masonic affiliation while traveling in dangerous situations. Meriwether Lewis certainly followed this practice on the expedi...
October 4, 2013
Friday Photo: Inside a Homestead Cabin
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 90-87.34-8Evelyn Cameron snapped this rare photo of the interior of a homestead cabin circa 1900. Bread is rising in the pan by the oven.P.S. Remember this cramped homestead cabin?
P.P.S. Have you seen the beautiful postcards in Evelyn Cameron's Montana?
October 2, 2013
Frankenstein’s Lab
Kenneth Strickfaden is not a household name, but everyone who has ever enjoyed the old Boris Karloff movies is familiar with his work, and he has a Montana connection. Strickfaden was born in 1896 in Deer Lodge where his father was in the real estate business. Strickfaden served overseas during World War I, and by the 1920s he worked as a studio electrician in California. He was an electrical genius and had a knack for creating special effects. In 1931, he brought his unique skills to t...
September 27, 2013
Friday Photo: Glacier Park Station
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 93-25 A4 298A Great Northern train makes a stop at the Glacier Park station circa 1918. At the time, the best way to get to the park was by train, and you can still take Amtrak through the park.
September 25, 2013
Jim Kiskadden’s Famous Connection
James Henry Kiskadden and his older brother were well known in the earliest days in Virginia City, Montana. Before they came to Montana, the brothers operated mercantiles in Kansas, Denver, and Salt Lake City. Kiskadden & Co transported the First Regiment of Colorado Volunteers from Denver to Fort Union in the Territory of New Mexico in 1862 for one of the few major military engagements between the Confederacy and the Union in the west. James accompanied the forced march and served as inf...
September 23, 2013
Andrew Garcia
One of Montana’s most colorful characters was Andrew Garcia whose book, Tough Trip Through Paradise, is considered a premier historical adventure story tracing his youthful travels in the late 1870s. Andrew was just twelve in 1868 when he first came to Montana from Texas. He tagged along with his uncle Albino Ortez and some cowboys driving three hundred working mules to Gallatin City. Garcia’s uncle had begged the youngster’s parents to let him accompany the men. They never really gave permis...
September 20, 2013
September 18, 2013
The Lost Mine of the Yellowstone
A golden secret lies in the shadow of Emigrant Peak south of Livingston. Somewhere along the trail to Yellowstone Park, among the gulches where countless winter snows and spring floods have scoured the landscape, lies the fountain of gold, the mother lode, the source of the golden veins that brought miners by the hundreds to Yellowstone City and Emigrant Gulch.
Courtesy RootsWebDavid Weaver panned the first gold in Emigrant Gulch—Montana’s fifth great gold discovery—in 1864. He, Da...
Courtesy RootsWebDavid Weaver panned the first gold in Emigrant Gulch—Montana’s fifth great gold discovery—in 1864. He, Da...
September 16, 2013
Marie Montana
Charles T. Shearer was a longtime Helena reporter and city editor. On February 18, 1902, Shearer was in a dingy saloon on Helena’s Main Street. In a back room, Jack Waite—a former deputy marshall, a handsome, strong, and powerful man—was likely thinking about this unfulfilled dreams when he put a colt revolver to his head and ended his troubled life. Shearer, the young reporter, took it upon himself to break to the news to Waite’s wife. He took a cab to the Waite home on Fifth Avenue and...
September 13, 2013
Friday the 13th Photo: Gildford
Some days simply do not go well.
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 947-592Take this fellow for example. What series of unfortunate events left him dangling from a wire above Gildford? We may never know, because nothing is known about this photo except that it was taken in 1917. I saw it some time ago on the Montana Historical Society's Facebook page, where a caption contest is raging. Feel free to chime in with your caption in the comments section
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 947-592Take this fellow for example. What series of unfortunate events left him dangling from a wire above Gildford? We may never know, because nothing is known about this photo except that it was taken in 1917. I saw it some time ago on the Montana Historical Society's Facebook page, where a caption contest is raging. Feel free to chime in with your caption in the comments section
