Ellen Baumler's Blog, page 36

Montana Club

Private men’s clubs had long been a fixture in cities back east, and as frontier settlements like Helena evolved from mining camps to towns, the uncouth image would no longer do. The first members of Helena’s far-famed Montana Club set out to prove their town as cultured as any other with elegantly appointed rooms beautifully furnished for the cultured enjoyment of its 130 members. Rules were strict. There was no gambling on club premises and no women allowed except at special events. The rea...

The Story of Sack Woman

Beloved Salish elder Louis Adams recently shared the story of Sack Woman with a group of high school students at Fales Flat in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Centuries-old Ponderosa pines surrounded the group. These trees bore scars that Sack Woman herself had made more than a century ago in teaching her people how to gather nourishment.

Louis Adams tells stories in the Selway-Bitterroot WildernessLouis told the students that when he was a boy, Sack Woman was very old. But she was...

Friday Photo: Boating on Lake Wilder

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 2006-26.31The folks in today's photo by Ralph E. DeCamp are paddling around Lake Wilder in Jefferson County. Lake Wilder no longer exists, but with sunshine in the forecast, there are plenty of other lakes to choose from. Have a wonderful weekend.

P.S. It would be a good weekend for this, too.

Mining Camp Dangers

Epidemics were fairly commonplace throughout the nineteenth century and knew no social boundaries. Rich or poor, no person was immune. Typhoid and cholera plagued mining camps because miners quickly polluted the water source. But measles, whooping cough and diphtheria also invaded the communities. The great silver camp of Elkhorn that flourished in the 1880s has a particularly pathetic legacy, reminding us that sometimes the sacrifices of parents—leaving home and family for new opportunities—...

A Cowboy and his Horse

The Great Falls Tribune of August 30, 1951, related a heartwarming true tale of a cowboy and his horse. Henry Haughian and Buck were rounding up cattle in the rugged outback country of the Sheep Mountains north of Miles City in Dawson County. Buck, usually a surefooted horse, probably got to daydreaming and stumbled on the steep hillside. Henry had no time to jump off. He was caught beneath the horse as Buck rolled down the hill. The fall frightened Buck, who got up, shook himself, shied away...

Friday Photo: Painting the Bleachers

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 94-59 folder 12/21The men of Kalispell's Local 975 painted the bleachers at the baseball park as a community service project on April 26, 1958. Left to right brushing are Lee Barnes, Bob Casady, Ray Lincoln, and Perry Melton, while Bill Hagestad stands by.

P.S. Remember this baseball team?

Cinnabar Hosts Teddy Roosevelt

A few buried foundation walls are all that mark the place where the town of Cinnabar once hosted a presidential entourage. Situated on the flats between the Yellowstone River and the Gallatin Mountains in the shadows of the famous Electric Peak and Devil’s Slide, Cinnabar took root in 1883. As the Northern Pacific Railroad’s terminus of its Yellowstone National Park branch, the town, four miles north of the park’s entrance, was a lonely stopping place for some twenty years. In 1902, the North...

Observing Memorial Day

The first Decoration Day, or Memorial Day as it came to be called, was formally celebrated in 1868 when the Grand Army of the Republic designated a day of observance honoring casualties of the Civil War. The idea caught on nationally and observances gained popularity during the 1870s. On May 30, 1883, Helena celebrated its first formal observance of Decoration Day with a mile-long procession from Broadway out of the city to Benton Avenue Cemetery. Nearly 1500 people marched in the procession,...

The Discovery at Alder Gulch

May 26, 2013, marks an important anniversary. On that date in 1863, Barney Hughes, Thomas Cover, Henry Rodgers, William Fairweather, Henry Edgar, and Bill Sweeney discovered gold along a stream fringed with alder trees. Word soon leaked out, and two hundred miners trampled the ground to the discovery site; many others quickly followed. Within two weeks, dwellings lined a crude road connecting numerous settlements, dubbed the “Fourteen-mile City.” Of these settlements scattered along the gulch...

Sullivan Saddlery

Nevada City, once a booming gold camp, is now a recreated western town with buildings from across the state. One of its best treasures was rescued from demolition in 1940. Fort Benton was itching to demolish what they considered a public eyesore. The late Joseph Sullivan had crafted saddles in this shop for nearly forty years. Sullivan had died, and Charles Bovey of Great Falls chanced to meet the saddle maker’s daughter who gave him the building along with all its contents.

Inside the Sulliva...