Ellen Baumler's Blog, page 37

Mountain View School for Girls

The Montana legislature created the Boys and Girls Industrial School at Miles City in 1893. This reformatory was for boys and girls who were either in serious trouble with the law or had nowhere else to go. It was one step toward the establishment of the juvenile court system that came about in 1907. Some felt strongly that there should be separate industrial schools for boys and girls. One of these advocates was Dr. Maria Dean, a Helena physician whose practice specialized in the diseases of...

Friday Photo: Miles City Horse Race

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 981-969The famous Miles City Bucking Horse Sale is this weekend. Are you going? You can compare it to today's photo, which shows what the Miles City fairgrounds looked like at a horse race around the turn of the twentieth century. Photo by L. A. Huffman.

P.S. Remember this racehorse?
P.P.S. L. A. Huffman is famous for his photos of cowboys on the range.

Red Lodge Mausoleum

Above-ground burials in mausoleums are the norm in Europe and in some places in the United States. In New Orleans, above-ground burials are required to prevent cemeteries from becoming bone gumbo during frequent flooding. While private mausoleums dot Montana cemeteries, above ground mass burials were never common practice. After 1900, inexpensive concrete construction made building large multiple crypt facilities economically feasible. At the same time, Progressive-era ideology was encouragin...

The Circus Comes to Town

In 1964 Gertrude Hoover Wilcox recalled the summer day in 1917 when the circus came to Kalispell. She and her mother set out for the depot to watch the train unload. Her mother was impeccably dressed in a stylish white blouse with rows of tiny tucks, high topped black shoes, a long black skirt that was extremely tight at the bottom, and a black straw sailor hat with a huge cluster of bright red artificial cherries. A black ruffled parasol completed the outfit. Gertrude’s mother had to walk ve...

Happy Mother's Day

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 90-87 21 DMoms have a tough job, but with a hand on her hip and determination in her eye, this homestead mom looks up to the task. Happy Mother's Day to all Montana moms!

P.S. The photo was taken by Evelyn Cameron in 1913 near Fallon, Montana.

Friday Photo: Fishing on the Missouri

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 74-104.136NIn today's photo, Blanche Guillot Judge fishes on the Missouri River circa 1916. There's beautiful weather in the forecast this weekend. Will you take a cue from Blanche and go fishing?

Smith Mine Disaster

Thirty-nine corrugated metal structures mark the site of the Smith Mine, a ghostly reminder of a once vibrant mining district near Bearcreek in Carbon County. The Montana Coal and Iron Company began developing the Smith Mine after the Montana, Wyoming and Southern Railroad arrived in 1906. By 1907, it produced 8,000 tons of high-grade coal. The company mechanized the mine, and throughout the 1930s, it continued to invest in new equipment, building a new crushing plant, elevator, cleaning plan...

Train Wreck at Boulder

At four o’clock on the afternoon of October 15, 1890, a train laden with ore on the Northern Pacific’s Helena, Boulder Valley & Butte Railroad chugged south along its rugged route from Helena to Boulder. Samuel T. Hauser filed articles of incorporation, with himself as president, and financed the line, built in 1887. Although intended to enter Butte, the line never extended to Butte and ended at Calvin. On that October day in 1890, the locomotive, four freight cars full of ore, and a cabo...

Friday Photo: Advertising Butte

Are you planning a vacation this summer? Do you get ideas from travel brochures or magazines? Here's the cover of a pamphlet, published during the Great Depression, that aimed to lure tourists to Butte, Montana.

Montana Historical Society Research CenterPublished in 1933 by the Butte Chamber of Commerce, the brochure describes the city this way: "Beautiful by night, unique by day, Butte is literally 'a city set upon a hill, which cannot be hid.'" You can read the rest of the promotion her...

Great Northern Insignia

The white silhouette of a Rocky Mountain goat on red background was the majestic insignia for the Great Northern Railway. How this famous symbol came to be is a long forgotten tale.  William P. Kenney, who served as Great Northern president in the 1930s, grew up in south Minneapolis. As a boy he sold newspapers. His business was so lucrative that he established a corner newsstand, but carrying newspapers to stock his stand became a problem. So Kenney acquired a billy goat and cart.  But...