Ellen Baumler's Blog, page 43

Friday Photo: Was Henry Plummer Innocent?

Recently, I got to chat with radio host Aaron Flint about Henry Plummer and the vigilantes, Custer's dogs, Langford Peel's tombstone, and lots of other wonderful tidbits from Montana history. Here's a link to Voices of Montana where you can hear the whole conversation.

E.C. Schoettner, photographer, Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives.We'll probably never have absolute proof of Henry Plummer's guilt or innocence. But while you listen to the show and ponder the evidence, here'...

Wassweiler Hot Springs

Montana has a number of hot springs that gained popularity for recreational and therapeutic use during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ferdinand and Caroline Wassweiler operated one of the first near Ten Mile Creek just west of Helena. Their first hotel and bathhouse opened in 1865. The soothing mineral water offered local miners a relaxing day off from the dusty diggings in Last Chance Gulch.

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 951-609In 1869, the Wassweilers gai...

Shopping the Gulch on New Year’s Day 1894

On New Year’s Day in 1894, the Helena Independent advertised numerous sales, activities, and special deals. For three dollars, you could buy a year’s subscription to the Weekly Independent and receive a free leather-bound 800-page cookbook. August Fack advertised that you could visit his California Wine House and enjoy his brand-new art acquisitions just in from Germany. The New York Store offered a variety of dress fabric reduced from a dollar a yard to 75 cents.

In 1894, the New York Store was located...

Friday Photo: Crow Indian Winter Camp

Happy Friday! We got a dusting of fresh snow for Christmas in Helena. It was almost as picturesque as the scene in this stereograph.

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, ST 002.101
Henry Bird Calfee, a photographer from Bozeman, snapped this photo of a Crow Indian Camp circa 1874-1881 in the Yellowstone River Valley.

Merry Christmas!

I hope you woke up to a full stocking this morning. Merry Christmas!

Montana Historical Society Photograph ArchivesThe Orr children of Dillon, Montana, hung their stockings and waited for Santa in this c. 1928 photo.
P.S. Dillon was at the center of a stocking controversy in the 1920s.

Anaconda Copper Mining Company’s Benevolence

The Anaconda Copper Mining Company controlled much of Montana in the first half of the twentieth century, and many compared its grip to a giant snake coiled around the state.

"In the coils of the Anaconda," Butte Daily Bulletin, October 2, 1920The company tried to soften that negativity by doing good works, especially at Christmastime. The three hundred children at the state orphanage at Twin Bridges especially benefited from the company’s public generosity. In 1934, at th...

Miles City Christmas 1884

Miles City, Montana, looked forward to the holidays in 1884. On Christmas Eve, the Daily Yellowstone Journal instructed its readers to “Get the hinges of your jaws ready to warble “Merry Christmas” to friends and neighbors. And be sure,” said the Journal, “to clear your chimneys for the descent of Kris Kringle.” But not entirely in the Christmas spirit, the Journal recorded the final percentile grades of public school students, certainly embarrassing several like George Busch of the seni...

100 Christmases

Mary McGinnis of Butte celebrated her 100th Christmas in 1934. Andrew Jackson was president when she was born in 1834, and she was married in New York before the Civil War began. Her husband left for the gold fields of California, promising to send for her if things worked out. He did send for her in 1861, and that Christmas is the one of all the one hundred that she always remembered. That Christmas Day in 1861 found Mrs. McGinnis aboard a schooner off the coast of Central America bound for...

Ice Skating in Butte

Butte celebrated the long-anticipated formal opening of the Pavilion Ice Rink, the largest and finest rink west of Chicago, late in 1884. The amphitheater was located on Alaska Street, one block east of the Butte Silver Bow County Courthouse, where the parking lot of the Butte-Silver Bow Archives is today. During the weeks leading up to the opening, the Daily Miner reported problems in freezing the rink because of the vast area of ice it required. The skating area was 9,000 square feet. A cul...

Friday Photo: Christmas Tree

Now that you know the stories of Montana's first two national Christmas trees (here and here), have a look at this photo of a less spectacular (but no less heartwarming) Christmas tree.

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 945-214Maurice Hain decked this one out and posed beside it in 1936. Have you put up a tree yet?

P.S. I'll be talking and signing books this morning at 11:30 at the Montana Historical Society. Hope to see you there!