Ellen Baumler's Blog, page 44

Montana's Second National Christmas Tree

Montana has three times contributed the nation’s official Christmas tree, in 1958, 1989, and most recently in 2008. The second time, 1989, was the year Montana celebrated its statehood centennial. That year the national Christmas tree came from the Kootenai National Forest in Lincoln County. In October of 1989, the Capitol Christmas Tree Committee advertised for a woodcutter to cut the chosen tree. The committee was looking for a person with community involvement who knew how to use a chain s...

Montana’s First National Christmas Tree

Montana has donated the national Christmas tree displayed outside on the White House lawn three times:  in 1958, 1989, and 2008. The tradition of the national tree stretches back to President Calvin Coolidge. During his administration in 1923, the Society for Electrical Development conceived the idea of a national decorated tree to encourage electricity and electric lighting in holiday decorating.

The first national Christmas tree was lit on December 24, 1923.
Library of Congress Prints an...

Friday Photo: Healthful Holiday

Will you be cooking a Christmas feast like this one that Rose Drew Paulley hosted in Lavina in 1938?

Montana Historical Society Photograph ArchivesWe tend to overindulge during these special times of year, and we pay for those extra pounds in the New Year. But it's not a modern problem, as an article from 1881 goes to show...

In 1881, Montana newspapers ran an article cautioning holiday hostesses to think carefully about the health of their guests. "Friends," said the...

Montana Trolleys

More than 80,000 trolleys once clanged over 45,000 miles of track in cities across the United States. Between 1888 and 1890, there were twenty-seven attempts to establish street railway service in nine Montana cities, but credit goes to Billings for establishing the first operational system. Two bright yellow horse-drawn cars ferried passengers in 1883. Business boomed temporarily when railway promoters offered twenty-five cent tickets and coupons for free beer at a local brewery. But the com...

Wreck of the Bertrand

John J. Roe of St. Louis founded the Idaho and Montana Transportation Line and the Diamond R Transportation Company in 1864. The company carried everything imaginable by steamboat up the Missouri River from St. Louis to Ft. Benton. Its ox-drawn freighters then carried the goods to the various destinations. The treacherous steamboat voyage took two months. The steamer Bertrand left St. Louis in the early spring of 1865 carrying an astonishing inventory bound for Fort Benton, including 6,000 ke...

Friday Photo: Boxing

Happy Friday!

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 90-87.3-13This boxing match within a hand-held rope ring entertained the men of state senator Kenneth McLean's sheep camp. Evelyn Cameron snapped the photo in 1905.

P.S. Remember the time Cameron scandalized Miles City?

Grand Union Hotel

Fort Benton’s beautifully restored hotel, the Grand Union, once welcomed travelers to the Gateway of the Northwest, offering them a luxurious refuge before they set out for less civilized destinations. Its opening in 1882 came at the end of the steamboat era when Fort Benton was still an unchallenged hub. But the very next year, the Northern Pacific stretched across Montana, bypassing Fort Benton and ending its reign as the Chicago of the Plains.

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archive...

Castle, Montana

The town of Castle in Meagher County was a wild camp where men died with their boots on. In the 1880s, two thousand residents rivaled the likes of the great camps of twenty years before. In the 1890s, the town’s death was rapid as people left by the dozens. Their log cabins waited forlornly for owners to return and claim the household goods and belongings they left behind. But they never returned, and the buildings fell into decay. Two last residents kept up hope that the town would again com...

Thanksgiving at the Madison House 1903

If you're tired of eating turkey after yesterday's feast, you might want to try out some of these dishes...

The Madison House was Virginia City’s best hotel from the 1890s into the twentieth century. The hotel consisted of seven connected buildings, all at slightly different levels. For this reason it was nicknamed the seven-story hotel.

“Seven Story Hotel.”  Sanborn-Perris Map Company, Virginia City  1907.Proprietors F. W. Allen and Dennis Mahagin set a nice table in the early 1900s...

A Mild Thanksgiving in Wild Miles City, 1882

Miles City was a wild town in its day. Wooden false fronts, wide dusty streets, and saloons where whiskey flowed made the town on every cowboy’s route and a place where a good time was easily found. Cowboys and soldiers at Fort Keogh frequented the numerous houses where the ladies entertained them lavishly, for a fee, of course.

Miles City prostitutes and patrons in a parlor house reception hall.
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, Morrison CollectionBut for one day in the 18...