Edgar S. Paxson

Beloved Montana artist Edgar S. Paxson was the son of Quaker parents. His father was a painter of theatrical scenery. Like his fellow artist Charlie Russell, Paxson came west looking for adventure. He arrived in Montana in 1877 and like Russell worked as a wrangler, cow punching, scouting, and hunting for his cattlemen bosses. Paxson’s life experiences on the range gave him subject matter, but he put his own twist on history. He knew and interviewed many of the characters he later depicted and carefully painted them as he wanted them to be, not always as they really were. For example, Paxson knew the great Salish chief Charlo. His painting of the Salish exodus from the Bitterroot Valley, The Salish, led by Chief Charlo, leaving their Bitterroot home for the Flathead Reservation, portrays finely dressed warriors brandishing rifles. In reality, the Salish were a poor and broken people forced out of their homeland.

E.S. Paxson, The Salish, led by Chief Charlo, leaving their Bitterroot home for the Flathead Reservation
Oil on linen, 1914, Missoula County Art Collection. Photographed by Chris Autio, 2000.

Paxson settled in Butte in 1880, painting signs and theatrical scenery to support his family. Paxson was entirely self-taught like Russell, but he lacked the marketing opportunities and exposure that that Russell gained from his wife Nancy’s determined salesmanship. The Spanish American War intervened with Paxson’s career, and he and his son Harry together volunteered for service. En route home, the ship encountered a typhoon, and a wave slammed Paxson against a spar causing serious internal injuries from which he never recovered. But despite his feeble health, he moved to Missoula and, driven by his art, worked until the day he died in 1919, leaving a wonderful legacy. His most famous work, Custer’s Last Stand, is in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming. In Montana, Paxson’s murals grace the Montana State Capitol and the Missoula County Courthouse.

Friday Photo: Missoula Track Meet

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 2006-26.30

Boys wearing track uniforms from various Montana high schools line up for the start of a race at a track meet in Missoula in 1910. The officials stand at the right side of the photo. This track meet was probably held at the University.

Sculpture Gardens

During the nineteenth century, there was a national movement to plan park-like cemeteries with curving driveways and landscaped grounds outside urban areas. The idea took hold in Montana. Our major cities have beautiful park-like cemeteries where turn-of-the-century residents went not only to visit graves but also to picnic and enjoy nature. Missoula’s City Cemetery, Kalispell’s Conrad Cemetery, and Billings's Mountview  are a few examples. Cemeteries were usually located out of town for aesthetic reasons, but planning cemeteries out of town in Butte was a necessity because of health and sanitation. Urban mining everywhere created ground disturbance, and early burials in city churchyards or on private property did not always remain underground. Bodies turned up in odd locations, and exposed burials, especially during epidemics, were a serious health hazard. Keenly aware of this grisly problem, fraternal organizations established Mount Moriah Cemetery in 1877. Rather than curving driveways, it was laid out in simple blocks since there was no landscape to accommodate curving driveways. As much as the community wanted a beautiful cemetery, in nineteenth-century Butte this was impossible. Open hearth smelting polluted the area and prevented anything from growing. The cemetery was bleak and ugly. Butte’s citizens, however, made up for the lack of landscaping by placing fanciful and lovely tombstones on their loved ones’ graves. Butte has the most unique and attractive cemetery art of any in Montana. The desire to create “a spot of beauty” was at first far-fetched. But by 1905, as smelting centralized in Anaconda, trees and shrubs did begin to grow. Today Mount Moriah and Butte’s other sculpture garden cemeteries rival any in Montana.

Mount Moriah has many beautiful sculpture tombstones like this tree stump, which symbolizes a life cut short.
Photo from Buried in Butte by Zena Beth McGlashan

Early Aviation in Montana

Eugene Ely and Cromwell Dixon celebrated aviation firsts in Montana in 1911, and ironically, both young pilots met tragic ends soon after. Twenty-five-year-old Ely was already famous as the first pilot to take off and land on a naval ship. The well-known aviator was also the first to fly an airplane in Missoula. On June 28, 1911, he took off and landed at the baseball field at Fort Missoula. He made three successful flights, the third with his mechanic as a passenger. It was the first dual flight in Montana. His Curtiss Pusher airplane arrived at the Missoula depot by train after similar flights in Butte, Great Falls, Kalispell, and Lewistown. To transport excited spectators to the fort for the event, both the railroad from the Bitterroot Valley and the Missoula streetcar line added extra cars. Over three thousand people witnessed the flight. On October 18, 1911, at the Georgia State Fair in Macon, Georgia, Ely died after jumping from his plane as it crashed. In Helena, Cromwell Dixon made headlines that same year. On September 30, spectators watched him take off from the fairgrounds and land on the west side of Mullan Pass, becoming the first aviator to cross the Continental Divide.

Cromwell Dixon at the controls of his plane, the Hummingbird, after crossing the Continental Divide.
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 941-849

Days later on October 2, Dixon died when his plane crashed at the state fair at Spokane, Washington. Both pilots died within two weeks of each other, having made aviation history in Montana.

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 company soon went out of business. Its two wayward horses refused to keep to a schedule. Reliable service in Montana began in Helena on September 25, 1886. Hundreds watched in awe as the Helena Street Railway Company’s two horse-drawn Pullman cars made their maiden trips to the depot on newly laid iron rails. Soon, steam engines pulled some of the cars, but residents complained about the noisy, dirty coal-burning engines. Dust from the smoke settled in homes and the commotion frightened horse traffic. By the early 1890s, an assortment of trolleys operating on steam, horsepower, and the new electric system operated in Montana cities.
 

Horse-drawn trolleys like this newly-refurbished gem on Helena’s south Walking Mall once ferried passengers to the depot. Photo courtesy of Dean Rognrud.

Montana first licensed automobiles in 1913. This, World War I, postwar inflation, and changing travel patterns took their toll. The Billings Traction Company folded in 1917. Bozeman’s system closed because of complaints that trolleys pushed aside snow, interfering with automobiles. Helena’s last car entered the barn at midnight on New Year’s Day in 1928; bus service began a few hours later. The Rainbow Hotel in Great Falls hosted a funeral in December 1931 for its trolleys. Guests filed past a battered streetcar and sang specially composed songs conceding that the trolleys "ain't gonna run no more." Missoula’s streetcar service ended in 1932, Butte’s in 1937, and Montana’s last trolley bell clanged in 1951 with a final run between Anaconda’s smelter and the town of Opportunity.

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 kegs of nails, mining equipment, and food and clothing. The goods were to be delivered to Virginia City, Deer Lodge, and Hell Gate (present day Missoula). On April 1, the boat hit a snag twenty miles north of Omaha and sank. All passengers and crew escaped, but the inventory—fortunately insured—was lost. In 1968, the wreck was rediscovered and the goods, preserved for a century in the river’s silt, were recovered. The cargo is a microcosm of frontier life. Among the recovered items are powdered lemonade; canned pineapple; brandied cherries; imported olives; salted and dried beef, mutton, and pork; jars of French mustard, catsup, and honey; clocks and combs; lamps and mirrors; patent medicines with their paper labels intact; 3,000 textiles including bolts of silk and 137 men’s coats in 7 different styles; shoes and boots; barrels of whiskey; hammers, doorknobs, pick axes, and blasting powder; washboards; plows; and sleigh bells. It’s hard to imagine some of these luxury items for sale in primitive log cabins. The DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa includes a museum displaying some of the artifacts recovered from the Bertrand.

Artifacts recovered from the steamboat Bertrand, displayed in the visitor center at DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge

First Missoula Cemetery

In the summer of 1974, a Missoula homeowner was adding a porch to his house on Cherry Street when he got a big surprise. The backhoe digging the foundation unearthed something that should not have been there: human bones. The coroner confirmed the discovery of two sets of bones encased in the decayed wood of old-fashioned coffins. Authorities determined that no foul play was involved. These were simply historic burials, the individuals placed in the ground by loved ones hoping for their eternal rest. The pieces of metal hardware, splintered wood, and bone fragments were collected in a box that today sits on a shelf in a University of Montana laboratory. The bones serve as teaching tools for anthropology students. Those who have studied the contents of the box have solved some of the mystery. Historic maps of Missoula and newspaper clippings show that Missoula’s first cemetery was located in the area in 1865. It fell into disuse with the opening of the current city cemetery in 1884, and the last burial there occurred in 1895. When the land was subdivided in the 1940s, traces of the old cemetery disappeared, but, according to city records, most burials were not removed. This is not particularly uncommon. Other Montana communities have subdivisions located on historic burial grounds. Helena’s Robinson Park and its adjacent residential streets, built over the town’s first Catholic cemetery, is one example. But to whom did the two sets of bones belong? Students determined long ago that one was a child and the other a female adult. Coffin hardware fragments were consistent with nineteenth-century caskets styles. But whose eternal sleep was so rudely interrupted? That is a part of the mystery that will probably never be solved.

A Persistent Myth

Stories abound across the West about “Chinese tunnels” beneath the buildings and streets of cities and towns. According to Priscilla Wegars of the University of Idaho, a foremost authority on Asian culture in the West, there is overwhelming evidence that “Chinese tunnels” are nothing more than myths. Not a single “Chinese tunnel” has ever been identified. While it is true that Chinese businesses, opium dens, and even living quarters are sometimes found in basement spaces, these in no way can be called “tunnels.” The Chinese were often targets of discrimination, but they did not live underground because of persecution as many believe. Basements were simply cheaper to rent than rooms above ground. Further, the basements of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century business blocks frequently had arched doorways leading to sidewalk vaults. These were storage or delivery areas. Lit by glass blocks turned purple with age, these mysterious vaults had nothing to do with the Chinese. Tunnel systems beneath downtown areas in Helena, Butte, Missoula, Bozeman, and elsewhere do exist; they served as steam-heat delivery systems. While sometimes steam tunnels served clandestine purposes, particularly for alcohol delivery during Prohibition, these passageways cannot be termed “Chinese tunnels.” Finally, in all settlements where mining was extensive, hand-dug tunnels often remain beneath residential neighborhoods and downtown business areas. Miners of all ethnic groups dug tunnels, and there is nothing that makes a tunnel exclusively Chinese.

From Montana Moments: History on the Go
P.S. Remember this remnant of Chinese culture found in Big Timber?

Mary Gleim

Every western town had its houses of ill repute. In Montana, a few significant remnants of these colorful businesses survive. There’s the Dumas in Butte, Big Dorothy’s in Helena, and two of Mary Gleim’s West Front Street brothels in Missoula. Gleim was a flamboyant character who operated eight “female boarding houses” in Missoula’s red light district where railroad men patronized its honky tonks and saloons. Gleim’s splashy career included conviction in 1894 for the attempted murder of a rival. Her prison record notes that she arrived at Deer Lodge to serve her sentence dressed to the nines in a “complete outfit.” During her prison term, another female prisoner viciously stabbed her, and Gleim never quite recovered from the attack. Reputedly a smuggler of laces, diamonds, opium, and Chinese railroad workers, the mountainous madam weighed three hundred pounds. She was a formidable opponent and a match for any man. “Mother Gleim,” as she was also known, operated brothels until her death in 1914. She left an estate of one hundred thousand dollars. Her former brothels, both nicely renovated and adaptively reused as businesses, add to the interesting history of the 200 block of West Front Street. According to her wishes, Gleim’s tombstone—unlike all the others in the Missoula city cemetery—faces the railroad tracks. This way, Gleim could bid farewell to the many railroad men who were her customers.

From Montana Moments: History on the Go
P.S. Remember this flamboyant madam?

Friday Photo: 1908 Clark Fork Flood

Happy Friday! Over the last part of May in 1908, western Montana endured thirty-three consecutive days of precipitation that led to a disastrous flood...


Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 949-408

 Missoulians improvised a walking bridge after the Higgins Avenue Bridge over the Clark Fork washed out on June 5, 1908. Click the photo for a bigger version.

P.S. You can find more photos of the flood here.

Baron O’Keefe

A canyon twelve miles west of Missoula bears the name of a colorful character time has forgotten. He helped build the Mullan Road and planted an orchard in Missoula County. Cornelius O’Keefe introduced the first farming equipment in Montana—thresher, reaper, and mower—and made a small fortune freighting his crops to local mining camps. Perhaps because he came from Ireland, his best crop was potatoes, which he sold by the wagonload to the potato-starved residents of Bannack and Virginia City. O’Keefe once had a lawsuit brought against him, the very first in Montana. When O’Keefe told Judge Henry Brooks he planned to represent himself, the judge took out a deck of cards, and shuffled them. “These are my credentials,” said the judge. “What are yours?” he asked O’Keefe. O’Keefe answered, “These are my credentials,” and punched the judge right between he eyes. The judge didn’t argue. O’Keefe was always known as Baron O’Keefe. Elected twice to the territorial legislature, he acquired the title when he had to sign the official roster. Instead of noting his occupation as “farmer,” this picturesque Irish gentleman registered as “land baron,” and Baron O’Keefe he was from that time on.

From Montana Moments: History on the Go

Friday Photo: Jeannette Rankin

Celebration of Women's History Month continues...


Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 88-29

This Missoula women's basketball game includes player Jeannette Rankin (third player from left), who later represented Montana in the U.S. Congress. Click the photo for a bigger version.

P.S. Remember these athletes?

The “M”

Here's a special edition "Montana Moment" in celebration of Valentine's Day. Be sure to read to the end.

Ever wondered about letters on hillsides? Many Montana communities display these letters, often visible for miles on barren slopes. These familiar icons seem to be a product of the American West.  According to the experts, the University of California Berkeley boasts the first hillside letter, a giant “C” displayed in 1905. Other colleges and universities soon followed suit. As land grant colleges became established in western states newly admitted to the union, they joined the tradition. Montana has 112 hillside letters, more than any other state. Carroll College in Helena, Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana Tech in Butte, and the University of Montana Western in Dillon all display hillside letters. Other smaller schools and high schools also joined the trend. The University of Montana’s “M,” however, was the state’s first.


Image from Hotdogger Blog

Students constructed Missoula’s first “M” of whitewashed rock in 1909. Throughout the early decades, upperclassmen used the “M” to exert authority over the freshmen who were responsible for its upkeep. The sophomore class replaced the first “M” with an upright wooden model outfitted with $18 worth of lights. A larger wooden “M” soon replaced the upright one, but students did not properly attach the pieces and a blizzard carried them off. Forestry students built the trail leading up to the “M” in 1915. It has since served university and community groups who have used the “M” to advertise events or causes, and it has seen demonstrations and pranks. And once, with the addition of giant letters, a creative suitor even spelled out the message, “MARRY ME!” If the offer was accepted, it is not on record.

Mingo Sanders

Good morning history buffs! What are you up to this week? I’ll be giving a talk, “Vignettes of Valor,” profiling some of the contributions of blacks in the military stationed in Montana or with Montana connections. It will be here at MHS on Saturday, 2:00 PM, in celebration of Black History Month. This is the little-known story of Mingo Sanders,  one of these courageous men.

African American buffalo soldiers of the Twenty-fifth Infantry arrived at Fort Missoula in May of 1888. Some of these men participated in the famous bicycle experiment, riding 1,900 miles from Missoula to St. Louis in the summer of 1897. One of the key riders was Mingo Sanders, a 16-year army veteran.


From The Brownsville Raid by John D. Weaver.

Mingo Sanders (center, in uniform) with his baseball team at Fort Missoula.

Although partially blind from an explosion, Sanders had an excellent service record and the respect of his commanding officers. In 1898, the Twenty-fifth was ordered to Cuba at the start of the Spanish American War. Sanders and the Twenty-fifth distinguished themselves fighting alongside Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders at the Battle of San Juan Hill. Today historians credit the buffalo soldiers with saving the Rough Riders, who instead got all the press and praise, and Roosevelt, who got himself elected president. Sanders then served in the Philippine Insurrection and received the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions. In 1906, Sanders, stationed at Fort Brown, Texas, was a year away from his retirement and well-deserved pension. He and 166 others of the Twenty-fifth Infantry, many of them fellow members of the famous bicycle corps, were falsely accused of murdering a white bartender. Fabricated evidence and President Roosevelt’s political agenda led to their dishonorable discharge without a trial. The incident was known as the “Brownsville Affair.” Mingo Sanders, blind in one eye and diabetic, gave most of his life to his country, but never received his pension. He died in 1929 during the amputation of a gangrenous foot. Decades later in 1972, Congress reopened the case and found all 167 men innocent. They received honorable discharges posthumously and each received $25,000 in restitution, paid to their heirs.


Harper's Weekly, January 12, 1907

Sanders upon hearing the verdict.