Friday Photo: Yellowstone Lake

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, H-699

The Zillah carries tourists around Yellowstone Lake, probably in 1904. The photo was taken by Yellowstone National Park photographer H. Jay Haynes.

P.S. Haynes is also known for his photographs of the Northern Pacific.

Friday Photo: Skiing

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, H-3285

Children ski in Yellowstone National Park in 1894. F. Jay Haynes took the photo.

Ralph DeCamp

Charlie Russell, Edgar S. Paxson, and Ralph DeCamp make up the great triumvirate of Montana’s best-loved frontier artists. All three contributed to the art in the Montana State Capitol and were great friends. Although DeCamp was also a fine photographer and portrait painter, he is best known for his landscapes. DeCamp spent his teen years in Moorehead, Minnesota, the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad. He studied at the Pennsylvania School of Art and then, back at Moorehead, got a big break when he sketched a train accident he had witnessed. His drawings, as evidence in court, drew the attention of a high-ranking railroad official. The Northern Pacific hired DeCamp to join a group of artists painting and photographing Yellowstone National Park. This was a huge opportunity as train stations displayed original artwork and were Montana’s first art galleries. DeCamp fell in love with Montana’s landscape potential and soon moved to Helena. There, painting the Gates of the Mountains, he met Margaret Hilger, daughter of a prominent rancher. They married and were a good match. Margaret was a renowned violinist, and she accompanied her husband on his countryside excursions, practicing her violin as he painted.

DeCamp (left) and Charlie Russell circa 1910, Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 944-735

Charlie Russell said that DeCamp painted the wettest water he had ever seen, so wet you could hear it ripple. Consequently, he always had more buyers for his art than he had paintings. After Margaret died suddenly in 1934, DeCamp went to live in Chicago with his son, bought a car, and continued painting the countryside until his death in 1936. DeCamp’s work is rarely for sale because those who own his paintings cherish them.

Stormy Day, Ralph DeCamp. Montana Historical Society collection #1977.04.29

Stagecoach versus Automobile in Yellowstone Park

In his book Death in Yellowstone, Lee Whittlesey details all the known catastrophes that have occurred in Yellowstone National Park. He writes of the last stagecoach wreck that happened in the park in 1916 and was likely the reason horse-drawn conveyances were thereafter removed from the park. The automobile had already more or less taken over Montana’s roadways. 1916 was the only year that the park had both automobiles and horses on the same roads. The Wylie Camping Company was operating a four-horse coach, number 26, on its way from Mammoth to Gardiner. The coach was only a mile into its trip when driver H. E. Thompson suddenly came upon a stalled automobile in the middle of the road. The frightened horses bolted and sent the coach careening down the road. The driver narrowly avoided going over an embankment, but the coach overturned, ejecting all nine passengers. A number of them were caught between the coach and a rocky wall. Three passengers sustained serious broken bones. It was then apparent that horses and automobiles simply could not share the roads in the park. The following summer, 1917, there were no more horses on the park’s roads, only automobiles. One old time stage driver noted, “Here’s luck to all you spark-plug cleaners. You have gasolined in here at last; may you have the success in the future that I have had in the past.” And with that, the rattling, sputtering infernal internal combustion engine took over the park.

Coaches wait to carry passengers from the train station in Gardiner, Montana, into the park.
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 981-400

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 Northern Pacific extended its line to the new town of Gardiner where the monumental entrance arch to Yellowstone Park was under construction. But the depot and visitor services were as yet nonexistent when, in May of 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt planned a preseason tour and dedication of the entrance arch.

Roosevelt dedicating the entrance arch at Gardiner. Library of Congress, LC-DIG-stereo-1s02085

Cinnabar was the only place to locate the nation’s portable capital. For sixteen days, pullman, parlor, and dining cars serving President Roosevelt and White House staff parked along the tracks at Cinnabar. A contingent of secret service men and newspaper writers added to the throng of visitors. The cavalry stationed in the area made their horses available for fishing trips and sightseeing, and stagecoaches offered excursions into the park.

Preparing to go into Yellowstone National Park. Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-18932

Cinnabar’s shabby buildings and antiquated services were a far cry from the nation’s sophisticated capital. Associated Press official Harry Colman remarked, “Well, thank goodness, this blooming town will be wiped off the map when we leave. It’s a mystery to me how it ever got on in the first place.” Once the presidential cars sped down the tracks, Cinnabar’s businesses moved to Gardiner, and that brief moment in time was Cinnabar’s last hurrah.

From Montana Moments: History on the Go

Friday Photo: Bull Elk

Happy Friday, history buffs! There's a pile of fresh snow here in Helena. What's it like in your corner of Montana? Are you going to get out and play in it?


Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, H-3262

Elk in Yellowstone National Park's Hayden Valley struggle to find forage in this 1894 photo by F. Jay Haynes.

Friday Photo: Paradise Valley



Smoke aside, this is unseasonably lovely weather. Are you going to get out there and enjoy it like these folks?

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 81-65

A group of four men camp in the Paradise Valley near Yellowstone National Park in 1916. Click the photo for a bigger version to see if you can spot the fourth man.

Kidnapped!

Happy Labor Day! Montana has seen its share of strikes and turmoil between investors and laborers, but let's commemorate Montana workers with this humorous story...

Harry Child came to Montana in the early 1880s to learn the mining business from his uncle, wealthy investor A. J. Seligman. Child’s vast interests eventually included mines and smelters, the Flying D Ranch in the Gallatin valley, and Yellowstone Park’s hotel and transportation companies. One of Child’s many adventures has been recorded for posterity. Just before the Northern Pacific came to Helena in 1883, the two mining companies Child managed had stored their gold and silver bullion awaiting transport by rail. But the New York capitalists who financed the mining enterprises neglected the payroll and owed mine employees more than 125,000 dollars in back pay. The son of one of these millionaire investors had come out to Montana to learn the mining business under Harry Child. The angry miners decided the fastest way to get their money was to kidnap Child and the millionaire’s son. This they did and held the hostages in one of the mines. Child convinced the kidnappers to let him go to Helena to negotiate the ransom. Obtaining an open line through Western Union, Child succeeded in getting the money wired to Helena within twenty-four hours. Carrying the cash and fearful of bandits, Child made the hazardous twenty-five-mile trip by sleigh following a circuitous route. He later discovered that several parties of miners indeed had planned to rob him. Once paid, the miners returned to work. When the railroad finally came through, the first east-bound train out of Helena carried the gold and silver bullion to its investors, and everyone was satisfied.


Harry Child is pictured at left in Yellowstone National Park in 1894.
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, F. Jay Haynes Collection

Cooking on the Hook

The Olympics are winding down, and this is our last post remembering Montana sports and champions (at least for now). Let's remember a sport that has long since been abandoned: cooking on the hook.

Photo by F. Jay Haynes
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, H-6318

Members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition heard of the wonders of the Yellowstone region, but they did not venture that far south. When Expedition member John Colter returned to Montana to trap, his near death experience escaping the Blackfeet led him through a portion of what would become Yellowstone Park. Most attributed his descriptions of fire and brimstone to delerium, and they called the area Colter’s Hell. But other stories gradually emerged. One of the famous tales first told by mountain men involved fishing. Montana pioneer attorney Cornelius Hedges was the first to provide a written account. An avid fisherman, Hedges was with the 1870 Washburn-Doane Expedition organized by a group of Montanans to explore the Yellowstone region. Hedges wrote that as he hooked a trout, he missed landing the fish on the bank. The fish came off the hook and flopped into a nearby thermal spring. By the time Hedges retrieved the fish with his pole, the trout was cooked through. While Hedges was too shocked to try it again, others reading his account took up the sport. Henry Winser, in his 1883 guide to Yellowstone Park, describes the art of hooking a trout, swinging the pole over to a thermal pool, and plunging the fish in, hook and line still attached. Cooking on the hook became a favorite sport. One preferred place was the Fishing Cone that Hedges described, which is a spring in the West Thumb Geyser Basin. Fishermen at the Fishing Cone sometimes dressed in a chef’s hat and apron to have their picture taken “cooking on the hook.” The Park once allowed this practice, but it is now prohibited. Cooking on the hook is now just another famous fish story.

Friday Photo

Our last Friday photo celebrating Black History Month shows waiters from the Canyon Hotel in Yellowstone National Park in 1901.


Photo courtesy Montana Historical Society photograph archives, H-4873. Photo by Elliott W. Hunter. Used by permission.

It's technically a Wyoming moment, but I'm posting it anyway because it's a glimpse of the African American experience in the West. Also, it's a great photo. Speaking of great photos, if you have a picture (or story) of a Montana moment that you'd like to share, be sure to email me! I'd love to hear from you.

Friday Photo

In celebration of Black History Month, here's a look back at one of the contributions of blacks in the military stationed in Montana. Tomorrow I’ll be giving a talk, “Vignettes of Valor,” profiling some more of those contributions. It's here at the Historical Society at 2:00. Hope you can make it!

 

From Montana Views. Original in Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, H-3614. Used by permission.

A group of bicyclists stands on Minerva Terrace in Yellowstone National Park in August 1896. The men belong to Lt. James A. Moss's company of the Twenty-fifth Infantry, U.S. Army Bicycle Corps, Fort Missoula, Montana. Photo by F. Jay Haynes.

P.S. It's possible that one of the men pictured is Mingo Sanders.
Update: Thanks to Mike Higgins for identifying the men in this photo. See his comment below for their names.

Cooke City

Happy New Year, history buffs! I hope your holiday celebrations were as memorable as Mrs. Ingeborg Reeb's.

Some years ago, eighty-eight-year-old Mrs. Ingeborg Reeb recalled life in the camp at Cooke City where her husband was a silver miner. She fondly remembered that even in the coldest, deepest winter, parties were frequent. Miners would come by the Reebs’ place and each would take one of the Reebs’ eight children under his arm—with legs dangling out the back—and head for the designated saloon. Pool tables pushed into the corners made comfortable and safe beds for the children. While they slept, the grownups danced. There was always plenty of coffee and wonderful food. Sometimes deep snow forced residents to move to lower elevations and the Reebs would winter in Joliet. One spring as they returned to Cooke City, they traveled from Gardiner through Yellowstone and stopped to rest at Soda Butte.  A troublesome rogue buffalo from the park’s herd, dubbed “Old Johnson” in honor of the park superintendent, loved to terrorize humans. As the Reebs all jumped down from the buckboard, a man ran toward them shouting, “Get the children on the barn roof. Hurry. Old Johnson is coming!” Everyone raced to climb to the roof. Old Johnson came charging and buffaloed the family for two hours before finally giving up and wandering off. Sometimes, though, isolation in winter was grim. In 1914, the roads to Cooke City were impassable and snow melt washed out the Lamar River Bridge. With no way in or out, a severe food shortage forced the community to survive on oatmeal for six weeks. But Mrs. Reeb recalled with nostalgia that despite bad times, the warmth of good neighbors bred the sweetest lifetime memories.