Friday Photo: Cousin Jack Race Horses

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, ST 001.072

The description included with this stereograph states that: "A Cousin Jack is a person from Cornwall." Perhaps this is insight into the humor that photographer N. A. Forsyth intended in his caption. He took the photo in Butte between 1901 and 1911.

Carlo, the Chocolate-Loving Pooch

Carlo was a big, handsome, curly-haired brown water spaniel whose master was John Losekamp of Billings. At the turn of the twentieth century, Losekamp was the prosperous proprietor of a men’s clothing store at 2817 Montana Street. He advertised shoes, trunks, valises, and ranch supplies.

Advertisement from Polk’s City Directory, Billings, 1907.

Losekamp’s varied inventory drew a wide range of customers and traveling businessmen. All were familiar with Losekamp’s extremely intelligent dog. And Carlo knew who his friends were. The dog had a weakness for candy—chocolate drops in particular. He adored them. Back in the early 1900s, apparently no one knew that chocolate was poisonous to dogs. At any rate, it never seemed to hurt Carlo. He had a routine familiar to everyone in downtown Billings. When a friend came into Losekamp’s store, Carlo would first greet him with a friendly tail wag, and then would go to the wastebasket and retrieve a small piece of paper. This he would drop in front of the visitor. The visitor would take a nickel, wrap it up and give it to the dog. Carlo would trot to any one of several candy stores, drop the nickel in front of the clerk and receive a bag of chocolate drops in exchange.  Carlo would gently carry the bag back to Losekamp’s store, drop it in front of the waiting visitor, and sit a few paces away. The generous visitor would then toss the chocolate drops, one at a time, to Carlo, who never missed a catch. As the years wore on, Carlo was even able to distinguish between nickels and pennies and knew that a penny wouldn’t buy him enough chocolate to make it worth the trip. Carlo died in 1912, not from eating chocolate, but from old age. He was buried on historic Boot Hill with a fitting ceremony.

Friday Photo: Family Portrait

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 90-87.31-1

Gusta Magnusen Braley and her children, Ida and Clare, sat for a portrait session with photographer Evelyn Cameron. Their choice to include the dog is somewhat unique, but he certainly looks dapper in profile.

Boxcar Adventure

Emma Gardner was a homesteading wife who came with her husband and children to the brand-new town of Ryegate in what would later become Golden Valley County. Like many families during the homestead boom, the Gardners came by boxcar. It was a seven day trip from their home in Minnesota, and the boxcar was loaded with all their earthly possessions including chickens and cows, furniture, children, and the family dog. Traveling in a boxcar in warm weather, especially with livestock, could be very uncomfortable. The boxcars were unbearably hot and stuffy, and so most families kept their big doors at least partially open so the fresh air could circulate. At one point, the train slowed down to travel up a steep grade. The dog decided to seize the moment and jump out of the car. Not only did he jump out, he took off running like mad across a field. The children were screaming, thinking that they would never see their pet again. Mr. Gardner did the noble thing and jumped out after him. Emma and the children lost sight of them both. The children began to think they would not only lose the dog, but maybe their dad, too. However, the dog was finally captured, and Mr. Gardner ran with him in his arms back to the train. But the train was starting down the other side of the grade, and it began to pick up speed. Mr. Gardner made it back to the train, but his own boxcar was way up ahead. As the train rumbled past, he had no choice but to toss the dog into someone else’s open boxcar. He hopped on the speeding train and, according to the family, hopped from car to car until he got back to his very anxious family and told them the dog was just down the way. The next time the train stopped, the Gardners collected their pet and all ended well.

A locomotive pulls boxcars across green horn trestle on Mullen Pass west of Helena. Photo by F. J. Haynes.
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, H-3202

Queenie

Dalmatians have long been associated with fire stations, but their service goes back to at least the seventeenth century. The breed has a calming effect on horses, and this made the dogs a valuable asset. Generations of the familiar black and white spotted dogs, also called Coach dogs, traveled with carriages and stagecoaches. They ran alongside the coaches in pairs protecting the horses from other dogs that ran out as the horses passed by. The special connection Dalmatians seemed to have with horses persisted. Fire houses across England, Canada, and the United States kept Dalmatians. They guarded and protected the valuable spirited horses that pulled the fire wagons. They slept with them at night, ran alongside them on the way to calls, and calmed them as they worked with the firemen. Their appeal persisted into the twentieth century. In 1947, a Montana highway patrolman noticed a half-starved black and white dog running in the open prairie between Helena and Montana City. The Helena Fire Department adopted the female Dalmatian and named her Queenie. For nearly ten years she was a fixture at the Civic Center station.

Queenie wore this badge on her collar. Courtesy Sean Logan.

Queenie would only ride in the ladder truck and she preferred to return to the station on foot. School children visiting always included Queenie in their drawings of the station. She presided over flag raisings and Christmas deliveries to the children at Shodair and fiercely kept other wandering dogs away from her territory. Once, during a sold-out big name musical performance in the Civic Center, Queenie found her way to the wings and calmly walked across the stage to thunderous applause. Queenie died of old age in 1957. Her quiet passing left a great hole in the community.

This photo appeared in an undated newspaper clipping on Queenie's death in 1957. Courtesy Sean Logan.

Auditor

Butte’s Berkeley Pit is as poisonous as battery acid. An entire flock of snow geese mistakenly landed on its surface in 1995 and died before they could take flight. But for one lonely matted, mangy canine, the pit’s acrid, crusted shores were home for seventeen lonely years. No one knows where the dog came from. The handful of miners working at Montana Resources, Butte’s only active mining company, named him Auditor because they could never predict when he would show up. He was not a friendly dog, shunning the humans who tried to love him. Miners left him food and water, built a doghouse shanty, and fixed him a bed. He only settled there at night occasionally.

Courtesy Travels with Ace

Auditor’s long, tangled dreadlocks made him look like a moving pile of rags. While the dreadlocks perhaps hinted at his lineage, they likely kept him warm in brutal weather. As he grew old, miners mixed baby aspirin in his food to ease arthritis. One miner once earned enough trust to clip the hair from Auditor’s eyes so that he could see. Miners say that beneath his dreadlocks, he had beautiful eyes. Auditor roamed the wasteland, living where no other living thing could. How the pads of his feet could escape burning from the acid of his habitat defies explanation. In the end, Auditor died peacefully in his shanty in 2003. He was 120 in dog years.

P.S. Remember this heartwarming cattle dog?
P.P.S. Today is Evelyn Cameron's birthday.

Friday Photo: Dogsledding

Race to the Sky starts this weekend at Camp Rimini. Will you attend any of the events?


Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 2000-54.7

Dogsledder Celey Baum and his team race, possibly in Red Lodge, in 1939. Just look how excited those dogs are!

P.S. Are you a dog person? Here's a story to touch your heart.

Walter Marshall Remembers John F. Kennedy’s Montana Visits

With the election tomorrow, politics are on everyone's minds. The candidates are wrapping up their full travel schedules. Here's a look back at another president's memorable Montana travels:

Walter Marshall was a great showman, promoter, Democratic supporter, and founder of Helena’s famous Brewery Theater. His book, I’ve Met Them All, describes the dignitaries and politicians he knew personally. Marshall first met John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie as newlyweds in the mid-1950s when Senator Kennedy spoke at the Finlen Hotel in Butte. Then Kennedy visited Helena in 1960, just before his nomination as a presidential candidate. Marshall arranged the logistics. Kennedy spoke at the Marlow Theatre and at a formal dinner at the Civic Center. During dessert, Kennedy whispered to Marshall, “Can we get out of here? My drivers haven’t shown up and I need to get to the airport.” Marshall took him outside to his old station wagon, which was a garishly painted advertisement for the Brewery Theatre. Marshall’s three big dogs were in the back seat. They had a little time, so Marshall, always the promoter, seized the moment to show off his theater. All the way, the three big dogs licked the back of Kennedy’s neck. And Kennedy did not like dogs. But Marshall got him to the airport on time.


JFK greets the crowd in Billings. Photo by Cecil Stoughton.
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, via Linternaute.com

After Kennedy’s election, the president spoke at the Shrine Auditorium in Billings. Marshall arranged the logistics. He drove his Brewery station wagon into the Shrine Auditorium to await Kennedy’s motorcade. When President Kennedy arrived, he recognized Marshall and the station wagon right away. “I am glad to see you, Walter,” said the President. “But I hope you left those blankety-blank dogs at home.” JFK visited Great Falls in September 1963. Fifty thousand people heard him speak. He told Marshall how much he had enjoyed that time in Helena and promised to return. Weeks later on November 22, an assassin’s bullet left that promise unfulfilled.

P.S. You can listen Kennedy speaking at the Yellowstone County Fairgrounds in 1963 here.

Smoking Boomer

Some dispute the story of Fort Benton’s famous dog Shep, whose statue sits along the banks of the Missouri River. But here’s a dog story to rival Fort Benton’s, and there are pictures to prove its truth. The railroad town of Harlowton was a division point along the Milwaukee Road where the railroad’s electrified section originated. In 1940, a big, burly dog rode into the Harlowton rail yards on a Milwaukee train. Roundhouse Foreman Phil Leahy gave him a meal, and the two became fast friends. Leahy taught the dog tricks. He could stand on his head, and he wore safety glasses and carried a briar pipe in his mouth. Smoking Boomer, as he was called, could often be seen walking the depot platform with the pipe clamped securely between his powerful jaws.

For nine years, Smoking Boomer greeted the Milwaukee Road’s passenger train, the Hiawatha, entertaining travelers and posing for pictures. When he died in 1949, town citizens bought him a casket and gave the dog a proper burial. Smoking Boomer was not forgotten. In 2006, the City of Harlowton and volunteers established a recreational trail. Its northern end follows the Main Line of the old Milwaukee Railroad. The trail is officially named the Smoking Boomer Rail Trail. What a great way to remember Harlowton’s most special canine.

From Montana Moments: History on the Go
P.S. Remember this loyal cattle dog?

Cattle Dog

An undated clipping from the 1940s in a Bozeman newspaper tells a poignant story of man’s best friend. Oldtime cattleman Ott McEwen was devastated when the cattle dog who had been at his side through blizzards and summer winds, long days and lonely nights, suddenly disappeared. The dog had been his constant companion, sharing hardships and joys. McEwen grieved for the loss of the best friend he ever had.

Four years later at a Stockgrowers meeting, cattlemen had gathered in the Bozeman Hotel’s lobby. Someone noticed a shaggy old dog, limping badly, whining outside the door. The man let him in and watched curiously as the dog wandered from man to man sniffing. Finally the dog dove into the crowd and leapt upon an old geezer. Old Ott McEwen couldn’t believe it. He went down on his knees and on the floor of the lobby, threw his arms around the dog as tears ran down his cheeks. Someone said he had seen the dog weeks before way over in eastern Montana. How did the dog make his way across the mountains, and how did he know his master would be there? Many a gruff cattleman wiped away a tear, and the talk grew gentle among the men, for they understood well the special bond between a cattleman and his dog.

From Montana Moments: History on the Go
P.S. Remember this faithful dog?

Shep

In the summer of 1936, a sheepherder became ill and was brought to the hospital in Fort Benton. A dog followed his flock of sheep into town and hung around the hospital where a kindly nun fed him. The herder died, and his relatives asked that his body be sent back East. The undertaker put the casket on the train, and the engine pulled away. The dog followed along the tracks until the train sped away, beginning a five-and-a-half year vigil. Day after day, the dog—named Shep by locals—met every passenger train, eying each person who got off. Neither heat nor rain nor snow prevented Shep from meeting those trains. Irene Schanche Bowker recalls that her father, depot agent Tony Schanche, coaxed the dog into the depot from the cold station platform. After gaining his trust, Schanche taught him tricks. Shep’s fame spread, and people came to photograph him, try to make friends, and possibly adopt him. But Shep was a one-man dog. The bond he had formed with the herder was simply the most important thing to him. Although railroad employees gave Shep food and shelter, that was all he wanted, except his master’s return. Time took its toll. On January 12, 1942, stiff-legged and deaf, Shep failed to hear the whistle as the 10:17 approached the depot that cold winter morning. Witnesses said he turned to look when the engine was almost upon him, moved to get out of the way, and slipped on the icy rails. His long vigil ended. Two days later, Shep had a grand funeral. Boy Scouts played taps, and a local minister read a moving eulogy on man’s best friend. Loving citizens laid Shep to rest on the bluff overlooking the station where his long wait had come to a sad end.


From Roadtripamerica.com



Custer's Dogs

General George Custer had his faults, but one characteristic makes him more likable. Custer loved dogs. He owned as many as forty and took them with him everywhere. Historian Brian Dippie wrote that Custer’s dogs “accompanied him on hunts and campaigns; they arranged themselves at his feet, rested their heads on his lap, shared is bed and his food, got under foot, made nuisances of themselves, but never lost their special place in his affection. They were like people to him.” His dogs adored him, too. When Maida, one of his favorites, was killed during a buffalo hunt, Custer wrote a rather bad, but very heartfelt, poem to her. During the Black Hills expedition in 1874, Custer wrote to his wife that his dogs surrounded him and that his favorite, Tuck—a tall, light-colored deerhound—slept at the head of his bed. On June 12, 1876, two weeks before Little Bighorn, Custer again wrote: “Tuck regularly comes when I am writing, and lays her head on the desk, rooting up my hand with her long nose until I consent to stop and notice her.”

Photo from http://wyomingtalesandtrails.com/

Custer and Bloody Knife (pointing) in 1874. The dog in the foreground is Custer's favorite deerhound, Tuck.

Several dogs including Custer’s beloved Tuck broke away from the pack train and followed their master into the famous battle. Indian witnesses claimed that Custer was easy to spot among the fray because of the tall, light-colored dog that stayed at his side until the last moments. The Cheyenne warrior Wooden Leg recalled a dog on Custer Hill, and soldiers saw a dog on a distant rise, but none was seen again. Tuck was not listed among the casualties. We will never know for sure what became of her or her renegade companions.