Friday Photo: What's the Joke?

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 90-87.NB075A

Bill Fought (left) and Cap Barker pose with their horses circa 1914 near Terry, Montana. One wonders what he said or did to make her laugh. Evelyn Cameron, photographer.

George Bartholomew and the Great Western Circus

Theatrical troops and circuses traveled to Montana from the earliest times. The first circus performed at Bannack, Virginia City, and Helena in 1867. The Montana Post reported on July 6 that George Bartholomew’s Great Western Circus drew a crowd of eight hundred at Virginia City. Mary Ronan remembered the much anticipated event in Helena and that the only animals in Bartholomew’s circus were horses. There were bareback riders, equestriennes, acrobats, tightrope walkers, and clowns. These earliest traveling circuses, as Mary correctly recalled, were limited to performing horses. Bartholomew’s horses, however, were highly skilled and later brought him fame.

In Virginia City, residents lined the major thoroughfares as the performers paraded along the main street to the rousing music of the circus band.  The next evening, the audience thrilled at the “perch act,” the trick ponies Napoleon and Zebra, the hurdle chase, and expert bareback riding. There was, however, one mishap. As Mademoiselle Mathilda entered the ring, the band stopped to switch music and the horse followed suit coming to an abrupt stop. Mademoiselle sailed off and crashed against the outer ring-boards. Despite her violent fall, she hopped up and gracefully skipped out of the arena. She did not return to perform, but the Post speculated that she was not seriously hurt.

 
Circus owner George Bartholomew was a colorful character and an uncanny horse trainer who traveled the West with his Great Western Circus between 1867 and 1869. Bartholomew was perhaps the first professional “horse whisperer.” Several times his fortunes were reversed until 1879 when his horses performed in Oakland, California, in front of an audience of ten thousand. The performance cemented his fame. The valuable horses in Bartholomew’s Equine Paradox traveled in a special train car across the country. The sides of the boxcar advertised gentleness and kindness toward helpless creatures. Bartholomew’s horses performed a play in which horses played the major characters. Bartholomew believed horses could be trained like children and treated his horses thus. They performed incredible feats. According to their trainer, the only difference between horses and children was that horses couldn’t talk, or talk back.

A Territorial Period Landmark

Summer is county and state fair season and Montana’s fairs at Helena stretch back to 1867. Horse racing—both trotting and racing under saddle—was central to those celebrations. Helena’s official racetrack, completed in September 1870, accommodated six to eight totting horses and sulkies abreast, and it was the only regulation one-mile track in the territory. Early fairs attracted racers from across the West. Kentucky thoroughbreds, Montana-bred runners and trotters, and non-pedigreed horses all raced at the Helena track in the early years. But by 1884, entrants had to go through a nomination process to be accepted to race. After statehood in 1889, Helena’s fair became the State Fair. Purses of $300, $500, and $1,000 in the various trotting and running categories emphasize the importance of these races and Helena’s track. The track was refurbished in 1890, and according to local tradition, trains brought in carloads of imported Kentucky earth to spread on the track for luck. The newly refurbished track, said the Independent, was “as smooth as a billiard table….”

This aerial view shows the historic footprint of the Lewis and Clark County Fairgrounds Racetrack circa 1970s.
Courtesy MDT.

In 1904, relay races were introduced. Racers rode only thoroughbreds. Riders changed horses at top speed. Fannie Sperry, later the Lady Bucking Horse Champion of the World, rode Montana’s first relay race at the fairgrounds racetrack. Betting on horse races became illegal in 1914, the state cut its funding, drought impacted agricultural displays, and the fair began to decline. A new auto racing track built inside the one-mile racetrack brought a new attraction in 1916, although horse racing remained popular.  Betting resumed in 1930 when more than 350 horses from the best circuits in Canada, Mexico, and the United States vied for generous purses, but the Great Depression suspended fairs. Helena’s last was in 1932. The state fair later moved to Great Falls.

Portions of the track remain intact, recalling the days when horse racing was a popular sport.  Courtesy SHPO.

Horse racing reemerged with the Last Chance Stampede from 1961 to 1998. Today surviving sections of the racetrack, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, are a rare territorial period landmark. Recent insensitive remodeling of the fairgrounds destroyed some of the track. The surviving portions remain highly endangered.

Friday Photo: Lumberjacks

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 949-126

Today's photo shows the Baker brothers with 16,130 feet of lumber near Whitefish circa 1900. Sledges like this one were used to transport logs to a nearby landing where they could be loaded on railroad cars or floated by water to a mill.

Friday Photo: Pitamakin Pass

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 956-850

A group of riders pauses at the top of Cut Bank Pass (now Pitamakin Pass) in Glacier National Park in 1915. Mount Morgan is in the background.

Captain Keogh’s Love of Horses

Comanche, the favorite mount of Captain Myles Keogh, carried his master into many battles and survived him at the battle at Little Big Horn. Comanche was perhaps a special horse because of the exceptional way Captain Keogh treated his horses. One biographer points out that Captain Keogh was “a noble-hearted gentleman, the beau ideal of a cavalry commander, and the very soul of valor.” By all accounts, his good character extended to the treatment of his horses, and from his personal correspondence it is evident that his horses were important to him. During Keogh’s service in the Civil War, he wrote to his sister about the loss of Tom, an old horse that he had loved much and that had carried him through many charges. “I felt his loss severely,” he said. “I wish you could have seen how he could leap, and he saved my life, whilst riding on a bye road carrying an order. I suddenly rode into a heavy outlying thicket of the enemy. Tom saw them as they rose up to deliver their fire. He jumped sideways over a rail fence into the wood[s] …. and carried me safely out of range. I shall never have a horse like that again.” But a few years later in 1868, Keogh bought the celebrated Comanche. Soon after, during a skirmish with the Comanche Indians in Kansas, the horse took an arrow in his hindquarter, but continued to let Keogh fight from his back. Keogh named him “Comanche” to honor his bravery, and he proved to be every bit as special as old Tom. After the Battle at Little Big Horn, soldiers found Comanche nearly dead from loss of blood, the only living thing on the battlefield. The farrier walked him fifteen miles to the waiting steamer Far West and saved his life. Comanche never worked again, but he often walked, riderless, with the Seventh Cavalry in parades.

Comanche with Private Gustave Korn in June 1877. Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, H-63

He lived to be twenty-nine and died in 1891. University of Kansas taxidermist Professor Lewis Dyche preserved Comanche and he is still on display at the university’s natural history museum.

Friday the 13th Photo: Coal

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, Al Lucke Collection

Neil Phillipps drives a wagonload of coal through Havre in 1912. I hope you don't find any in your stocking this Christmas.

Friday Photo: Dudes

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, F. W. Byerly collection

The dudes in today's photo are admiring Cliff Lake in the Beartooth Mountains, probably in the 1930s or early 1940s.

Fort Keogh

Fort Keogh was established in July 1876 in the few weeks following the Custer loss at Little Bighorn. The army cavalry post takes its name from Captain Myles Keogh who served under Custer and died in the battle. The fort’s commander was General Nelson Miles. In 1879, Miles City—whose name honors the general—became the first seat of Custer County, and the fort grew to be one of the largest in the territory.

A distant view of Fort Keogh, c. 1878. Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, ST 003.63

Sixty buildings once sprawled across the diamond-shaped grounds. In 1907, the army withdrew its infantry troops, and in 1909, the fort became a remount station where the army trained and shipped horses worldwide. The army shipped more horses from Fort Keogh during World War I than any other army post.

Women and children pose in front of the officers' quarters at Fort Keogh, c. 1878.
Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, ST 003.62

The military withdrew in 1924 and transferred the land to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for experimental stock raising and the growing of forage crops. This work continues today. The remains of the historic fort include the parade ground, 1883 wagon shed, 1887 flagpole, and seven other pre-1924 structures.

Friday Photo: Turk Greenough

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, Byerly Collection

Rodeo champion Turk Greenough enjoys the view of the Beartooth Highway above Rock Creek Gorge circa 1939.

P.S. Remember Turk's rodeo star sisters?

Friday Photo: The Bob Saloon

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 981-837

The cowboys in this L.A. Huffman photo are enjoying a lazy day off at Bob Leavitt's Saloon in Jordan, Montana, circa 1904. The horse, on the other hand, looks ready to go. I hope your weekend is just as relaxing.

A Cowboy and his Horse

The Great Falls Tribune of August 30, 1951, related a heartwarming true tale of a cowboy and his horse. Henry Haughian and Buck were rounding up cattle in the rugged outback country of the Sheep Mountains north of Miles City in Dawson County. Buck, usually a surefooted horse, probably got to daydreaming and stumbled on the steep hillside. Henry had no time to jump off. He was caught beneath the horse as Buck rolled down the hill. The fall frightened Buck, who got up, shook himself, shied away, and took off down the hill as fast as he could go. But when Buck got over his fright, he realized that his master was missing. He climbed back up the rocky hillside, searching for him. He found Henry lying unconscious on the slope. Buck then climbed to the top of the hill and stood sentinel there.

Henry Haughian. Range Riders Museum Collection, via Range Rider Stories

No one knows how long he must have waited, motionless on that hilltop. Finally sometime later, two sheepherders happened along and saw the horse silhouetted against the Montana sky. They noticed the empty saddle right away and made their way to the riderless horse. Once the men reached the top of the hill, Buck led them down the steep incline to the spot where Henry lay, still unconscious. The men carried Henry to their truck and took him to the hospital. Henry suffered three broken bones and extensive bruises but recovered from his ordeal. The story proves that humans and their animal companions have special bonds. Or maybe it proves that horses know where their next meal comes from. Whatever the explanation, Henry never forgot Buck because Buck did not forget him.

P.S. Remember this heartwarming story?

Friday Photo: Miles City Horse Race

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 981-969

The famous Miles City Bucking Horse Sale is this weekend. Are you going? You can compare it to this photo, which shows what the Miles City fairgrounds looked like at a horse race around the turn of the twentieth century. Photo by L. A. Huffman.

P.S. Remember this racehorse?
P.P.S. L. A. Huffman is famous for his photos of cowboys on the range.

Happy Mother's Day

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 90-87 21 D

Moms have a tough job, but with a hand on her hip and determination in her eye, this homestead mom looks up to the task. Happy Mother's Day to all Montana moms!

P.S. The photo was taken by Evelyn Cameron in 1913 near Fallon, Montana.

Marcus Daly’s Horses

Copper king Marcus Daly believed that the Bitterroot valley was the ideal place to breed and train trotters and thoroughbreds. The lush grass that grew there reminded him of his native Ireland. Daly figured that horses raised and trained at higher altitudes had more stamina. His Bitterroot Stock Farm had the best facilities. Daly imported veterinarians, trainers, and young African American jockeys to exercise the horses. Tammany was Daly’s most famous and most loved racehorse. He won both the Lawrence Realization and Withers Stake races at New York's Belmont Park in 1892.

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, H-3890

In 1893, a crowd of 15,000 witnessed Tammany defeat Lamplighter by four lengths in a legendary match race at New Jersey's Guttenberg track. Jockey Snapper Garrison led Tammany to such a breathtaking finish that it became known as a Garrison finish, a term defined in Webster’s dictionary. The win established Tammany as the East’s best thoroughbred racer from 1892 to 1894.

Tammany Castle. Photo by Tom Ferris in Hand Raised: The Barns of Montana

Daly built Tammany Castle for his champion and favorite pet; it presides at the top of a long, graceful drive. Cork floors half a foot thick imported from Spain protected the stallions from slipping, and the heated stalls were lined with velvet.  At his Montana Hotel in Anaconda, a mosaic of Tammany graced the lobby, but no one dared step on the revered horse’s head. After Daly’s death in 1900, his string of nearly two hundred thoroughbreds, including the beloved Tammany, were auctioned at a dispersal sale at Madison Square Garden in New York City and in San Francisco. Although none of Daly’s Montana-born horses were Kentucky Derby winners, his Bitter Root stock bloodlines went on to produce Kentucky Derby winners Regret, Paul Jones, Zev, and Flying Ebony.

P.S. Tammany's Castle has since been converted into a magnificent home, and it seems to be for sale. Would you buy it?
P.P.S. I'm featured on Reflections West this week. Listen.

Bill Fairweather

Some men just weren’t meant for good fortune. Bill Fairweather was a tragic example of luck gone awry. In the company of a party of miners on May 26, 1863, Fairweather panned the first gold at Alder Gulch, setting off the famous stampede. The gulch made him rich, but to Fairweather, the gold meant little. Legend has it that he would ride up and down the streets of Virginia City on his horse, Old Antelope, scattering gold nuggets in the dust. He loved to see the children and the Chinese miners scramble for them. He mixed gold dust in his horse’s oats, saying that nothing was too good for Old Antelope, the horse that brought him such good luck. But Fairweather died of hard living at Robber’s Roost in 1875. His pockets were empty and a bottle of whiskey was his only companion. He was not yet forty years old. A diet of gold dust did Fairweather’s horse, Old Antelope, no harm. He long outlived his master, enjoying the Ruby Valley pasture of E. F. Johnson into extreme old age. Fairweather’s remains lie in Hillside Cemetery, a windswept burial ground overlooking Alder Gulch where an iron fence surrounds his grave. A recent marker credits him with the Alder Gulch discovery.

From Montana Moments: History on the Go

Spokane

Not all of Montana's great athletes have been human. As we continue our look at sports history, let's remember a four-legged champion...

Noah Armstrong made a fortune in the Glendale mines southwest of Butte. He had a ranch in Madison County where he built a beautiful three-story round barn. If you drive along the highway near Twin Bridges in Madison County, you can see it off the highway. Its board-and-batten walls are painted red, and its shape is like a wedding cake, with each story smaller than the one below it.

Photo by Tom Ferris in Hand Raised: The Barns of Montana.

This barn is famous as the birthplace of the only Montana horse to win the Kentucky Derby. Armstrong invested some of his wealth in raising and racing thoroughbreds. In 1887 the famous racehorse Spokane was born in Armstrong’s round barn. A quarter-mile track inside the barn was the colt’s first training ground. Armstrong sent him to Tennessee for further training. In 1889 when Spokane was three, Armstrong entered him in the fifteenth Kentucky Derby. Spokane had only run a few undistinguished races. Bookies overlooked him at six to one odds, favoring the famous Proctor Knott, a proven winner who already had brought his owner seventy thousand dollars. That day at Churchill Downs, thousands witnessed the little copper-colored horse from Montana make racing history. He passed Proctor Knott at the finish line. Spokane went on to win two more big races: the American Derby at Churchill Downs and the Clark Stakes in Chicago, beating the mighty Proctor Knott both times. No other three-year-old horse has ever won all three great races. Spokane lives on in the annals of racing history.

From Montana Moments: History on the Go

Friday the 13th Photo: Rodeo

Some days just don't go well.


From Montana Views. Original in Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives PAc 76-82 3-C-206

Location, photographer, and date unknown, though the clothing of the boy on the fence points to the 1950s or 60s. Maybe someone can identify the rodeo arena or the cowboys?

Arline Allen’s Embarrassing Innuendo

Yesterday I got a treat. My publisher gave me a handful of copies of my new book, More Montana Moments, fresh from the printer! You won't find it in most stores for another month or so, but the Montana Historical Society Museum Store does have copies available. Here's one of my favorite excerpts:

The Allen family long operated one of Helena’s most popular livery stables, the Allen Livery at Ewing and Breckenridge. The former stable has a long and colorful history and is Helena’s best-preserved reminder of this vital business. Its many “ghost signs” are also remarkably preserved. By 1867, William H. Allen established the business on his rich mining claim where he picked gold nuggets out of the dirt. Allen’s nephew, Joseph Allen, soon arrived to help out and eventually took over the business. Joseph built the current stone and brick stable around 1885. Contrary to popular belief, the upstairs never in its long history housed prostitution. Rather lodging rooms accommodated the livery’s hostlers and stablemen. Joseph Allen and his wife Lurlie had a daughter, Arline, who grew up around her father’s horses. She and her friends never learned to ride sidesaddle, but rode astride and wore divided riding skirts like other Montana women. Arline and her friends followed the trails all over the hills and had many adventures. But in 1912 when Arline was sixteen, both her mother and father died. Arline went to live with her grandmother in Virginia. She had a hard time because girls there never rode astride, but only sidesaddle. She found horseback riding and ice skating in long full skirts terribly confining and longed to put on her Montana divided riding skirt. Shocked, her grandmother would not allow it. On her first ice skating date in Virginia, Arline said to the young man, “If I could just take this skirt off, I could really show you something!” Arline spent the rest of her life trying to live that one down.

P.S. Remember the scandal caused by this divided riding skirt?

Evelyn Cameron Scandalizes Miles City

Photographer Evelyn Cameron is a recent inductee into the Gallery of Outstanding Montanans in the state’s Capitol. Evelyn was born in England and raised to be a proper English lady. But once she created a real scandal. Evelyn’s husband was a noted ornithologist and naturalist, but he didn’t care much for their ranch. That was all right with Evelyn who enjoyed the physical work. Chores and most everything from making bread to milking cows and working the horses fell to her. She took to wearing a divided riding skirt that allowed her to ride astride rather than sidesaddle. The long skirt was much like modern culottes. Victorian women, however, did not wear pants. And when Evelyn first rode into Miles City in the dark blue divided skirt she had ordered from California, oh, the scandal it caused. Although the skirt was so full it looked like an ordinary dress when she was on foot, on horseback the division was obvious. Law enforcement warned her not to ride on the streets in town or she might be arrested. But town was forty-eight miles from her ranch, and riding sidesaddle could only be done on a very slow and gentle horse. Evelyn would not ride what she called old “dead heads.” She became convinced that riding in a man’s saddle stride-legged was the only safe way for a woman to ride. Before long, other women took to the divided skirt and it became an accepted way of dressing not only for women on the streets of Miles City, but also on homesteads, farms, and ranches across Montana.


Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 90-87.80-2

One of the Buckley sisters of eastern Montana dismounting, wearing an Evelyn Cameron–designed split skirt, 1914. Click the photo for a bigger version.

P.S. Remember Dillon's fashion scandal?