Interlude: Young men, old men, and fire

 

“You picture the mountainside as sides of an amphitheater crowded with admirers, among whom always is your father, who fought fires in his time…”

 

– Norman Maclean, Young Men and Fire

 

From Bill Bell to Bud Moore

 

“[Bud Moore] and I soon discovered that both of us had worked in the Lochsa when we were boys and when the Lochsa was thought to be accessible only to the best men in the woods.”

 

– Norman Maclean, Young Men and Fire

 

In 1930, as Bertrand Russell readied for publication his speculations about a human future driven by applied science, he inserted a counter observation from the long past.  At issue was the concept of “state of nature.”  The view that “man should live according to nature” was a conception that is “continually recurring throughout the ages,” he intoned, “though always with a different connotation.”  In practice, he concluded, “return to nature” meant the conditions that the writer knew in his youth.  That same year a 12-year-old Bud Moore, on a solitary trek, crested the Bitterroot Mountains and looked across the landscape of the Lochsa Valley.  It was a panorama that became a vision that evolved into an epiphany.  The Lochsa would inform his life.[i]

 

Bud Moore saw his first fire when he was six.  His father extinguished a nearby snag kindled by lightning and was paid by the Forest Service.  Young Bud fought his first fire four years after his defining Lochsa trek.  He imagined rangers like the celebrated Bill Bell as the logical successors to the free-spirited mountain men he admired as a youth.  It was a way to live within the wild.  The Forest Service had a founding legend, a comaraderie, and a code based on toughness with a call to duty that made its rangers the offspring of the western hero.  All this showed itself most spectacularly in their astonishing fight against wildfire.

 

In 1928 he was hired to work on the Powell District, mostly trail and telephone line maintenance, and of course on fires whenever they popped up.  Smokechasing was a mainstay of life on the Lochsa.  He met many of the legends of the Northern Rockies – Bill Bell, of course; but also Ed MacKay of the Powell, Elers Koch, Major Evan Kelly.  They were backcountry and fire men all.  He was on the line during the big Selway fires of 1934.  When World War II broke out, MacKay and Kelly recruited him to help with the guayule project in Southern California.  While there Moore enlisted with the Marines, where he found himself again fighting fire at Camp Pendleton before heading to the Pacific.  When the war ended, he returned to the Forest Service with a war-service appointment, and was assigned as an alternate ranger to the Powell, where he mostly fought fire.

 

Bud Moore was an American type, the self-educated boy from the frontier whose grit, talent, and instincts allowed him to rise through the ranks.  His stroke of fortune came when, soon after his return, he was “grandfathered” into a “professional” appointment as an assistant ranger without the expected education.  He oversaw the postwar development of the northern Lochsa.  Then he joined the committee of inquiry that looked at the string of tragedy fires in Southern California, in which he returned to his Marine Corps training and restated the Corps standing orders into the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders.  He went to the Washington Office as an assistant training officer, became more fully involved with fire (which is where most of the training belonged), and joined the National Fire Coordination Study that surveyed the American fire scene for the Office of Civil Defense.  In 1967, as big fires swept the Northern Rockies, Moore reviewed the scene for the national office and reaffirmed the value of initial attack.  Soon afterwards he became deputy national Director of Fire Control, and then director.  Finally, yearning for the homeland of his youth, he returned to Missoula as fire director for Region One.  When he retired in 1974 he probably knew as much about fire across the country, and from the ground up, as anyone in the USFS.

 

In his final tour he appreciated that the old ways couldn’t continue.  He distrusted the analogy of firefighting to battle; he knew the difference, disliked the Marine Corps’ singularity of focus and reductionism of everything to the single task at hand, which might work on a battleground but could only fail in complex landscapes.  He recognized that fire couldn’t be stopped and that in many settings more fire not less was needed.  What tipped the scale was the Wilderness Act.  He harked back to his youth and that epiphany on the Bitterroots and decided that “nothing is more needed in wilderness than fire,” certainly in the Northern Rockies.

 

Perhaps, too, he saw the restoration of a natural process as partial redemption for what he had done as ranger on the Powell District, for he had helped introduce the toxic worms that had eaten into the wild apple of the Lochsa.  When a spruce budworm epidemic broke out, the proposed remedy was wholesale logging; so he watched bulldozers achieve for timber companies what the Nez Perce, Army engineers, and railroad magnates had failed to do: open the Lochsa Valley to active exploitation.  It was one thing to hunt lynx and marten along traplines accessible only to snowshoes.  It was something else to push unstable slopes into once-clear trout streams and fell whole hillsides.  When the axe failed to keep up with the insects, the agency turned to DDT.  Throughout, the Forest Service continued, at enormous labor, to fight fires.  In the postwar era aircraft became an indispensable part of its armory as fire officers sought to reach ever more remote fires sooner and with ever greater power.  The aerial firefight was the mechanical equivalent to those dozer roads crashing through the wilderness.

 

Bud Moore had begun to doubt.  Perhaps fires were no different than free-ranging grizzlies or wolves, and the countryside was the worse for their absence.  Besides, after 60 years of attempted suppression, and 35 years since the 10 am policy had been promulgated in large measure to control the big burns of the Rockies, the policy had failed.  It was expensive, dangerous, and self-defeating.  The fires would come.  The more they were held off, the worse their sweep when they eventually kindled.  He had spent his entire life fighting fires, and still they came.  It seemed the agency might be destroying what it sought to save.  Maybe fire was not an enemy to be annihilated but a storm of nature to be accommodated and weathered like blizzards and droughts.  When the wilderness movement arrived, Moore felt a kinship with its ideals.  The upshot was the White Cap Project, chartered in 1970 for the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness; it received its first natural fire in 1972.  Two years later the Forest Service officially retitled its Division of Fire Control as the Division of Fire Management.  It was time, Bud Moore decided, to retire.

 

In New England, when you wish to proclaim your status and retire in the style of the countryside, you buy a colonial farmhouse.  In the South, you buy a plantation.  In Texas, a ranch.  In the Rockies, you get a cabin.  Bud Moore did one better.  He built his out of logs by hand, returning to the world he had known as a youth.  He then turned his vision into a philosophy of land ethics.  He sought to replace the timber cruising that had ripped open the Bitterroots with “eco-cruising.”  He wrote a book.  He became for a new generation what Bill Bell had been in his own youth, the beau ideal of the ranger.  He was the man the next cohort looked to for insight and approbation.  And while the University of Montana awarded him an honorary doctorate, a triumph for a man whose schooling had ended in the eighth grade, probably the greater pleasure came when the White Cap Five convened around a campfire on Cooper’s Flat in early September, 2002 for the 30^th anniversary of fire’s reintroduction to the greater Lochsa.

 

The restoration had been, in the deepest sense, an ethical act, and it had been one designed to pass the torch from one generation to another.  It was not only about the wild but about initiating the young into it.  “To me,” Bud Moore confirmed at his retirement, “most of all the Forest Service is the eager uncertainty of young men and women as they confront an old pro at their first job in the woods.”[ii]

 

From Bud Moore to Bob Mutch

 

“Could you expect less from a boy who grew up in the woods and grew old as a schoolteacher and so spent most of his life staying close to the young who are elite and select and, by definition, often in trouble?  I came to Mann Gulch expecting to catch glimpses of them as far as they could go.  That’s why I came.”

 

– Norman Maclean, Young Men and Fire

 

It’s a long way, in more than geography, from Cleveland, Ohio to Paradise Guard Station in the Selway country.  But it’s a leap Bob Mutch made first in his mind as a boy, then as a smokejumper, and finally as lead scientist on the White Cap Project.  What imprinted on his childhood memory were the woods around that gritty city.  What initiated him into his mature years were wildfires in the Northern Rockies.  They merged, as they had for Bud Moore, into an epiphany that became an ethos.

 

From Cleveland suburbs Bob went to Albion College and decided he wanted to be a forester.  In 1953, at the age of 19, he joined a blister rust crew at St Maries, Idaho, close to ground zero of the Great Fires of 1910, and it was fire that “rescued” him from a grueling summer of plucking Ribes like gooseberry along endless transects.  That first fire demanded a long hike into the Salmon River country and concluded with a magnificent panorama.  He tasted his first coffee, served by logging crews impressed for fireline duty.  He met some smokejumpers from Missoula.  The next year he joined them – a member of the first class in the new Aerial Fire Depot, which President Eisenhower dedicated that September.  His two years on the cadre were slow but Bob made his first jump, the Ballinger Point fire, in the Selway-Bitterroot primitive area.  He was hooked.  He enrolled at the University of Montana for a graduate degree in forestry.

 

He moved into research.  He worked at the Priest River Experiment Station – Harry Gisborne’s stomping grounds – and when the Missoula lab opened in 1960, he was among its first hires.  Meanwhile, he remained active in making knowledge relevant to fire protection by serving as a fire behavior officer on an overhead crew.  But the sense gnawed at him that something was missing, that the era of fighting every fire everywhere and of ramping up research to help fight them and even (among one of the founding objectives of the Missoula lab) trying to suppress lightning in order to stop ignitions, could not continue.  Something was fundamentally out of alignment.

 

His personal annus mirabilis came in 1970.  He published in Ecology an article – his most famous – that reversed the usual conception of fire adaptation.  The Mutch hypothesis argued that plants not only adapt to protect themselves from fire, but some can be seen to promote fire; that flammability, paradoxically, can confer selective advantage to those plants better adapted to recover from them.  The subtext was, fire is not just something out in nature like ice storms or floods against which species must shield themselves, but something that has emerged out of a long co-evolution to which plants themselves contributed.  Fire was not simply the outcome of climate and fuels but expressed complex biological processes.  The upshot was, suppressing fire is not only unnatural but disruptive to precisely those species that have most accommodated it.  At the same time, Bob saw a flyer at the lab soliciting a “wilderness planner” for an experiment in natural fire management.  His application went to Bud Moore, by that time Region One director of Fire Control.  Bob Mutch joined Dave Aldrich to create the plans behind the White Cap Project that would begin restoring fire to biotas that needed it.  If insights were meaningful, they had to find expression on the ground.

 

The two men traveled to Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park to see firsthand the earliest trials of letting fires burn.  In 1971 they joined Moore, Bill Worf, and Orville Daniels – what became known later as the White Cap Five – on a trek into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness to discuss their conceptions on site.  The following summer the program got approval as an exception to the 10 am policy; the next day the Bad Luck fire provided nature’s imprimatur; a year later the Fitz Creek fire blew up, tested ideas and resolve, and confirmed the program.  The year following, having completed what he regarded as his life’s task, Bud Moore retired.  In 1977 when fire research sought to relocate him to the Riverside lab, Bob balked, and instead transferred to the fire staff of the Lolo National Forest.  When, the next year, the Forest Service officially renounced the 10 am policy, he was in a position to advise that fire-rich forest with fresh plans.  He was where he wanted to be, the place that most melded head, heart, and hands.

 

When he left, he traded the Bitterroots for the world.  In 1986 he accepted an assignment in the Washington Office as the first program manager for the Disaster Assistance Support Program through which the Forest Service satisfied requests from the State Department.  He became, in effect, America’s IC for responding to fire and other emergency requests throughout the world; but it was, as Moore’s first WO assignment had been, an educational as much as an operational mission.  For five years he set up train-the-trainer programs, oversaw specialists to help control locusts, counter famines, respond to hurricanes, and of course cope with wildfires; fire specialists or equipment went to Latin America, China, and even the Galapagos.  In 1988 he self-deployed to the Yellowstone bust, effectively bringing the world home.  Throughout, he was once again translating knowledge into practice.  He continued for five years, then recycled back to the Missoula lab as a specialist in technology transfer.  From time to time that included overseas assignments.

 

It was in Brazil in 1994 that it all came together.  Suddenly, while drinking beer with a Brazilian bombeiro, he had another epiphany that he believed “could also appear as [his] epitaph.”  His life’s purpose could be summed up in six words: “finding harmony among people and ecosystems.”  That meant putting fire back where it belonged; stopping fire where it didn’t; and keeping those who managed fire safe.  The discovery brought “a sense of closure and satisfaction” to his career.  Although the terms had morphed – “land” had become “ecosystems,” and “technology transfer” had replaced “passing along what you know” – the sentiment was nonetheless interchangeable with Bud Moore’s vision, or with Russell’s.  It conveyed both a mission and a morality.  That year Bob Mutch retired.

 

He remained active, opening up a consultancy, accepting assignments from the World Bank and FAO that took him to Bulgaria, Ethiopia, India, Mongolia, and (many times) to Brazil.  He spoke often at training sessions and conferences.  But his most fulfilling moment, hands down, across his 59-year career in fire was his work in the White Cap where he harmonized, at least in principle, people and ecosystems.  Before retiring he bought land outside in the West Fork and built a cabin.  In 2002 he joined the White Cap Five for a 30^th anniversary of the Bad Luck fire.  Still able to do so, he returned a decade later for the 40^th.  By then, the torch had passed beyond the West Fork.

 

Beyond 40

 

“It is a great privilege to possess the friendship of a young man who is as good or better than you at what you intended to be when you were his age…It is as if old age fortuitously had enriched your life by letting you live two lives, the life you finally chose to live and a working copy of the one you started out to live.

 

– Norman Maclean, Young Men and Fire

 

That a man might treasure the moment of his initiation into manhood is common enough, especially if it involves a hard physical trial, and there is little novel if he should identify it with a place, particularly one as overpowering as the Selway-Bitterroots that can boost a routine coming-of-age saga into a vision-quest.  That it might crystallize into a code for living is less typical, but far from rare.  What Bud Moore and Bob Mutch and uncounted others experienced has counterparts elsewhere throughout the fire community and beyond.

 

What distinguishes the Northern Rockies is not the individual moment of revelation but its transfer across generations.  Only the South with its tradition of handing down burning from parent to child has a comparable social character.  Its inter-generational theme (even across cultures) may be the most unusual feature of the Lochsa story and of fire in the Northern Rockies generally.  It reverberates in campfire stories, memoirs, and ceremony; and it inscribes an interlinear text in the region’s most prominent fire writer, Norman Maclean.  “USFS, 1919,” one of the tales in A River Runs Through It, is his coming of age story under the gaze of Bill Bell.  Young Men and Fire, his mediation about the 1949 Mann Gulch tragedy is about old men as well as young, and the connections between them as the young man ages, and the aged author tries to explain something about the universe.  The book opens with Maclean’s youth, then seeks to rescue the memory of the youths lost at Mann Gulch, and throughout accents his relationship with Laird Robinson as they pull each other along, one relying on the wisdom of more than his Biblically allotted six-score-and-ten years and the other on the residual vitality of youth.  The cycle of fire in the Northern Rockies involves generations of people as much as scorched conifers.

 

Often the hand-over occurs within families.  The federal land agencies have long displayed a quasi-caste quality akin to military families in which children, having grown up on bases, follow their parents’ career.  The record of second- or third-generation fire officers is striking.  It may be that the region’s generational theme will become still more genealogical, particularly after the Forest Service underwent a wrenching court-mandated demographic shift as a result of the 1981 consent agreement that brought in large numbers of minorities, notably women.  The agency had to find new ways to move people rapidly through the ranks; the newcomers were often older, better educated, and not drawn from traditional or common pools of experience; they could not wait for the inherited processes of initiation.  The saying in Region One used to be, Until you’d been on a hundred fires, you kept your mouth shut.  That would not be possible with the volume of workforce turnover.  Instead, continuity may come through family lines rather than bureaucratic ones.

 

Maybe, or maybe not.  For a hundred years, however, the lore of the Lochsa has passed from old to young.  In 1971 Bob Mutch began taking his children, Dale, Brian, and Linda, with him when he backpacked into the SBW.  His daughter, Linda, was 10 when she first trekked with him.  Growing up she studied fire, worked summers on fire crews when she went to college, worked two seasons on fire-related projects for the Park Service in Alaska and then in Sequoia-Kings Canyon’s Big Trees before migrating into wilderness inventory and monitoring.  At the 30^th anniversary of the Bad Luck fire, she spoke about how the trails taken in the White Cap had become a career path.  And when in the summer of 2012 the Salamander fire free-burned on the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, Bud Moore’s son, Bill, was a volunteer staffing the Salmon Mountain Lookout to report its movements.

 

Steve Pyne

 

August 2012

 

Acknowledgements: I need to thank Bob Mutch for sharing his career during a long conversation and for graciously allowing me to poach on his own literary plans to describe his experiences in the SBW.

 

 

[i] Bertrand Russell, The Scientific Outlook (W.W. Norton, 1931), pp. 101-102; Bud Moore, The Lochsa Story. Land Ethics in the Bitterroot Mountains (Mountain Press, 1996), pp. 3-12.  Other information on Moore also from two oral histories, one by USFS for “The Greatest Good” and one by Jamie Lewis, for the Forest History Society, both available through the Forest History Society.

 

[ii] William R. Moore, “Towards the Future… Land, People, and Fire,” Fire Management 35(4) (Summer 1974), p.5.

 

Last Updated on Saturday, 22 February 2014 17:23

 

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Former Missoula mayor Turman dies

 

December 10, 2008 12:00 am • By MIKE DENNISON Missoulian State Bureau

 

HELENA – George Turman, a former Democratic lieutenant governor who had left the Republican Party as a legislator in the 1970s because his GOP colleagues considered him too liberal, died Tuesday in Missoula. He was 80.

 

Turman was remembered Tuesday by former colleagues as a “class act” who got involved in politics for idealistic reasons and not for any personal aggrandizement.

 

“What I remember him mostly for is his decency, his ethics, and his commitment to what he did,” said former Gov. Ted Schwinden, who picked Turman as his running mate in 1980. “He was a highly ethical person.”

 

Turman got his start in Montana politics as mayor of Missoula in 1970, named to replace Republican Dick Shoup, who had resigned to run for Congress.

 

Turman won re-election as mayor that year and then was elected to the Legislature two years later. Yet at the end of his first term as a state representative, he and several other Republican House members walked out of a party meeting after it became apparent the party was organizing a committee to run primary candidates against members who weren’t deemed conservative enough.

 

Turman decided to run as a Democrat in 1974 for the state Public Service Commission, representing Missoula, and won.

 

“I remember George Turman as one of the absolutely most intelligent, most articulate and most compassionate Republican legislators I ever served with,” recalled Hal Harper, who lost to a challenger in the 1974 Republican primary and then chose to switch parties, running for a seat and winning as a Democrat in 1976. He is now an aide to Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

 

Harper said both he and Turman were strong environmentalists and generally pro-union.

 

Turman served on the PSC until 1980, when Schwinden tapped him as running mate in Schwinden’s quest to defeat then-Gov. Tom Judge in the Democratic primary. Schwinden and Turman won an upset victory.

 

“(George) came from a time when it was hard to tell a moderate Republican from a Democrat,” said Schwinden, himself a conservative Democrat. “The last thing in the world that George wasn’t, was an extreme person. He was idealistic, but he was bathed with some pragmatism.”

 

Turman served as lieutenant governor under Schwinden for nearly all of the latter’s two terms in office, and was appointed by Schwinden in 1988 as one of two Montana representatives on the Northwest Power Planning Council.

 

Turman left that post in 1989 to become president of the National Center for Appropriate Technology in Butte, where he stayed until he retired in 1993, moving back to Missoula.

 

Turman was born in Missoula in 1928 and grew up there, earning an economics degree from the University of Montana. He served in the Army during the Korean War and was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge.

 

He married Kathleen “Kay” Hager of Big Timber in 1951. He worked for the Federal Reserve Bank in Seattle and San Francisco but returned to Missoula in the 1960s, where he had a property-management business.

 

Turman is survived by his wife, three daughters, two sons, 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

 

 

IN MEMORIAM

 

The Honorable Russell E. Smith

 

1908-1990

 

The bench and bar have lost a friend, colleague, and dedicated public servant with the passing of United States District Judge Russell E. Smith. For twenty-four years this man served the federal court with distinction. That exemplary service should be remembered. Russell E. Smith was born in Butte in 1908, later moving to Billings where he was graduated from high school. He was active in high school debate where he was coached by William B. Jameson, who was later to become a revered federal judge. Rusty graduated from the University of Montana School of Law with high honors in 1931. After graduation, he worked as a law clerk and marshal at the Montana Supreme Court until 1933 when he entered private practice in the firm of Ford and Smith in Cut Bank. Judge Smith moved to Missoula to practice law with Walter Pope in 1935. During World War II, he worked in the Office of Price Administration and as an attorney in the United States Navy. He returned to private practice in 1945 as a partner in the firm of Pope and Smith. In 1949, when Walter Pope was appointed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge Smith practiced with William T. Boone. The firm was later known as Smith, Boone and Rimel until Jack Rimel’s untimely death in 1958, after which it became Smith, Boone and Karlberg. Sam Haddon joined the firm shortly after Russell Smith became a federal district judge and the firm became Boone, Karlberg and Haddon. I first knew this man when, at age 14, I worked as a busboy in the coffee shop of the Florence Hotel in Missoula. Rusty, a prominent lawyer, was a regular patron, and I saw him there often. Neither of us then knew the many ways in which our paths would later cross. Judge Smith’s is a history of service. As an attorney in private practice, he worked for a variety of clients and the profession, serving as president of the Montana Bar Association, and as chairman of the Montana Board of Law Examiners. He also taught evidence, torts and legal writing, at different times, at the Montana law school. At one point, he refused a teaching salary increase and instead directed the dean to use his share to bolster the salary of younger instructors who needed the money more than he. I was one of those fortunate enough to have studied evidence in Professor Smith’s class. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Russell E. Smith to the office of United States District Judge for the District of Montana in 1966. He assumed this office with enthusiasm, becoming a fair-minded and even-tempered judge. He was a thoughtful jurist, but one who would rule with accurate certainty from the bench. While strict and formal in open court, his compassion was obvious. These qualities earned him widespread respect among lawyers and his peers, who described him as brilliant, courageous, and scholarly. Judge Smith developed a professional and efficient court staff. His late wife, Todd, was a constant companion, and the two of them were as family with the staff. The Montana federal workload was somewhat lighter then than now, and Rusty served extensively in other jurisdictions. One year he was away from Missoula for 185 days. He sat twice a year on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals until becoming chief judge in Montana, and at least once a year afterward. He also sat on circuit panels in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Minnesota and Guam. In 1978, Judge Smith was honored when he was chosen to open the federal court system in the Mariana Islands Commonwealth. A gifted writer, Rusty wrote in 1949 of his evolving self-perceptions as an attorney. The piece was characteristically introspective and somewhat self-deprecating. Rusty portrayed himself initially as a “knight in shining armor,” who used the law to champion justice; next, he viewed himself as an “economic parasite” who, as an advocate, placed his clients’ needs above whichever party he believed was the rightful winner of a lawsuit; and, finally, he viewed himself as an “oil can” – an integral part of a flawed but necessary legal system, reducing social friction. Russell E. Smith was the kind of judge who makes our federal system work: honorable, bright, hard-working, dedicated and humble. Visitors in his chambers were reminded of this humility by a plaque which prominently displayed Oliver Cromwell’s words of August 3, 1650 -“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” Judge Russell E. Smith is missed; he will be remembered. – U.S. District Judge Charles C. Lovell

 

 

Published by The Scholarly Forum @ Montana Law, 2014

 

Site of Spottswood Mansion still evokes feelings of loss

 

 

March 06, 2005 12:00 am  • by Evelyn King

 

 

The near, south side of Missoula has been in the news of late. To me, this particular neighborhood has always been the heart and soul of the city. Perhaps because various addresses there have been my home for more than half a century.

 

There was a time, when the King kids were very small, I thought it would be great to live in the country, such as Orchard Homes (which is now no longer “country” but cluttered with housing developments).

 

When they reached school age, I realized the south side was ideal. They could walk to school, the “new” Roosevelt. (This was before city kids were bused to schools across town or into the country). They could also walk everywhere, to the movies or to the library, to the swimming pool at McCormick and to the playground at Sacajawea.

 

After renting various places for a dozen years, an inheritance from my grandmother was enough for a down payment on a house. As a traditional, and perhaps, sentimental person, I have become very attached to the home we purchased and the neighborhood. (When married, again, a dozen years ago, I warned Dick I could never be weaned away from the old house. It’s still in the King Family.)

 

I have been a longtime observer of the evolving and dissolving of buildings and change of neighborhoods. Some admirable and others destructive. Each time I hear of a proposed change, I wonder if it will be progress or regress? A welcome addition or temporary infill, taking up space, shading yards and spoiling the view for others? Or maybe just a parking lot?

 

The proposed condo and project going up at the corner of Brooks and Higgins brought such thoughts to mind. Early plans appear positive and it was good to note the old University Apartments will be spared. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as much of the south side neighborhood.

 

This latest proposed project near Hellgate High School also brought to mind the loss of one of Missoula’s fine, old mansions and grounds that once filled the entire block behind the school. It was the Spottswood Estate, only one of two mansions in the entire Garden City. The other was the Greenough Mansion.

 

The stately old home, carriage house and grounds with towering trees covered the entire block between Eddy and Connell Avenues. Everyone knew where the Spottswood Mansion was located. I was fortunate enough to have a more intimate acquaintance with it. My mother was a cook for Mrs. Spottswood for several years. There was also a housekeeper, chauffeur and gardener.

 

The time was during the late 50s, long after the “heyday” of the mansion. Mrs. Spottswood was the lone resident. Both she and my mother were aging seniors. Mother’s sole duty was to cook for Mrs. Spottswood and her occasional guests. This included an occasional dinner party with a half-dozen guests.

 

All other times, Mom prepared meals just for the lady of the house and herself. Mrs. Spottswood ate her lunches and breakfast in a small, bright sun room off the main dining hall. The dining room was furnished with an elegant, formal banquet-size table and chairs. There was rich carpet on the floor and embossed leather covering the walls. Mrs. Spottswood always dined at the huge table for her evening meal. There was a button or switch underneath the carpet near her feet so she could summon the cook for her next course.

 

Mother ate alone in the kitchen. Often, when dinner was over and the dishes done, Mrs. S. invited Mom to bring her sewing and they sat and visited in the parlor while doing needlework.

 

Mother had her own small apartment on the second floor of the mansion, with a bedroom, sitting room and bath.

 

When Mrs. Spottswood traveled on occasion, she gave Mom permission to have her family over. We ate in splendor in the spacious dining room. The King kids thought it great fun to “ring the bell” and call Grandma from the kitchen. (She ate with us.)

 

Originally, the mansion was built as a summer vacation home by Dr. Spottswood, for his family. They only resided there a few months and spent the rest of the year in the South or East or traveling throughout the world. The many-roomed mansion was filled with antiques, paintings and memorabilia from their extensive travels. Especially memorable was the full-size replica of a Dutch Boy, perched on the mantle above the fireplace in the entry way, which was a large as a hotel lobby.

 

Several years rolled by. Contrary to some romance novels, the chauffeur, a widower, married my mother, the cook, instead of the owner of the mansion. She then moved from her apartment in the mansion to living quarters in the carriage house.

 

Not long after this event, Mrs. Spottswood decided to leave Missoula and move to the coast with her daughter. According to rumor, she offered her entire property to the city and then the school board for $50,000. Neither wanted it. It was also said she offered to donate the property and was still turned down. Later, it was sold to a private buyer and the mansion demolished.

 

She gave the furnishings away, many of the antiques went to the university, where they may be collecting dust in storage.

 

The mansion, the owner, cook and chauffeur have been gone now for many years. Driving by the area, I still feel a sense of loss. Not only personal, but for the city.

 

The Spottswood Estate would have made a fine museum and park. Now, just a memory and a photo in the hall of Southgate Mall.

 

Evelyn King is a retired Missoulian reporter. Her column appears every Sunday in the Territory section. Reach her by writing: Evelyn King, Missoulian, P.O. Box 8029, Missoula, MT 59807

 

 

The article above appeared in The Missoulian March 6, 2005

 

 

 

 

Blackfoot Valley ranch being transformed into resort – “The Paws Up Ranch”

 

 

October 31, 2004

 

 

The Paws Up Ranch http://pawsup.com , a 37,000-acre spread about 30 miles east of Missoula and overlapping Highway 200 and seven miles of the Blackfoot River, started development of the resort last year.

 

By DARYL GADBOW of the Missoulian

 

http://missoulian.com/articles/2004/ … /news01.txt

 

When it opens in June, the resort will include 18 “hotel units,” which essentially are luxury homes that will provide accommodations for 80 guests; two restaurants; a saddle club/equestrian center with a gigantic, 23,000-square-foot indoor riding arena; a sporting clays course; and a dance hall and retail center. An 8,000-square-foot spa is also planned.

 

In addition, the Resort at Paws Up will offer outfitted hunting and recreational pack trips in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and guided float trips on the Blackfoot and South Fork of the Flathead rivers, plus 100 miles of trails on the ranch for guided or unguided hiking, mountain biking, horseback and ATV riding, cross-country skiing and snowmobiling.

 

The goal of owners Dave and Nadine Lipson is to maintain the cattle-ranching tradition of the property, while creating a world-class resort “so other people can enjoy it with them,” said Jamie Holmes, general manager of the Resort at Paws Up.

 

*************

 

Paws Up

 

40060 Paws Up Road

 

Greenough, MT 59823

 

406-244-5300

 

http://www.pawsup.com

 

info@pawsup.com

 

*************

 

“Dave Lipson said if he wanted to do a resort, he wanted to do it to be top-of-the-line and world class,” said Holmes. “But he wants to keep it very small scale. The first phase will open with only 18 units, which is relatively small by hotel standards.”

 

The restaurants, spa and sporting clays course will be open to the public, according to Holmes.

 

“So we’re not building a private enclave that’s totally exclusive,” he said. “We hope to get business from Missoula and (University of Montana) alums who come to the games. But we feel most of our clientele will come from back East, California and other areas of the country. It’s such an extraordinary experience for people from the big city. We think they’re going to love the experience of coming to Montana.”

 

One thing Paws Up isn’t doing, Holmes stressed, is basing its resort around a golf course, at least for the time being.

 

“It may be something we do in the future,” he said. “But we feel people will want to do what Montanans do – come out and enjoy nature. That’s what we want to do. With the size of the ranch, you don’t have to leave it to experience a lot of natural Montana. The owners have done their very best to have a beautiful piece of property. They’re working with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to restore Elk Creek (a Blackfoot River tributary on the ranch) as a cutthroat spawning stream.”

 

Dave and Nadine Lipson purchased the Paws Up Ranch eight years ago and live in a circa 1915 farmhouse on the property. Dave Lipson is a venture capitalist, whose company, Knightsbridge Inc., buys and sells other companies. A CPA and licensed attorney, Lipson has been a director of companies such as Frederick’s of Hollywood, the women’s lingerie chain, and Supercuts, a national hair-care supplier.

 

When she and her husband bought the Paws Up eight years ago, they had “not the remotest idea” of developing a resort, said Nadine Lipson.

 

They decided to move from their home near Edwards, Colo., she said, because the area was getting crowded.

 

“It was getting so overdeveloped with houses,” she said. “So we moved north, where there’s less people. And we love it. We love the land and the people.”

 

Although the Paws Up logo displayed on the massive gates leading into the ranch are bears’ paws, Nadine said the name was inspired by a happy dog the couple owned.

 

“When we came here,” she said, “we were only interested in cattle, and developing a top registered Angus operation.”

 

Soon after they moved to Montana, Nadine Lipson joined the Blackfoot Challenge, a land-owner-based conservation organization in the valley.

 

She joined “to do something positive about the environment and work with our neighbors,” Lipson said.

 

The Lipsons purchased the Paws Up – the ranch includes 10,000 deeded acres and 27,000 acres leased from Plum Creek Timber Co. and UM’s Lubrecht Experimental Forest – from Bob Mullendore, a Missoula lawyer, and continued the ranch’s long tradition of raising cattle.

 

Mullendore bought the ranch in 1991 from Bill Moore of the Kelly Moore Paint Co. Moore acquired the property in 1986 from brothers Land and Jon Lindbergh, sons of the celebrated aviator. The Lindberghs owned the ranch for 21 years.

 

One of the original owners of the ranch was Paul Greenough, who gave his name to the tiny community that grew up there.

 

“The town of Greenough is basically us,” said Holmes.

 

Agriculture will continue to be an important part of the Paws Up, he said.

 

The Lipsons raise 400 head of Angus cows and their calves, as well as 100 head of quarter horses that they breed and sell. Nadine Lipson is an avid horsewoman who rides and shows her championship quarter horses, according to Holmes.

 

When they first started their cattle operation, the Lipsons had one of the top registered Angus breeding operations in the United States, according to Holmes. But they shifted their emphasis to raising commercial beef.

 

“But you know,” said Holmes, “in this day and age, ranching is not paying the rent for the larger properties. The goal was to find an additional funding source so the ranch can stay intact. So having a resort is an alternative income source so the ranch can stay viable. The service industry is the wave of the future. And resorts are the No. 1 growth industry among service businesses.”

 

The owners also wanted to find a way to produce additional income with a low environmental impact and provide employment in Montana year-round, according to Holmes.

 

“The ranch would probably only have 20 or 25 employees,” he added. “But we’ll put another 100 employees on for the resort. When the resort opens, we expect 60 to 80 guests staying here at a time, with a staff of 100. The owners just know they have such a beautiful piece of property that’s so natural. They have the whole valley. And they feel people really want to get to know Montana, which is an area that’s somewhat undiscovered, and want to come discover Montana’s natural beauty.”

 

Nadine Lipson, who has taken an active role in the planning, design and decoration of the resort’s hotel homes, said she’s proud of the development.

 

“I feel really good that it will be a complement to the area,” she said. “That’s why we’re taking our time to do it right.”

 

The Lipsons have assembled an experienced team to manage the resort, Holmes said.

 

“The people they’re bringing together have all managed world-class hotels, he said.

 

Before coming to the Paws Up, Holmes was the general manager of the Ritz-Carlton in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and at Biras Creek and Peter Island resorts in the British Virgin Islands.

 

“Those are some of the best resorts in the Caribbean,” Holmes said. “So that’s the league we hope to be in.”

 

Bryan Kindred, the resort’s assistant general manager, was formerly lodging director at Robert Redford’s Sundance Resort in Utah.

 

Christopher Bentley, director of sales at Paws Up, was the director of sales and marketing at the T-Lazy-7 Ranch in Aspen, Colo.

 

The Lipsons also found some top-notch local talent to help them operate the resort.

 

Ray Killian, the ranch manager, has many years of experience managing large ranches in the area.

 

Retired outfitter Smoke Elser of Missoula, who spent most of his life packing into the Bob Marshall Wilderness and operates a renowned stock packing school, is the main consultant for the Paws Up outfitting operation.

 

The Paws Up is doing things right, according to Elser.

 

“It’s excellent,” he said. “They’re getting a good start at a time in the cycle of recreation where the outfitting business will be a big part of the state of Montana. One of the good things here is the owners of the ranch are successfully hiring the right kind of people. Dave and Nadine have a vision of what the property should be.”

 

The Resort at Paws Up will not be like a typical Montana guest or dude ranch, said Holmes.

 

“We wanted a world-class hotel experience that represents Montana, with flexibility on meals, lodging, activities and length of stay that allows travelers to create their own vacation,” he said.

 

Guests will have the option of eating at two restaurants, one – The Cook Shack – will feature “fine dining with a continental flair,” according to Holmes. The other – The Tank and Trough – will have a more casual atmosphere, with a restaurant and bar.

 

Both will be open to the public for special occasions and regular Sunday brunch, Holmes said.

 

The Cook Shack is already built – it’s an impressive stone, castle-like structure – and currently serves as an office and employee cafeteria.

 

The 18 units of the hotel – individual two- and three-bedroom luxuriously appointed homes – are 80 to 90 percent completed, tucked into the forest for privacy and widely spaced over 75 acres of the ranch and a short distance from most of the resort facilities. Each unit looks out on a scenic natural meadow with minimal landscaping surrounding it.

 

The rustic appearance of the hotel lodges are “done to look like they’ve been here forever,” Holmes said. “Each one is built with huge beams, left with a rough-cut finish on the outside.”

 

Each of the units is furnished with a classic cabin-style flavor of handmade wood, leather, antiques, etched glass and copper. The smaller units have wood stoves; the larger ones have massive fireplaces. All have spacious living rooms.

 

“You can see we’ve spared no expense in decorating,” Holmes said.

 

Each “cabin” is equipped with large, flat-screen TVs, high-speed Internet connections, hot tubs, full refrigerators, microwaves, cordless phones and Jacuzzi tubs. Many have showers that feature full outside windows, with etched glass scenes that allow an outside view, but not inside.

 

The Resort at Paws Up is the only facility in Montana to be included in the registry of the prestigious Small Luxury Hotels of the World, according to Holmes. Hotels selected for the listing, he added, must be independently owned, not part of a chain, have 100 rooms or less, and “set the stage for the luxury market in the area.”

 

Lodging rates at the Resort at Paws Up will definitely reflect the luxury market – ranging from $695 to $995 per night for the larger units with six- to 10-person occupancy, to $495 per night for the smaller cabins with four-person occupancy.

 

For its grand opening in June, Paws up will offer special rates through Sept. 6 – $348 to $498 for the larger cabins; smaller units starting at $248 per night.

 

The Paws Up outfitting options for wilderness hunting and pack trips and river float trips also will be luxurious, according to Holmes.

 

“We call it roughing it redefined,” he said.

 

Guests will sleep in feather beds and enjoy hot showers, tents with floors, and private restrooms on the trail or river, and savor chef-prepared gourmet meals in the backcountry.

 

Head outfitter John Way has 10 years experience guiding in Montana, is a member of the board of directors of the Big Blackfoot Chapter of Trout Unlimited, a member of the Blackfoot Challenge, and holds a degree in wildlife biology and a minor in fisheries from the University of Montana.

 

Steve Hawkens, the Paws Up river outfitter on the South Fork of the Flathead, has been guiding in western Montana for a quarter-century and holds one of only three outfitter permits for float trips on the South Fork in the Bob Marshall.

 

The Paws Up sporting clays course, which opened this year and will be open to the public as well as resort guests, was designed by 12-time U.S. sporting clays champion Andy Duffy of Polson and three-time Australian champion Damien Bergen. The course is located on ranch property on the Ninemile Prairie. Duffy will be in charge of the resort’s shooting sports activities.

 

Resort guests also will be able to enjoy the Saddle Club at Paws Up, which was formerly known as the Paws Up Equestrian Center and was used exclusively by the Lipson family and their private guests. The imposing complex is visible to the east of Highway 200 just past the Blackfoot River bridge at Ninemile Prairie.

 

The facility includes a cavernous, 105-by-210-foot lighted indoor arena, surfaced with sand and crushed tires to be easy on horses’ hooves.

 

The Lipsons have provided use of the arena to the Seeley Lake 4-H Club, whose young members ride there every Wednesday night, according to Linda Hancock, manager of the Paws Up Horse Ranch.

 

The Saddle Club also features 52 stalls in its stable, each with its own closed-circuit TV camera that allows the staff to monitor all the horses from a central office. There’s also a huge room for giving horses a shower, a breeding room, a spacious tack room, and an artificial insemination lab – from which Paws Up ships semen from its championship studs all over the country.

 

In addition to the resort development, Paws Up is constructing employee housing at three separate locations on the ranch, Holmes said.

 

“This will be a wonderful opportunity for people from Montana to join us and parlay it into a trade that will allow them to work at luxury hotels anywhere in the world,” he said.

 

The Paws Up “still looks like a ranch,” Holmes added. “And that’s what we’re hoping to sell – a true ranch experience at a very high-end resort. We’re all really jazzed about this place. We’re really excited about it and we love to share it.”

 

Reporter Daryl Gadbow can be reached at 523-5264 or at dgadbow@missoulian.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baseball set stage for country legend

 

Crooner aimed for Cooperstown, landed in Nashville

 

By Jason Ratliff / MLB.com | 02/23/06

 

A certain amount of uncertainty and ambiguity is involved in Charley Pride’s life, specifically the portions that involve his days in the Minor Leagues. But one thing has always been clear: He wouldn’t be easily deterred from his dream of playing baseball.

 

The fuzziness traces all the way back to the name the country music legend was given — Charl Frank Pride. The -ey was unwittingly tacked on by someone at the hospital the day he was born. Which was when exactly? Well, that’s fuzzy, too.

 

“They’ve got me down for March 18, 1938,” says Pride, as if coyly insinuating that something might be amiss.

 

Sure enough, anywhere you look you’ll find his birthday listed as such. But then there’s that clipping from the Idaho Daily Statesman on April 26, 1953, showing a young Charles Pride kneeling in the front row of the Class C Boise Yankees’ team picture. Just how young? Well, he would have just turned 15, if math serves.

 

And the four weeks between his 15th birthday and the day the photo was taken must have been pretty hectic since, according to his autobiography, Pride: The Charley Pride Story,when he was 15, before he signed with the Yankees, he: dropped out of school; moved in with his uncle; got a job; quit a job; returned home; returned to school; quit school again; tried out with the Memphis Red Sox; played for an all-Negro team in the Iowa State League; got cut; and returned to Memphis to play with the Sox for a season. Oh, and he got mugged.

 

A more likely scenario, of course, is that Pride was born before 1938, and that all of those incidents occurred over the course of a year or two. Fudging on one’s date of birth, after all, is hardly a foreign concept to either sports or show business. And another perfectly plausible explanation is that an honest mistake was made somewhere along the line, especially considering the fact that Pride is not one to focus on his past.

 

“I don’t look back that often, don’t dwell on too many things,” says Pride when asked about his baseball-playing days. “I’m always trying to go forward.

 

“I haven’t forgotten what I did,” he said from Dallas. “There are highlights that stick out in my mind — certain things are indelible. Some were sad times; some were good. But I try not to bother with the sad or the good, because they just slow me down, and my way of thinking is to move ahead.”

 

And he certainly had plenty of obstacles that could have slowed him down.

 

Pride had seven brothers and three sisters. He was raised in poverty on a sharecropping cotton farm in what he calls “the black gumbo mud” of the Mississippi Delta town of Sledge. And although he always had a few baseballs and a glove, thanks to his Uncle Lee, he wasn’t allowed to use them whenever he wanted. In fact, he recounts an instance in which his father — a deacon in the Baptist church — took a belt to him and his brother for playing baseball on a Sunday.

 

But that didn’t stop him. He had seen Jackie Robinson break the color barrier in 1947 and knew then that baseball was his way out of poverty. He pestered his brothers to practice with him at every spare moment and eventually finagled his way onto his older brother’s men’s league team as a fill-in. Little did he know that things would get worse before they got any better.

 

Pride dropped out of school and headed to Memphis, hoping to play for the Red Sox of the Negro American League. Just a teen, and uninvited, he wasn’t given much consideration by manager Homer “Goose” Curry. But he did meet a man named Jim Ford who was assembling an all-Negro team to play in Iowa.

 

“We were playing for a percentage [of the ticket sales] there,” explained Pride. “And what happened was, the day would be beautiful, then at night … rain, rain, rain. And if we didn’t play, we didn’t eat.”

 

In fact, Pride claims he was so hungry during that time he pulled weeds out of the ground, washed them off and ate the bottoms.

 

“We got hungry up there. We were starving. And we weren’t winning.”

 

Facing stiff competition that included future Major Leaguers Roger Craig, John Blanchard and Albie Pearson, Pride’s team was winning so little that their new owner — a local businessman known as “The Popcorn King” — went back to Memphis and raided the Red Sox roster of such pitching stars as Ollie Brantley and Marshall Bridges. The immediate impact for Pride was not good. He was cut to make room for the new players.

 

But as usual, Pride was not deterred. Ever the opportunist, he returned to Memphis, knowing that the Sox’s pitching staff would be in need of arms. He was right, and it was there that he got his first regular paycheck — $100 a month and two dollars a day for meal money — to pitch and play the outfield.

 

After his first season in Memphis, Pride got a break when Curry recommended him to the New York Yankees’ first black scout, William “Dizzy” Dismukes, who sent the young hurler an offer letter that included a $300 signing bonus. Still a minor, Pride — and the bonus money — persuaded his parents to sign the contract, and he was off to Rio Vista, Calif., for Spring Training with the Boise Yankees of the Pioneer League.

 

But just as the season was beginning, Pride encountered another obstacle that he would face many times in his career — injury. The lanky right-hander pulled a muscle in his pitching shoulder during a game at Lodi, Calif., and was sent to Class D Fond du Lac of the Wisconsin State League to rehab.

 

One of his Boise teammates that made it to the big leagues was Johnny James, who went 5-1 as a rookie for the American League champion Yankees in 1960 before having his promising career ended prematurely by an injury in 1961. James, 72, said Pride’s stay with the Class C Yankees was so short that, nearly 53 years later, he still wasn’t sure that it was the Charley Pride he’d played with.

 

“I of course tell people that it was,” laughed James, who went 14-9 with Boise that year. “He stood out because we simply didn’t have black ballplayers. But I didn’t recall him singing. I just remember him being a nice guy. But he was there one day, and then the next day he was gone.

 

“You have to remember,” he explained, “they used to say you had three teams — one playing, one coming and one going. There were 54 Minor Leagues back then, and they signed anyone who could throw a baseball.”

 

Unfortunately for Pride, he couldn’t throw a baseball. Not well anyway, with his injured shoulder. Over a two-week period, he got hammered for nine runs on 11 hits and nine walks in 12 1/3 innings with the Fond du Lac Panthers and was handed a ticket back to Memphis. And not long after he got off that bus, he was traded for one.

 

Prior to the 1954 season, Pride was set to rejoin the Red Sox, but instead went to Louisville with Goose Curry, who was leaving Memphis to coach the newly formed Clippers team. But the fledgling Negro League club didn’t have enough money to buy a team bus, so Pride and teammate Jesse Mitchell were sold to the Birmingham Black Barons for the money to buy one.

 

Mitchell, who still remains friends with his former teammate, recalls Pride practicing his future profession during road trips, though not necessarily to everyone’s liking.

 

“He used to sing on the bus all the time,” says Mitchell, who still lives in Birmingham. “A guy named Rufus Gibson used to say, ‘Man, you’re making too much noise.’ We’d be trying to rest, sleeping on the bus, hadn’t even changed clothes or anything.”

 

In 1955, Pride was back in the Minor Leagues, thanks once again to his own moxie. Having scoured the country for an opening, he found a spot in the Class C Arizona-Mexico League. His own account of his season with the Nogales Yanquis is vague at best: “I had fun playing down there … but I was not unhappy for the season to be over,” he summarized in Pride.

 

In 1956, he again returned to the Red Sox. And while formal Negro League statistics from the ’50s are, in the words of National Baseball Hall of Fame library director Jim Gates, “practically non-existent,” the ’56 season was clearly Pride’s breakthrough year.

 

According to his own recollection, Pride had won seven games and was hitting .367 with 10 home runs when he was told that a St. Louis Cardinals scout would be on hand to watch him pitch against the Birmingham Barons in Sikeston, Mo., the next day. He struck out the side in each of the first two innings that day, he says, before encountering yet another unlucky break — he snapped his elbow while throwing a curveball.

 

With no team trainer or doctor on staff, Pride was sent home to rest and recuperate his arm. According to his autobiography, after only three months or so, he returned to Memphis with a healed arm and a knuckleball that he’d developed due to his injury. He went on to win 14 games that season, earning a spot on the Negro American League All-Star team and, most importantly, meeting his wife Rozene, with whom he’ll celebrate his 50th anniversary in December.

 

Playing for the Negro League All-Stars, Pride toured the South playing exhibition games against the barnstorming Willie Mays All-Stars, facing such legends as Hank Aaron, Warren Spahn, Elston Howard and, of course, the team’s namesake, Willie Mays.

 

“One thing I will never forget,” says Pride, sounding as proud as he does regretful, “is getting picked off twice in one game by [Spahn]. To get picked off first base is one thing, but to get picked off second too …” marveled Pride. “He had the best pickoff move I’d ever seen in my life. It was so smooth, like he was going home. I would have loved to have had a camera on that.”

 

The Negro League All-Stars were to Mays’ barnstormers what the Washington Generals were to the Harlem Globetrotters, losing nearly every game while taking a 30/70 split. According to Pride, the previous season had been a 33-game clean sweep for Mays’ squad, and they’d won the first 16 to start the ’56 tour as well.

 

But with Mays resting his shoulder on the night before Halloween in Victoria, Texas, Pride played a big role in snapping that streak. As the Associated Press reported, “Charley Pride of the Memphis Red Sox mixed up offerings well the last four innings of shutout ball,” as the Negro Minor Leaguers beat the Major Leaguers, 4-2.

 

Pride recalls being pursued by a Dodgers’ scout after the game and envisioning that he could be headed to Brooklyn, when, the next thing he knew, he found himself in Fort Chaffee, Ark., instead. He’d been drafted by the U.S. Army and, once again, rudely awakened from his dream.

 

Fourteen months, a wife and a new son later, Pride was ready to resume his quest, only to find that he was still under contract to the Memphis Red Sox, who weren’t willing to let their All-Star go for anything less than $15,000. With no team willing to pay such a hefty price, Pride, as usual, took matters into his own hands.

 

Feeling settled in Colorado, where he’d finished out his military time, Pride arranged for a spot with the Denver Bears, if he could get out of his contract. After getting no response from the Red Sox when he requested his release, he went straight to the top, writing a letter to Major League commissioner Happy Chandler.

 

“Chandler said to send [Memphis] a registered letter, and if I didn’t get a response about my contract by April 1, I would be a free agent,” said Pride. “But here comes the breakdown: When I came along, they had what we call quotas — only two black players per each team. And by April 1, Denver had their quota. Everyone had their quota. From top to bottom, they’re settled by April.”

 

With no other options, Pride returned to Memphis and signed a new contract that included a clause granting him 100 percent control over all bargaining rights. “I would be the only one to negotiate leaving Memphis,” he said defiantly.

 

After another All-Star season with the Red Sox in 1958, Pride thought he deserved a pay raise and ended up sitting out the 1959 season when he didn’t get one. Then in 1960, while working at a lumber company in Memphis, he saw an ad for “baseball players capable of playing A-ball” posted by the Missoula Timberjacks of the Pioneer League.

 

Already dead broke, Pride mortgaged all the furniture in the house for $400 to finance another shot at his dream.

 

The Timberjacks’ general manager, Nick Mariana, told the Missoula Sentinal at the time, “I just couldn’t turn this boy down or discourage him from coming all the way out here because he was so sincere in his correspondence. I felt the least we could do was give him a chance to make the club. We like players with gumption and I hope he makes good.”

 

Well, Pride had nothing if not gumption, and he did make the team. But he didn’t quite “make good.”

 

In his autobiography, Pride says that after his first road trip, he was pulled aside by manager Rocky Tedesco, who told him, “We like the way you run … the way you hit. You got two for three … drove in two runs. That’s .750 all day, Charley. But I’m going to have to let you go.”

 

Box scores from the Missoulian show that Pride actually went 2-for-5 with a pair of RBIs. But on the mound, where he was used primarily, he didn’t fare so well, allowing six runs on eight hits and four walks over six innings in a pair of blowout losses. In fact, after Pride’s first outing against Boise, Missoulian columnist Ray Rocene wrote that Braves manager Billy Smith quipped that “he would make pitchers [Lopez] Clark and Pride, who opposed his club in the Sunday batting bee, pay admission to get into his park.”

 

Fortunately for Pride, while he hadn’t won Mariana over with his pitching, he had impressed him with his gumption, and the Timberjacks’ GM hooked him up with a job in Helena, where Pride launched a Hall of Fame music career that has far overshadowed his baseball exploits.

 

Still, nearly 50 years after his last professional season, Pride continues to live his dream, joining the Texas Rangers at their Spring Training complex in Surprise, Ariz., each year. And even at the age of 67 — or however old he is — you get the feeling he’s not entirely joking when he says, “This is my 34th year, and I haven’t made the team yet.”

 

This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

 

 

Tales of the Timberjacks

 

1999-06-11T00:00:00Z Tales of the TimberjacksBy JEFF HERMAN of the Missoulian missoulian.com

 

June 11, 1999 12:00 am  •  By JEFF HERMAN of the Missoulian

 

Missoula’s last pro baseball team boasts a rich history

 

When the legendary composer and songwriter Hoagy Carmichael and collaborator Victor Young penned the riveting … er, functional lyrics and melodies for the movie “Timberjack” in 1954, little did they know the theme song – not necessarily the movie – would become etched in Missoula’s professional baseball fabric.

 

All together now: Uh one, uh two …

 

“When you’re all done choppin’ down the poplar and pine, hurry back, hurry back, timberjack.

 

“There’s a black-haired gal whose lips are sweeter than wine, hurry back, hurry back, timberjack.

 

“She’s got a ring, she’s got a gown, she owns an acre.

 

“And it would break her little heart if you’d forsake her …”

 

When Missoula began its five-year run in the Class C Pioneer League in 1956, the franchise snatched the name Timberjacks and was escorted into the league by a ready-made theme song and a flick, described in Leonard Maltin’s “1999 Movie & Video Guide” as a two-star “harmless potboiler.”

 

OK, wise movie sage, cursory treatment’s fine. But in those days it was a big deal around these parts; probably worth four stars. And the director, Joseph Kane, used several locals as extras. Much of “Timberjack” was filmed on location around Missoula and Polson in 1954, with lots of outdoor scenes shot along the Blackfoot River, relying on the Anaconda Co.’s spur railroad that was used to haul timber from its lands to the Bonner mill. The movie, billed by Republic Pictures as a “lusty … rousing … robust adventure,” even had its world premiere here in February 1955, amid much local fanfare.

 

Based on a novel by Great Falls writer Dan Cushman of “Stay Away Joe” fame, the basic theme of the movie, according to Maltin, focused on a young man, who had to “fight crooks taking over a lumber mill” and dispatch the nasty ne’er-do-wells who also had killed his father.

 

The cast featured Sterling Hayden (as the lead), Republic Pictures’ top star Vera Ralston (his love interest), David Brian (chief villain), well-known character actors Adolphe Menjou and Chill Wills, along with the folksy Carmichael, who also wrote the ditty, “He’s Dead But He Won’t Lie Down,” for the film.

 

We’re not sure how often the recording of “Timberjack” (sung for the movie by a group called the Lancers) was played when the baseball Timberjacks performed at old Campbell Park, but we’ve got a hunch Hoagy maybe missed out on a slew of royalties. Besides occasional radio airplay, variations of “Timberjack” also were warbled loosely and off-key countless times in the locker room, in the dugouts, on the playing field, and at preseason, postseason and off-season baseball functions during the team’s five-year stay.

 

Relegated to general obscurity for 45 years, somehow the song gets resurrected from time to time at different venues – in a shower, in the woods, at a bar or ballpark – by people with disparate talent levels.

 

Rumors had circulated for years that soprano Judith Blegen, a Missoula product and acclaimed Metropolitan Opera performer, reportedly had warbled a few stanzas during an appearance on the “Tonight Show” several years ago and had performed “Timberjack” at a Montana Arts Council Governor’s Awards for the Arts ceremony.

 

However, contacted at her home in New York City on Friday, Blegen said she hadn’t done the song publicly and asked for a hasty refresher over the phone. A reporter provided a brief – extremely brief – version. But she did recall the melody. Blegen remembered singing the national anthem at a Grizzly basketball game as a teen-ager and admitted that she once had a crush on a Timberjacks first baseman. But, no she hadn’t sung “Timberjack” publicly. If she had, though, it would have been one classy rendition.

 

Then there’s Bob Uecker. The longtime radio voice of the Milwaukee Brewers major-league team has been known to burst forth with “Timberjack,” according to Jim Kaat, a commentator on New York Yankees’ telecasts. Kaat got an earful of the song when he was a star pitcher for the 1958 Timberjacks, but the tune had diminished during Kaat’s 25-year career in the majors when he was preoccupied with winning 283 games and collecting an astounding 16 Gold Gloves for his fielding prowess.

 

However, Kaat said Uecker became familiar with the song when he was a catcher with the Boise Braves’ Pioneer League club during the 1956 and ’58 seasons and apparently had memorized it. Before the Brewers switched to the National League last year, Kaat said Uecker made it a point to regularly serenade him with “Timberjack” when he’d arrive at County Stadium in Milwaukee to do the Yankees’ telecasts.

 

“Oh, he knows the words,” Kaat said. “When we’d get there (to a nearby broadcast booth), he couldn’t resist doing it. He’d have fun with it.” However, the jury’s still out on Uecker’s singing voice.

 

Kaat said Bob Rodgers, a catcher with the Idaho Falls club in 1958 and former major-league player and manager, also would recall the song when they’d run into each other.

 

Country music legend Charley Pride, whose pro baseball career as a pitcher-outfielder with the Timberjacks lasted just over three weeks at the beginning of the 1960 season, could do a fine job with “Timberjack.” He played the guitar and sang at a preseason banquet that April, but it was his rendition of the Hank Williams’ classic, “Kaw-Liga,” that knocked your socks off.

 

A few other players also displayed some musical talent during the team’s five seasons in Missoula, notably Bennie Sinquefield, a splendid defensive outfielder, and pitcher Aaron Jones. Sinquefield, an Alabaman who spent three seasons with Missoula (1956-58) and two with Billings before then, frequently performed his specialty, the ukulele. Jones, a crooner, played parts of four seasons in Missoula.

 

Sandy Valdespino, a diminutive, good-natured outfielder from Cuba who was with the Timberjacks in 1958 and later played and coached in the majors, wonders to this day how he was talked into performing a hybrid hula dance at the team’s public farewell celebration that season. At least it wasn’t done to the “Timberjack” song.

 

Although the team’s song and movie remain a part of Missoula’s lore, the Timberjacks’ baseball moniker dwells elsewhere on the eve of pro baseball’s return here after 39 years. The Southern Oregon Timberjacks, based in Medford, currently hold the rights to the name. And there’s a possibility the name could head north next year if the Northwest League franchise shifts to Vancouver, Wash.

 

Missoula’s second fling with professional baseball occurred rather abruptly in 1956. (The community’s first foray came in 1911 when the Missoula Highlanders played the first of three seasons in what was known as the Union Association league.)

 

After the 1955 season, Odgen, Utah, bowed out of the eight-team Pioneer League and the parent Cincinnati Reds said they would move the franchise to Butte, if the town provided a suitable field, adequate financing and community support. Butte officials assured the Reds and league directors that they could.

 

However, at a league meeting in early February, Butte supporters said they could not meet their commitments and were forced to drop their option for the franchise. Four towns in the Rocky Mountain region, including Missoula, were hurriedly considered as possible sites. A group of Missoula baseball supporters, under the leadership of Nick Mariana, a former president and general manager of the Great Falls club, already had been working on a plan to join the Class B Northwest League in 1957.

 

Because Missoula had a foundation in place, Pioneer League directors at a special meeting on Feb. 18 gave Mariana and the Missoula Baseball Club Inc. until Feb. 26 to raise $25,000 as security and find a suitable playing field. With some money already in the bank and lots of fans eager to become stockholders, the club surpassed the financial goal and signed a five-year lease with the university to play games at Campbell Park. Mariana quickly negotiated a full working agreement with the Washington Senators to furnish players and also got additional financial support from them, plus other major-league clubs and executives.

 

After 44 years, Missoula finally had another pro baseball team, this time in the Class C Pioneer League, five rungs below the majors. Problem was the season opened in less than two months.

 

Campbell Park, a drab, green wooden structure at the corner of South Avenue and east side of Higgins, immediately underwent renovations in the form of additional bleachers and concession stands, along with making room for extra parking.

 

The facility and its operation carried some inherent liabilities. The major one, in terms of money, was a university policy that banned alcohol from its property. That meant no beer and a glaring void in revenue. Because there was no dressing room for visiting teams, players had to change into their uniforms at the hotel. And the umpires’ quarters resembled a big closet.

 

But the shape of the playing field was pleasantly symmetrical – 340 feet down the left and right-field foul lines, 380 to straightaway center, with a 12-foot-high fence around the outfield. The lighting was adequate, the field was well-manicured and extra fill was hauled in to spruce up the basepaths.

 

The park’s most unusual feature, though, was a hole and trapdoor located behind home plate and just in front of the covered wooden grandstand. The most direct route for players to get to the field from the home team clubhouse was to walk under the grandstand, climb a small wooden ladder and pop out of the hole like a mole. Naturally, that led to all kinds of derisive remarks. And it was imperative that the trapdoor be closed when the ball was in play.

 

Other factors that influenced the success of Missoula and other Pioneer League clubs in those days were the vagaries of spring weather, schedules that typically called for 130 or so games and rosters restricted to 16 or17 players for most of the season. Makeup games, usually in the form of doubleheaders, could take a toll later, along with injuries. Key players also could be promoted to higher classifications in the minors. All had an impact in the success and ultimate demise of the franchise during its five years in Missoula.

 

For the record, Missoula’s Pioneer League debut in 1956 was anything but auspicious. The Timberjacks opened on the road April 25, losing a 3-2 decision to Magic Valley (Twin Falls, Idaho). It wasn’t until May 6 that the team posted its first regular-season victory, 11-4 over Pocatello. That home win before 867 chilled fans came after seven losses and a couple of rainouts. A crowd of 1,956 had watched the Timberjacks get thumped 10-4 by Magic Valley in their home opener on May 1.

 

The Timberjacks won their last regular-season Pioneer League game at Campbell Park on Aug. 31, 1960, defeating Boise, 3-1, in front of 571 fans. On Monday, Sept. 5, they quietly bowed out on the road, losing both ends of a doubleheader to the Billings Mustangs, 8-7 and 6-5. The final game in franchise history was an exhibition with the Bonner Lumberjacks the next day.

 

An estimated 140-150 players were on Timberjack teams, some for just a few days or weeks, that compiled a 307-338 record during the five years in Missoula. The only winning season came in 1958 when the club had a 70-59 overall record. The season was split into two halves and the Timberjacks led the entire second half before fading because of injuries. The Timberjacks had a 33-16 record on Aug. 19. After losing second baseman Addie Hintze for the rest of the season earlier in the month with a broken wrist, slugger Chuck Weatherspoon was sidelined for two weeks with a separated shoulder and they won only three more games to finish in third place at 36-30.

 

Along with player-manager Jack McKeon, current skipper of the Cincinnati Reds who has compiled a long and distinguished career as a field manager and executive in the majors, five players from that 1958 club later made it to the big leagues: pitcher Jim Kaat, a potential Hall of Famer; Cuban outfielder Sandy Valdespino; third baseman Jay Ward; and two other Cubans, pitcher Dagoberto Cueto and infielder Rigoberto “Minnie” Mendoza, who was signed late that season and also played here in 1959. Two Venezuelans on the 1960 team, second baseman Cesar Tovar and shortstop Gus Gil, also played in the majors.

 

McKeon, who also was the player-manager of the 1956 and ’57 clubs, had the dubious distinction of performing one of the all-time pratfalls at Campbell Park. A catcher by trade, he believes he was the only player who actually fell into the hole behind home plate during a game.

 

“One night somebody left the door open and I was concentrating on a foul pop near the screen,” recalled McKeon, now 68. “I caught it and disappeared right down the steps.”

 

But he emerged unscathed. “I was too tough to get hurt,” McKeon joked.

 

Dubbed the “Little Bulldog” in 1956 by local radio play-by-play announcer Bob Bedard, the tenacious and personable McKeon developed his baseball reputation through his astute handling of pitchers and defensive skills, not his bat. He hit a puny .170 in more than 300 at-bats in ’56, improved to .217 the next season and hit a career-high .263 in 1958.

 

Despite Campbell Park’s physical warts, McKeon and others said the field’s picturesque setting and surrounding scenery formed some their most indelible memories of Missoula.

 

“The beauty of the place stands out,” McKeon said. “Looking out at the views of the mountains from left field (southwestern flank of Mount Sentinel) and center field (toward Pattee Canyon).”

 

“The backdrop was special,” Kaat said. “Although you don’t necessarily think of those things at the time looking out and seeing that mountain on a Sunday afternoon. It was a panoramic picture.”

 

“There were times when the national anthem was playing when you could look out and see deer and other animals on that mountain,” Ward recalled.

 

Although Bennie Sinquefield died in 1990 when he was 56, a younger brother, Larry, spent the summer of 1958 in Missoula with Bennie and his wife, Barbara, and fondly recalls the experience.

 

“They just loved the area up there,” Larry said. “And that mountain by the park – it was just like you could reach out and touch it.”

 

A few former players from the 1958 team are still in touch with western Montana and the Missoula area. Jerry Palma, the shortstop, is married to Mary Lou Keefer, who grew up in Missoula, and they visit from California. Ward, a Florida resident, said his wife’s sister lives in Libby and they spend time there in the fall.

 

Don Orwiler, a left-handed pitcher on that club and native of Washington, has friends in Superior. His wife is from Kamiah, Idaho. Ron Dibelius, a third baseman who also played here in ’59, recently retired from Boise State University, where he was an assistant athletic director and tennis coach.

 

Dallas Womack, a first baseman on the 1956 team, is a longtime Hamilton resident. Gene Carlson, a former University of Montana football coach and Hellgate High administrator, was a Yankees’ farmhand and pitched for a while on the ’57 club. And Chuck Bennett, a catcher on the 1960 team, was raised in St. Regis and attended the university in Missoula.

 

 

 

 

Trader Jack McKeon – I Hit Three Ways: Right, Left, and Seldom

The following article appeared in the L.A. Times April 3, 1987:

 

 

TRADER JACK : Where There’s Smoke, There’s McKeon, Whether He’s Holding His Cigar or Not

 

SAN DIEGO — Jack McKeon has traveled a colorful path from his boyhood in South Amboy, N.J., to his current position as the Padres’ general manager. In conversations with The Times’ Tom Friend totaling more than 20 hours, McKeon told tales of his life. In McKeon’s words, this is his story.

 

Hey, I’ve got this sign I’m thinking about putting up in my office. I think it says, “If you don’t smoke, get the heck out!” Or something like that.

 

People are always getting on me for smoking my cigars, but it’s an image thing, you know? Photographers come up to me all the time and say, “Hey Jack, I want to take your picture, so where’s your cigar?” Anyhow, I talk pretty good with a cigar in my mouth. You can understand me and everything. Ask some of the teams I’ve traded with. I’m always negotiating with my cigar. Me and my cigar. That would be a hell of a name for a book.

 

Oh boy, that reminds me. This winter, I was in the process of making that big Kevin McReynolds deal with the Mets, and I went up for a negotiating session empty-handed.

 

Forgot my cigar.

 

I felt naked. Sometimes, when I’m talking deals, I’ve got that cigar, and it might be a real strong one, and I’m blowing smoke in your face.

 

I’m lulling you to sleep. The smoke is my knockout drug. I gotcha.

 

We eventually made that McReynolds deal, but I had to get my cigars before I could do it.

 

I started smoking ’em when I was about 18. I’d just spent my first season in the minors, and we’d sit in the clubhouse puffing away. I came home after the season and was kind of paranoid about my dad. My father was a tough guy, and I think he would have decked me if I started smoking my cigar in front of him. Eventually, I just did it, and he didn’t do nothing. He figured I was on my own now, a professional ballplayer.

 

My dad is me. I mean, I’m my dad. I mean, we’re a lot alike. I learned so much of my street smarts from him. My dad never got past the seventh grade, but he was the youngest Ford dealer in the United States. He was selling cars at the age of 21. He had his own garage, his own taxi service, his own wrecking business. Here was an original entrepreneur. He was also a justice of the peace in our hometown, South Amboy, N.J.

 

I’m not kidding. If a guy got a speeding ticket in South Amboy on his way to the shore, the cops would bring the guy to my father’s garage. My dad might be under some car, all greasy in his overalls, and in came the cop. So my dad would towel off, put on his judge robe and walk over to this desk he had in the garage.

 

He might say to the driver, “That’ll be 30 bucks or 30 days.”

 

I remember one time, a guy told him, “Well, I don’t have any money, judge.”

 

“Too bad,” my dad would snap. “Lock him up.”

 

And, sure, the guy had money. He was going to the shore. So he says, “Uh, uh, uh . . . Let me talk to my wife.”

 

He got the money.

 

My dad took off his robe and went back under the car.

 

That was a great town, South Amboy. About 10,000 people. My uncle Ed was with the police, my uncle Joe was the mayor, and my father was the justice of the peace.

 

We kind of owned that town.

 

Actually, my father didn’t want me to be a ballplayer. He thought I should open a laundromat or be a funeral director. In those days, you couldn’t make a living playing ball. He was thinking in my best interest, and he thought a funeral director would be a pretty good job in our town.

 

But I did every job imaginable in that town. I delivered mail. Jack the mailman, how do you like that? I used to change tires on fire trucks. I used to drive my dad’s wrecker. Later in life, I opened a drive-in restaurant and I used to officiate basketball games. I did it all. A Jack-of-all-trades.

 

THE PLAYER

 

People always ask me when I learned how to evaluate talent.

 

I say a real long time ago.

 

I evaluated me.

 

I was a fat little catcher. I might have hit pretty well in high school, but I couldn’t hit my weight in the minors, which was pretty hefty, by the way. My batting average fluctuated between .217 or .221 or .223, and my weight fluctuated at a little higher level.

 

I hit three ways: Right, left and seldom.

 

You should have seen the day I met my wife, Carol. We were playing in Greensboro. I’m in my crouch at the plate, my bat way back. The first time I ever used this stance, I hit a three-run homer to win a game, so I’m sticking with it. Anyway, that day in Greensboro, I’m up in my crouch, and the catcher–trying to be cute–tips my bat ever so slightly, disrupting my swing.

 

The umpire doesn’t see it, but I tell the ump, “If that happens again, all hell’s gonna break loose!”

 

The catcher did it again.

 

I don’t say anything. I get back in the batter’s box. But instead of striding toward the plate on the next pitch, I swing and hit the catcher right across the mask.

 

The ball gets away, of course, and one of our runners scores on the passed ball. Me and the catcher are on the ground fighting, and I’m kicking his rear. We both get thrown out.

 

Anyway, I’m sitting in the stands and I see a pretty gal. I try making small talk, but she thinks I’m a rowdy. She wants no part of me. Later, I saw her around town, and we started dating.

 

Now she’s Carol McKeon.

 

I was a tough guy, no question. Just like my dad. One day, I was behind the plate, and some guy tapped one right in front of me. I’m out there quick to get it, but I get hit across the forehead with his bat as he’s following through on his swing.

 

I’m knocked out. They get me in an ambulance and sew me up, and I’ve got to stay in the hospital overnight. I mean, my head hurt a little, but there was no need to stay. I waited till the nurses weren’t around, I got my clothes and I took off. I met the team bus for the next leg of our trip.

 

I was supposed to miss a couple games, actually about five or six. I’ve got this bandage wrapped around my head, but I can’t sit around.

 

So I pitch batting practice for the team before a doubleheader one day. The other catcher is taking his swings, and I accidentally hit him in the knee (I swear, it was an accident). He can’t play. I talk my skipper into letting me take his place.

 

What happens? I immediately take four foul balls off my mask. The stitches pop, and there’s blood everywhere. The ump says, “Get out of here. Quit playing.” But I won’t go. I slap a Band-Aid up there, and that’s that.

 

So I make it through the first game of the doubleheader, and my manager doesn’t want me to catch the second game. But I’m tough, and I stay in there. In the second inning, I’m catching, and Ken Aspromonte–who later played in the majors–is up. He doesn’t like a strike call, and he starts jawing at the ump. He drops his bat, which hits me right in the darn head.

 

More blood.

 

I say, “Just give me a towel. I’m all right.”

 

Anyway, I got as high as Class B ball in the minors, but I got smart. There were good catchers everywhere–Roy Campanella, Yogi Berra, Joe Garagiola. So where was I going? Nowhere. I evaluated myself and realized I had a good arm and played decent defense, but I couldn’t run or hit. I said, “Jack, listen. If you can’t play in the big leagues, you can manage in the big leagues.”

 

I scouted myself pretty good.

 

THE MINOR LEAGUE MANAGER

 

In 1953, I was a minor leaguer in New Orleans, and Danny Murtaugh–the late Pittsburgh manager–was in charge. I watched his every move. He must have seen me out of the corner of his eye, because he asked me if I wanted to manage.

 

Uh-huh, I said.

 

Branch Rickey, the Pirate president, knew it, too. Eventually, he asked me in midseason to manage his club in Hutchinson, Kan. I was about to marry Carol, but I said I’d go. I get to Hutchinson, I pick up a newspaper and see a headline that says “Larry Dorton named manager.

 

Hey, I was supposed to be manager.

 

There had been a mix-up. Rickey didn’t tell some people in the organization that he’d hired me, and they hired someone else. Rickey promised I’d get the job next year.

 

Next year, the team folded.

 

So I eventually manage in Fayetteville, N.C., an independent club. I’m a player-manager. But I get hurt and can’t play. They say if I can’t play, I can’t manage. So they fire me.

 

So I go back to college. I’m at Elon College in North Carolina. I’m taking a test one day when someone passes me a message. It’s my wife. Some guy named Nick Mariana is looking for a manager.

 

“To hell with the test,” I say.

 

So I leave. I’m in my mid-20s now, and I go to Missoula, Mont., to be player/manager for the Missoula Timberjacks. We played against Bob Uecker. You know, he wasn’t bad.

 

This was Missoula’s first baseball team. We were celebrities in town. The people there gave us gifts all the time. I mean, we had a deal where the first guy to get a hit every night got a case of soda pop. The first pitcher to strike a guy out got a free banana split. Soon, I got this restaurant to give a ham and egg breakfast to the guys involved in the first double play of the night.

 

Every time a runner got on first, our infielders are chanting: “Ham and eggs! Ham and eggs!”

 

One of my all-time favorite guys was on that team. Chuck Weatherspoon was his name, but we just called him “Spoonie.” He was a big 6-foot 4-inch guy, and he was a lovable hunk. Not only did he play for me in Missoula, but in a bunch of places. We all got on him pretty good, though. You name it, we did it.

 

Spoonie was a gem. He always used to lie about his age. One year, he’d say he was 30. The next year, he’d be 29. So I fixed him. We were playing this exhibition against an Atlanta prison team, and we were walking near the cells on the way to the field. I went up to one of the prisoners and asked a favor. I told him where Spoonie was from and all that, and I asked him if he’d pose as a guy who went to school with Spoonie.

 

So Spoonie walks by, and this guy says “Hey, Spoonie!”

 

I say, “You know this guy?”

 

The inmate goes on to say that Spoonie is about 36 years old. Spoonie says, “Skip, I don’t even know the guy.”

 

Eventually, I worked my way up to Triple-A in the Kansas City Royals organization. In 1969, the Royals’ first year in existence, we had a pitcher named Bill Faul. He’d been with Detroit before the expansion draft, and he was on the downside of his career.

 

He was always talking big, always saying he’d shot this guy and that guy. And he said he used to bite off dogs’ and cats’ heads when he was younger. He said he used to eat live frogs.

 

Anyway, one night in Des Moines there’d been a big rainstorm, and somebody found a frog. They brought it out to Faul in the bullpen and told him he had to eat it or he’d been lying. So he asked them to wash the frog off and give him a cup of water. He did it. He ate the frog and spit out the bones.

 

So now, we go to our next stop, Indianapolis, and Faul has told the guys he’ll eat a parakeet. They find a pet store, and Faul picks out a blue parakeet. The lady behind the counter asks: “Would you like some bird food, too?”

 

Faul says: “He’s not gonna live that long.”

 

That night, we won, and all the guys sprinted for the clubhouse to watch Faul’s show. He had the bird in one hand, and Jimmy Campanis–Al Campanis’ kid–is doing the play-by-play.

 

“He’s looking at the parakeet . . . He’s studying it . . . “

 

Suddenly, the parakeet pecked Faul on the wrist. Faul screams: “That’s it!” And he bit the bird’s head off, feathers flying everywhere.

 

I was ready for the big leagues, I think.

 

THE BIG LEAGUE MANAGER

 

The Royals hired me for the 1973 season. The media probably got me fired a couple of years later.

 

Bob Lemon, the previous manager, was a favorite of the press. When he was let go by owner Ewing Kauffman, the writers took it out on me. I wasn’t popular in Kansas City.

 

I stressed baserunning and fundamentals. One of my players, Lou Piniella, used to moan and groan all the time about it. He was one the most selfish players I’d ever seen. He only wanted to hit, hit, hit. Our team went from fifth place to second place, but Piniella said I spent too much time on baserunning and not enough on hitting, and that’s why he had a bad year.

 

Unbelievable.

 

Anyway, I got fired in ’75–we were 50-46 and in second place–but they told me they needed to make a change because of all the negative reaction in town. One writer later admitted to me that he did some unprofessional things to get me fired. That’s all right. It all worked out for the best.

 

I went to Oakland to work for Charlie Finley. Finley fired me twice, which was nice. After he fired me the second time, I said, “Charlie, why don’t you hire me for a day and then fire me again, so I can become the only guy you’ve ever fired three times?”

 

He said: “That’s an idea, Jack.” But he never did it.

 

Charlie was great. He’d call you every day. He might even call you 12 times a day. When he hired me, he told me, “I’m not only the owner, but I’m the general manager. Don’t forget it.” So one night, we’re playing the Royals, and we’re down, 2-1, in the seventh, but we’ve got the bases loaded and no outs.

 

Whitey Herzog–the Royal manager–brings in reliever Al Hrabosky, who’s always wild. I figure we’re gonna get a bunch of runs.

 

The phone rings. It’s Charlie.

 

“Consider the squeeze,” he says. And he hangs up.

 

Well, I consider it–for a second–but I don’t do it. Hrabosky goes 3 and 2 to my first batter, but strikes him out. Hrabosky goes 2 and 0 to my next batter, but strikes him out. My third batter pops up to second on the first pitch.

 

Well, before the second baseman can make the catch, the phone’s already ringing.

 

It’s Charlie.

 

“Damn it, I told you to squeeze!”

 

Click.

 

When Charlie fired me the second time, I was burned out from managing. Still, I had to work. I was running the Montreal Triple-A team in Denver in 1979 when I got a call from the Expo president, John McHale. He said the Padres wanted to talk to me. I told McHale I didn’t want to manage another bad team, but he told me this might not be a managing job.

 

TRADER JACK

 

The Padres wanted me to be an assistant general manager to Bob Fontaine. I’d always been good at evaluating talent–starting with myself–so I went ahead with it.

 

About eight months later, they fired Fontaine, and they were considering Gene Mauch and some other big names for the general manager job. In the meantime, the late owner Ray Kroc and Ballard Smith–the team president–let me run things.

 

Ray and Ballard liked what they saw, and I became GM.

 

Eventually, I became Trader Jack.

 

By the way, people think I make trades just for the sake of making trades, but that’s not true. When I came to San Diego, the team needed a complete overhaul. But after we won the pennant in 1984 and fell down in 1985, I wasn’t about to panic. I make trades that help the team, not just to make trades.

 

But then, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like trades. If another GM asks me if I want a certain guy, I rarely say no. Maybe I don’t have a need for a guy, but maybe I can acquire the guy anyway, and trade him for someone I do need.

 

Like the trade I almost made for shortstop Bucky Dent. I got a call from Milwaukee in 1983, I think. The Brewers ask me, “Will you trade Joe Lefebvre?” And I say, yes. Then, they ask me if I have interest in Bucky Dent, who’s with the Yankees at the time. I say no, but then the Brewers say they can get Dent from the Yankees. I say, “Let me get back to you.”

 

So I call a bunch of clubs that need shortstops. I call the Mets, who need one badly. They like Dent, but the Yankees won’t give him to them.

 

The Mets ask what would I want in return for Dent, and I like this young untested pitcher named Jesse Orosco. And another kid pitcher named Mike Scott. The Mets say they’ll think about it.

 

Eventually, the Brewers call back and say, “Well, are you gonna do it?” I say, “Gimme an hour.”

 

I call the Mets back, and they’re still hemming and hawing. The Mets didn’t want to do it. But that’s why I never say no to a team.

 

I almost got Frank White from Kansas City in 1983. I needed a second baseman, and I was trying to work a multiteam trade. The Royals wanted Bill Buckner from the Cubs, and I could get Buckner for Dennis Rasmussen. So the Royals were willing to give me White and pitcher Frank Wills for Buckner and second baseman Juan Bonilla.

 

In the meantime, I was also trying to get a kid named Carmelo Martinez from the Cubs and a kid named Joe Carter from the Indians. This was gonna be a five-team trade for me. The Royals, though, changed their minds. John Schuerholz, their general manager said, “We can’t trade White. They’ll run us out of town.”

 

Speaking of towns, Ray Kroc was great for San Diego. People may not know it, but he was a feisty one. I’d be watching a game in his private box, and some kid would make an error, and he’d scream: “Send him to Hawaii, Jack!” He’d get on Dave Winfield, too. A fly ball would get over Winfield’s head, and Ray would start at it. “Trade him! Hustle, Winfield! Jump!”

 

He wanted me to trade Randy Jones, but he figured there was no way anybody would take him. I told Ray that the Mets might be interested in Jones, and Ray said: “You’re kidding. You do that, and I’ll give you a McDonald’s franchise.”

 

People keep asking me about the new guy, George Argyros, who just bought the team. What can I say? As of now, nothing has changed. No one has told me different. I can make the trades I want to. The new guy has no control of the ballclub yet, so I’m moving ahead like before.

 

Getting back to the team, the Padres hired Dick Williams in 1982, and I thought it was a good hire at the time. Dick had won before, and we needed a guy who could be rough with the players. The problem with Dick was that he held a grudge. You can’t do that.

 

Now, really, I had no trouble with Dick. I’ve seen where he’s been ripping me in the press, calling me a liar and so forth. I thought Dick and I worked together well. What happened here was a business decision. And, no, I’m not gonna rip him back.

 

Still, a lot of things Dick is saying aren’t true. He says I wanted to manage and that I was forcing him out. I’m sorry he feels that way. Yes, I could’ve managed that team and helped get them straightened out, but I had no desire to manage the Padres. Ballard asked me about it, but I don’t think Joan Kroc wanted me to manage.

 

Dick says when I fired Ozzie Virgil–his third base coach–that I was trying to force him out. That’s false. I tried doing Ozzie a favor. Dick told Ballard and me he was quitting, so I called Ozzie and said I was letting him go for reasons I couldn’t explain yet, and this would give him a chance to start looking for a job. Next thing you know, Dick says I’m firing Ozzie to get to him.

 

But he told me he was quitting, right? Later, when we had a big meeting at Joan’s house, I asked Dick, “Why would I have to consult you of changes we’ve made when you’ve said you were quitting?” He agreed. But then he comes out and says I forced him out. Amazing.

 

I’d rather talk about trades than Dick Williams. Right before 1984, we got Carmelo Martinez and Craig Lefferts. Guess how? I’m talking about trading Gary Lucas to Montreal, but the Expos want to give me Scott Sanderson. I don’t particularly want Sanderson. Then, the Cubs’ Dallas Green starts chatting with me, and he says he needs a pitcher. I say, “Got anybody in mind?” And he mentions Sanderson.

 

I gasp. I say, “I can get Sanderson.” He asks me what I want in return, and it takes me about five seconds to say, “Martinez and Lefferts.”

 

People say that LaMarr Hoyt deal backfired, but I say no. We were at the 1984 winter meetings, and I’m talking to the White Sox about our young shortstop, Ozzie Guillen. I want one of their pitchers, Richard Dotson. They won’t trade Dotson, and then they ask me if I want Floyd Bannister. I’m figuring there’s no way we’ll work things out, but then Roland Hemond, their GM, says, “You got any interest in LaMarr Hoyt?”

 

Inside, I’m thinking: “You’re darn right.”

 

On the outside, I say, “Let me think about it.”

 

I had no idea they’d give us Hoyt. They wanted a lot–Guillen, Luis Salazar and Tim Lollar. I thought it was too much. Eventually, we got it done. They threw in two kids, and one of them–pitcher Todd Simmons–was in training camp with us this year.

 

I still say it was a good deal for both sides. Guillen was rookie of the year, but we got what we wanted, a premium pitcher. If you want a premium player, you’ve got to give up a premium player. Sure, it hurts that Hoyt was just let go. Now, you wonder how long it will take to replace him? Hopefully, Storm Davis can pick up the slack, but wouldn’t be nice to have both Davis and Hoyt?

 

In two years, we’ve had to give away players for nothing–Alan Wiggins and Hoyt–because of drugs. They had value, but we just gave them away. Maybe you could’ve traded them for someone of equal value or close to equal value. We couldn’t, so now we’ve got to hope young kids like Jimmy Jones come along.

 

That’s our direction now: Young kids. That’s why the McReynolds deal was intriguing, because we got the Kevin Mitchells, the Stan Jeffersons, the Shawn Abners. I shot for the works. I tried getting pitchers such as Rick Aguilera and Randy Meyers, and the Mets wouldn’t budge. But I ended up with a guy like Abner, a phenom outfielder. In a way, I took a chance with that deal. Hell, you take a chance in any deal. But one thing about me, I’m not afraid to gamble. I’m not afraid to make a trade.

 

As long as I’ve got my cigar.

 

 

 

Charles W. Hart – Hart Oil Refinery

 

 

Sometimes credited with inventing the first commercial gasoline powered tractor, Charles Walter Hart is practically unknown in Missoula, the city where he finally settled and died. Hart founded the business Hart Oil Refinery in Missoula in the 1920’s.

 

The little known Hart successfully manufactured tractors long before he came to Missoula. In fact, Hart and his partner, Charles H. Parr, are actually credited with inventing the word ‘tractor.’

 

“The word ‘tractor’ was first used by Hart-Parr in a June 1907 advertisement put together by sales manager W. H. Williams, who wanted to shorten the lengthy phrase ‘gasoline traction engine.’ The new word caught on and was subsequently used by other manufacturers. The word ‘tractor’ had been used prior to that time in an 1870 patent, but Hart-Parr is credited with making the word part of the English language.”[1]

 

Born in 1872, in Charles City, Iowa, Hart attended the University of Wisconsin where he majored in mechanical engineering. There he joined with Charles Parr, his friend and future partner, to design and build several small internal combustion gasoline engines. The two joined to write a thesis on their new gasoline powered designs.

 

By 1896, when he graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Hart and Parr had already set out to build and manufacture new engines that would revolutionize the farming industry. Steam powered implements would soon become relics.

 

By 1901 they built a manufacturing plant in Charles City, Iowa, Hart’s home town. That same year they produced a five ton behemoth – ‘Old Number One’. Although others had earlier built their own version of gasoline powered ‘tractors’, Hart and Parr were manufacturing and selling them by 1903. Hart-Parr dominated the tractor market for several years. “In 1907 about one third of all tractors in the world were manufactured in Charles City.”[2]

 

One Hart-Parr tractor built in 1903 – old #3 – is now housed in the Smithsonian.

 

The groundbreaking technical features of these Hart-Parr tractors included valve-in-head, oil cooled 22-45 horse-powered engines. Kerosene carburetors with water injection (twin injection) were new concepts that improved their new engines and led to Hart’s interest in oil and gas refining.

 

World War 1 had an impact on Hart- Parr when they dallied in the unprofitable manufacturing of weapons and ammunition.

 

By 1917 Hart was in trouble with his investors. He soon left Hart-Parr industries and by 1929 the company was subsequently merged with Oliver Farm Equipment Company. Eventually over 3,000 people were employed at the Charles City tractor works. Oliver later merged with White Motor Corporation. Tractors were still manufactured in Charles City until 1993.

 

Hart’s connection to Montana came about not long after he left Hart-Parr in 1917. Investing in a 2600 acre wheat farm in central Montana, near Hedgesville, Hart next set about developing “experimental” 10 ton -3 cylinder tractors designed for large scale farming. His Hedgesville experiment is still not widely known in Montana history.

 

After successfully farming here for a short time, Hart’s farm operation was soon allegedly the victim of arsonists distraught with the expansion of fenced farming in Montana cattlemen’s ‘Free Range’. The 1920’s drought in Montana also coincided with the end of Hart’s farm experiment.

 

Hart then turned to refining oil, a trade that he had experience with for years. Along with his new partner, a Mr. Green, from Lewistown, Mt., Hart went on to build refineries in Hedgesville, Missoula, and Cody, Wyoming. Hart is credited with ‘cracking’ oil which others had given up on before Hart became involved.

 

The company created and supported several of their own dealer outlets in Western Montana under sales manager John Gregg who followed Hart from Charles City, Iowa.

 

In Missoula Hart Oil refinery was located just south of what is now called the Old Sawmill District. At one time remnants of the plant were scattered in the area where Ram Field is now located. The District has recently been the site of large scale redevelopment.

 

Hart died from a heart attack in Missoula in 1937.

 

 

http://www.gasenginemagazine.com/farm-life/the-hart-parr-story.aspx?PageId=2#ArticleContent

 

 

http://www.oliverheritage.com/history.php

 

 

H

 

 

 

Higgins’ Wild Ride

 

Some Pipe Dreamer Springs a New One on Missoula’s Delegate

 

Captain Frank G. Higgins, of Missoula, who may be named by the next democratic convention as a candidate for governor, is credited by his friends with giving a wild west exhibition on the streets of Kansas City, but the story is probably a fabrication. The story goes that Mr Higgins, while walking down Grand avenue one day, was accosted by a young woman, who noticed his badge showing that he was from Montana. The young woman, although a perfect stranger to Mr Higgins, wanted to know all about Montana. She had heard about wild cowboys, she said, and she understood that the Indians were very troublesome and made frequent raids on Helena for the purpose of scalping their old time white enemies.

 

Mr. Higgins stood it as long as he could, and then noticing a man on horseback going by, he beckoned to him.

 

“I’ll give you $5 if you let me ride that horse half an hour,” said the captain to the rider.

 

After assuring him that the horse would not be injured the dicker was made, Mr. Higgins passing over the money. During all this time the young woman was an interested spectator. Mr. Higgins, who is an expert horseman, and served with the rough riders, vaulted into the saddle after the owner of the animal had dismounted. Riding up to the curb he reached down and seized the young woman by the waist and lifted her into the saddle, and the horse dashed up Grand avenue. Then Mr Higgins drew his revolver and began shooting in the air. The young woman shrieked and thousands of people started after the pair. Higgins rode down near the old town of Westport landing and, after placing the young woman on a street car and thrusting a bill into her hands, he rode back to town and surrendered the horse to its owner. It is said it was the liveliest episode of the week in the town. – Butte Inter-Mountain.

 

The above article appeared in the Missoula newspaper – Daily Democrat-Messenger – on July 10, 1900.