M Club Meet Has Colorful History

Boxers who tangle in the M Club tournament as an extra feature of Interscholastic Friday night will be vying for the Billy Merritt Memorial trophy, to be awarded to an outstanding competitor for the fifth time.

From 1926 through 1952 the M Club awarded a “best boxer” trophy. Starting in 1953, the trophy was named for Billy Merritt of Missoula, a former M Club boxer, who was killed in Korea on Dec. 29, 1952.

Tournament managers looking back through the records found some formidable fighters. In the early 20s the tournament was sponsored by the “Good Eats Club” to raise funds for Grizzly training tables. Bill Kelly, Les Tarbet, Wild Horse Rafferty, Joe Cochrane, Billy McFarland are some of the names recalled from those days.

The tournament was first designated as an M Club event in 1926, when McFarland won the trophy. In subsequent years, some of the standouts among title winners, not all of them trophy winners, were Bud Grover, Jimmy McNally, Clarence Muhlick, Rip Lewon, Deane Jones (a three-time winner), Frank Curtis, Hub Zemke, Chuck Gillogly (a double winner), Abe O’Hearn, Whitey Rosman, Bob Frazer, Lee Cork. Last winner of the M Club trophy before it became the Merritt Trophy was Chuck Bradley in 1952.

Only during World War II was the tournament suspended. Back in the 30s, an annual State Intercollegiate Minor Sports meet also was conducted, matching the best Grizzly boxers, wrestlers and swimmers with Montana State College athletes. The meet was revived for a few years after the war.

Probably the greatest boxing team the Grizzlies ever put together was in 1931. Its members often met foes two weight divisions above them without losing a bout. George Haney, now superintendent of schools in Butte, was a lightheavy but won the state heavyweight title. Cale Crowley, Billings lawyer, cleaned up on the lightheavys, Eddie Krause (the only ringer on the team) met welters and middleweights, and Jimmy McNally could handle any welterweight. Bud Grover, little over the lightweight limit, bounced welters off the canvas. Deane Jones, boxing anywhere from 118 to 135, handled the lighter divisions. Of that punching crew, Jimmy McNally is dead, killed on Okinawa in the waning days of World War II, Grover operates a drug store in Deer Lodge and Jones is city editor of the Missoulian-Sentinel.

So this year’s boxers have something to shoot at when they enter the ring. Previous winners of the Merritt Trophy are George Tarrant, 1953; Marston Holben, 1954; Howard Johnson, 1955, and Montana Bockman, 1956. The last two are in this year’s tournament.

The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on May 12, 1957

 

M Club Tournament Merritt Memorial

The annual M-Club boxing tournament at the State University, for the first time in the history of the event, will be dedicated as a memorial affair this year. Club officers have announced that the fistic event will be dedicated to William James “Billy” Merritt in memory of his fighting heart and competitive spirit. The bouts are slated for Thursday, Feb. 19. “M-Club members who knew Billy and those who know his brother, Bobby Sparks (1951 basketball co-captain), felt that in this way they could pay their respects to Billy,” Bob Antonich, general fight manager, said. “Billy participated in the tournament two years, and in 1951 he won a scrappy fight which helped Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity retain the team trophy.”

On December 29, 1952, Billy lost his life in the front lines as a United Nations soldier in Korea.

Club members have also stipulated that this year, and in years hereafter, the outstanding trophy shall be presented as the “Merritt Memorial Award” for outstanding boxing.

Merritt was born April 13, 1929, attended Missoula grade schools, and was graduated from Missoula county high. He participated in American Legion baseball, 1945-46, and later played with the Bonner Lumberjacks and other independent teams. He entered the University as a freshman in 1950, majoring in physical education, then joined the army in Nov. 1951.

Tentative plans for this year’s tournament call for 12 bouts, 3 in the heavy-weight division; 3 light-heavy; 4 middle-weight; and 2 welter-or light-weight.

Proceeds from the fights each year go to buy equipment for the University’s training room. Last year the M-club bought two rehabilitation machines. This year they plan to buy a quick-ice machine – a portable rig for treatment of fresh injuries.

Besides University students who will enter the fight, the M-club hopes to have fighters from Hamilton, Ronan, and possibly Butte.

Club members in charge of this year’s affair are; Antonich, formerly of Butte, now of Great Falls, general manager; Bob Graves, M-club president, Billings, chairman; Don Gerlinger, Bob Lamley, Don Orlich, Horold Maus, and Joe Roberts, and Jim Burke.

The above article appeared in The Missoulian on February 3, 1953.

 

Walter “Blackie” Wetzel

One of the more colorful University of Montana boxers from the 1930’s, Walter S. Wetzel, from Cut Bank, fondly remembered one of his bouts with a George Letz from Conrad. Although he stood 6 foot 3, Letz lost the bout to the more experienced “Blackie” Wetzel, who had been a champion boxer while attending Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas.

Letz did not stay at U of M very long – after a short stint he moved on to Hollywood and a more lucrative career as the actor, George Montgomery. George Wetzel, later president of the National Congress of American Indians, was the father of U of M basketball’s Don Wetzel who played 4 years in the 1960’s, and later founded the Montana Indian Athletic Hall of Fame.

 

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Jack Twite – Prankster

The excerpt below is from Deane Jones’ ‘Keeping Up With Jones’ Missoulian column on March 15, 1968:

Twite Humor.

A friend passes along a copy of the McKenzie County Farmer, published in Watford City, N. D. It carries an account of an episode involving a Missoula man, Jack Twite, in a reunion with a friend of nearly 40 years time. [I’m ignoring the grammar prompt from Word here, Deane probably would too.]

The Waterford paper devoted a couple of columns on its front page to the goings-on, but I’ll try to get it across in a few paragraphs.

Twite, a Missoula building contractor, took a trip to visit his old North Dakota stamping grounds two or three weeks ago. One old buddy operates a bakery in Watford City, and Twite went for a practical joke to make the reunion. He let his beard grow for five days, got some old clothes, smeared them with grease and headed for Waterford. His wife didn’t think much of the idea and went to St. Cloud, Minn., to visit friends.

Twite arrived in Waterford, advised the chief of police of his plan, and set out for his friend’s bakery, with the goal of getting thrown out three times. He succeeded.

Staggering into the bakery, he was accosted by his buddy, one Bennie Suezle. “It’s cold outside,” said Twite. “Can you help me out with a few buns, bread, anything?” Bennie, dressed for a trip out of town, gave the “bum” a sackful of buns. Whereupon Twite hugged his old friend tightly, rubbing his greasy clothes against the latter’s clean white shirt, and asked for four bits for a drink.

Bennie ushered the “bum” to the street, where Twite sat down, took a bite out of each bun and tossed them into the gutter. He stumbled back into the bakery, declared the buns stale, and asked for fresh ones. Again he requested money. Suezle, anxious to get the guy out before he departed on his trip and left his wife alone, again escorted Twite out, but the visitor managed to stick his dirty elbow into a pan of freshly made rolls. At the curb, Twite threw the remainder of the bag of rolls into the street.

At this point he became a bit worried, because Bennie had been a pretty fair boxer when they were high school classmates back in 1931. However, he returned to the baker for the third time, and Mrs. Suezle called the police. Bennie was a bit annoyed when the chief, who had witnessed the whole incident from across the street, didn’t appear too concerned. But the officer put handcuffs on the “bum” and started for the door. That’s when Twite gave his real name and recognition dawned on Suezle.

He was still concerned that his old friend had fallen so low, and it took an explanation from the police chief to straighten out the put on.

Take heed, you practical jokers.

Incidentally, the Waterford City paper refers to Missoula, MT. Maybe that’s for Montana territory, to get even for all those North Dakota jokes.

 

The above excerpt appeared in The Daily Missoulian on March 15, 1968.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/349767733/

 

Jokes aside, some of the nicest people I ever met came from North Dakota – strangely, a couple of them from tiny Beach, right across the border from Wibaux, Mt.

 

Jack Twite died in Missoula in 2002. His obituary from The Missoulian on November 4, 2002, appears below:

 

John James ‘Jack’ Twite

MISSOULA – Longtime Missoula resident John James “Jack” Twite, 87, passed away of natural causes on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2002, at Community Medical Center.

He was born on Dec. 6, 1914, to Rasmus and Martha Twite in Velva, N.D.

On June 29, 1937, he married Helena M. Holbach in Minot, N.D. Jack and Helena celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary this past summer.

In 1941 they moved to California, where Jack served in the U.S. Army. In 1948 they moved to Missoula with their five children. Jack was a home builder and, along with his wife, the original developer of the Linda Vista subdivision.

He was an active member of St. Anthony’s Church and Holy Family Catholic Church. He was also a member of the Sons of Norway Lodge and the Missoula Elks Lodge.

Jack loved western Montana and enjoyed many years of hunting, fishing and boating. But most of all, he enjoyed being with his wife and his family. He especially enjoyed his great-grandchildren and even in his final days, a visit from them would bring a smile.

He was preceded in death by his parents, two brothers and one sister.

Jack is survived by his devoted wife Helena; two daughters, Eldora Graham and son-in-law Jim of Portland, Ore., and Marilyn Nisbet and son-in-law Bob of Missoula; three sons, Darrell of Darby, Raymond of Missoula, and Lloyd and daughter-in-law Cathy of Missoula; 10 grandchildren, Jay Graham and wife Maritsa of Phoenix, Tim Graham of Portland, Lori Lundeen and husband Mike of Missoula, D.J. Twite of Missoula, Raelene Raynor and husband Todd of Spokane, Mark Twite of Missoula, Debbie Twite of Deer Lodge and Scott Twite and wife Joy, Paul Nisbet and Jamie Nisbet, all of Missoula; and 15 great-grandchildren, Jake, Alex, Justin, Alisha, Brandon, Danielle, Christian, Jenaya, Kaleigh, Cam, Nicole, Kelsey, Scotty, Jeffrey and Jaiden.

Funeral arrangements are under the direction of Sunset Memorial Funeral Home. A funeral Mass will be celebrated 11 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 6, at Holy Family Parish, 4616 Gharrett. A luncheon will follow at the Parish Hall.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the International Heart Institute of Montana at St. Patrick Hospital, Watson Children’s Shelter or Holy Family Catholic Church.

God saw him getting tired,

And a cure was not to be

So He put his arms around him

And whispered, “Come with me.”

O. C. Garlington and George B. Wilcox – 2 Early Missoula Mercantile Employes Retire – 1950

Two Mercantile Employes Retiring – Wilcox and Garlington

Two old-timers at the Missoula Mercantile company were honor guests at a dinner given by the firm Monday night at Hotel Florence. George B. Wilcox, a hardware buyer, retired April 10 after a half-century of continuous service and O. C. Garlington, traffic manager, is retiring Saturday after 42 years of continuous service.

Some 100 persons were present at the affair. They were composed of close associates, MM employes with at least 25 years of consecutive service, department managers, officers and directors.

Each man was given a wrist watch by the company. President Walter H. McLeod was toastmaster. Other speakers were L. E. Bunge, vice president and treasurer; Amelia Loffnes, who has had 53 years of continuous service, and the honor guests.

Vocal solos were given by I. E. Peterson and Mrs. McLeod and a vocal duet by Ruth Lechner and Mr. Peterson. Heinie Eisen played dinner music.

Mr. Garlington’s place will be taken by Fred O. Deckert, his assistant, whom he has been training for several years to become his successor. Mr. Wilcox’s place has not been filled yet. As one of several hardware buyers, he has been handling tools, builders’ hardware and stoves and ranges principally.

The traffic manager maintains a suburban home in the Orchard Homes district and intends to remain in Missoula. He expects to spend more of his time on his hobbies of hunting, fishing and growing Holland tulips. He and Mrs. Garlington may take a trip toward winter.

Mr. Wilcox, whose wife died last October 12, will continue to make his home in Missoula. However, he plans to be away during the cold months. Next winter he and a daughter, Georgia H., expect to take an extended trip to California, through the southern states to Florida. At the end of this week they are going on a trip to the Grand Canyon, Los Angeles, through central California and to Seattle which will take a month.

Mr. Garlington went to work for the MM on April 27, 1908, as traffic manager. He had been a Missoulian since September 4, 1899, when he went to work in the Northern Pacific railroad’s freight office under Harry P. Clark who then was local agent. After several years of office work with the railway he spent four years as rate and revising clerk which was the beginning of his transportation career.

The first decade of the twentieth century impressed both Mr. Garlington and Mr. Wilcox as an important period in the development of Missoula. At the beginning of his work for the MM, Winston Bros & Co. of St. Paul had the contract for double tracking the NP from Garrison to Missoula which really was a big undertaking since it involved several tunnels, said Mr. Garlington. The western extension of the Milwaukee to the Pacific coast was under construction then, construction being linked August 15, 1909. As the MM was furnishing much of the material and supplies used by the contractors on those projects, the store’s freight traffic was very heavy, he recalled.

Within 30 days after he started to work for the store, the big 1908 flood came. It destroyed considerable of the Northern Pacific’s old roadbed and much of the new work on both NP and Milwaukee lines in Hell Gate canyon east of Missoula. Missoula had no through passenger or freight trains for about a month.

Mr. Garlington has participated in many of the state’s railroad transportation problems pertaining to rates and practices, before both the state railroad commission and the interstate commerce commission. He had a part in an extended battle that led to passage of legislation by congress ending a long period of discriminatory rates imposed on shippers in the mountain Pacific territory. For many years he was Montana vice president of the Interstate Rate association.

The transportation expert was born at Walla Walla, Wash., March 10, 1875. When he was five, his family moved to a ranch in eastern Oregon near the town of Wasco. In 10 years the family moved to a ranch in western Oregon between Hillsboro and Forest Grove.

After finishing Oregon grade schools, Mr. Garlington entered what then was known as Tualatin academy and Pacific university at Forest Grove, Ore. He was graduated from the academy and then entered the university which he attended for three years. At the end of his junior year he came to Missoula on July 7, 1899, to vacation with friends. Being pleased with Missoula, he decided to make the Treasure state his home so went to work for the NP.

He was married to Jessie O. Slaughter, a Missoula girl, at Bellingham, Wash., where she was then living with her folks, on January 20, 1904. They have one son, Jamesbert C., a local attorney.

Mr. Garlington belongs to Missoula lodge No. 13, AF&AM; Western Sun chapter No. 11, Royal Arch Masons; Electa chapter No. 7, Order of Eastern Star, and Covenant lodge No. 6, IOOF; the local Chamber of Commerce and the Orchard Homes Country Life club.

During the half-century, Mr. Wilcox has been employed by the MM, he has seen the number of hardware department employes increase from nine to more than 60 and the store’s departments increase from nine to 23.

Arriving in the Garden city on a Saturday night, he went to work the next Monday, April 9, 1900, as an MM hardware clerk, having come west when promised a job. He followed a brother, A. Warren Wilcox, to Missoula. His brother had come to Helena on hearing about a job from their uncle who was a traveling salesman. Subsequently Warren Wilcox went to work for the MM here.

George Wilcox was born at LeMars, Iowa, February 21, 1878. He was one of a family of four boys. He attended the schools there and was brought up in his father’s hardware store.

It was a few years before he came to Missoula in 1900 that A. B. Hammond left the store in the hands of the late C. H. McLeod when he entered the lumber business at Astoria, Ore.

The main office was located where the college shop now is. C. H. McLeod was general manager; Fred Sterling, brother of A. M. Sterling of Ronan, was assistant manager; Harry Van Wart was cashier and John Inch was secretary and credit manager. Nat Little was hardware department manager and George Beckwith, now a St. Ignatius merchant, was the department’s floor chief.

Two employes of the store when he came to Missoula are with it today. They are Miss Loffnes, who did secretarial work for C. H. McLeod, and Sid William, now in the hardware department but then in the crockery department, who, however, hasn’t worked continuously for the store.

The store was kept open from 7 a. m. to 8 p. m. Monday to Friday, and from 7 a. m. to 11 p. m. Saturday. Inasmuch as the NP had the only pay roll of any consequence here in those days, it used to be a common thing in those days for the head of the house, when paid off on Saturday night, to take his whole family to the Isis or Empress theaters until about 9 p. m. and then go to the store to do the family shopping, he recalled.

The Hotel Florence used to meet trains with a horse-drawn bus, Mr. Wilcox said. Streets were deep with mud and planks were used at intersections for pedestrians. Mr. Wilcox told how bus passengers used to bump their derbies on the bus top when the planks were crossed.

About 1908 a period of great development got under way in this part of western Montana and it continued even after World war 1, the veteran employe said. He spoke of the Northern Pacific and Milwaukee railroad construction projects and the 1908 flood, which Mr. Garlington also mentioned. He told of a dam being built at Lake Como and of irrigation water being provided for the east side of the Bitter Root valley. This led to setting up of five and 10-acre plots, which were planted to McIntosh Red apples, boomed across the country and sold to professional people to live on when they retired. He recalled that the Flathead Indian reservation was opened to settlement. He spoke of the disastrous 1910 forest fires.

When the Higgins avenue bridge was washed out, a half-dozen clerks were forced to sleep for a night on cots set up in the store, Mr. Wilcox related. They got home the next day, he said, via a temporary suspension bridge strung between remaining portions of the old bridge.

About 1910 the store got its first motor-driven delivery truck, he remembered. It was a high-wheeled, chain-driven vehicle. In those days deliveries were provided as far out as Orchard Homes, he said.

The year 1910 was noteworthy for Mr. Wilcox, too, because he was married June 1 to Helene Kennett at the First Presbyterian church here. Their children are Mrs. Carl G. Forssen of Seattle, Mrs. Charles E. Hubbard of Deer Lodge, Mrs. D. B. Harris of Anchorage, Alaska, and Georgia, a nurse, who has been home since her mother died, coming from Whitefish.

On coming to Missoula, Mr. Wilcox transferred his church membership to the First Presbyterian church here. He was named a trustee in 1901 and has served continuously in that capacity for 47 ¾ years.

 

The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on April 25, 1950.

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Missoula – God’s country – From ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac

“During the depression,” said the cowboy to me, “I used to hop freights at least once a month. In those days you’d see hundreds of men riding a flatcar or in a boxcar, and they weren’t just bums, they were all kinds of men out of work and going from one place to another and some of them just wandering. It was like that all over the West. Brakemen never bothered you in those days. I don’t know about today. Nebraska I ain’t got no use for. Why in the middle nineteen thirties this place wasn’t nothing but a big dustcloud as far as the eye could see. You couldn’t breathe. The ground was black. I was here in those days. They can give Nebraska back to the Indians as far as I’m concerned. I hate this damn place more than any place in the world. Montana’s my home now – Missoula. You come up there sometime and see God’s country.” Later in the afternoon I slept when he got tired of talking – he was an interesting talker.

Follow-up to The Missoulian Centennial Edition – Letter from Ruth Polleys Sale and Katherine Thrailkill Reardon – 8/10/1960

Addenda

We, the undersigned, feel there are points of interest to some latter day Missoulians that would be of interest as a follow-up to your Centennnial edition.

1 Baron O’Keefe, whose grand-niece is Mrs. Howard Toole, has a great-grandnephew, John H. Toole, owner of the Toole Insurance Agency.

2 W. H. H. Dickinson, whose wife was Emma Slack, has a son, W. O. Dickinson of Missoula; grandson, Lamar of Kalispell, and great-grandson, Bill, who owns Dickinson’s Music Store of Missoula.

3 F. L. Worden, co-founder of Missoula, has, besides his grandson Bill Worden of Missoula, granddaughters, Louise Worden Shults and Jane Worden Muchmore of Missoula.

4 Maj. Washington J. McCormick has granddaughters Angela Weisel and Camilla Vance.

5 Judge Frank Woody’s daughter Alice resides at Kalispell.

6 Christopher P. Higgins grandson, Grant, resides in Missoula.

7 Maj. Michael McCauley has two daughters-in-law, and grand-daughters, Eleanor Honeycutt and Mary Louise McCauley McDonald, and grandson, Robert McCauley, who resides on the original homestead property on South avenue in Target Range.

8 Mr. Kelley, of Orchard Homes, had three children, Mamie Kelley Campbell, Ownie Kelley and Hugh Kelley, and grandchildren, Ursula Campbell, Frank, Mae and Hall, and six great-grandchildren residing in Missoula,
Catherine Kelley Pew, Dorothy Kelley Ogg, Owen Kelley, Hugh Campbell, Marijo Peterson and Cammie Peterson Smith.[1]

9 Maj. Peter Ronan, the early Indian agent for whom Ronan was named, has a daughter, Isabel, residing in Missoula.

10 Dr. Charles W. Lombard, the early dentist, has a daughter in Missoula, Mrs. Helen Lombard Seely, and a grandson, Tom Seely Jr.

11 One of Maj. John B. Catlin’s granddaughters is Alice Hershey Coffee, whose sons are John and Bill Coffee.

12 Thomas L Greenough has a daughter, Ruth Greenough Mosby, living in Missoula.

13 Thomas Hathaway has two daughters in Missoula. Gertrude Hathaway Duncan and Fan Hathaway Lucy, grandson Tom Duncan, and two great-grandsons.[2]

14 Judge Bickford’s daughter is Edith Bickford Murphy (Mrs. W. L.)

15 A. B. Hammond was an uncle of Walter McLeod and a great uncle of Olive McLeod Mulroney, Jean Richards Johns and Annie Richards.

16 A granddaughter of John Rankin is Dorothy McKinnon Brown (Mrs. Walter).

17 Mary Ford Logan, who was at the Ft. Missoula uprising, has a granddaughter, Jean Russell Wilcox, and great-grandchildren Warren and Judy living here in Missoula.

18 There is a story told about “One Eyed Riley,” and a certain little girl named Kate Reeves. Kate’s big cousin, Charlie Hall, threatened her with a boogie man, who happened to be “One Eyed Riley.” She climbed under the rungs of her father’s chair at the dinner table, in mortal fear of “One Eyed Riley.” He happened to go by and Charlie Hall invited him in. The Indian told Judge Reeves he would swap the little girl for a good dinner, and sat down to eat, with said little petrified girl under the chair. It wasn’t until years later that she found out he was a good Indian. Kate Reeves Thrailkill resides in Missoula with her daughter and granddaughter.

We apologize for any omissions or errors, but after all, our source has only lived in Missoula for 76 ½ years. –
Ruth Polleys Sale and Kathrine Thrailkill Reardon. Missoula.

The above letter appeared in The Daily Missoulian on August 10, 1960.

 

The Missoulian Centennial edition came out on July 27, 1960. Following is a link to most of its articles:

http://oldmissoula.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=48:centennial-edition-missoulian-july-27-1960&Itemid=3&layout=default

 

Mrs. Katherine R. Thrailkill died in Missoula on July 8, 1961. She was the daughter of Judge George W. Reeves and came to Missoula in 1884.

Ruth Polleys Sale was born in Missoula in 1913 and died in Polson in 2003. She was a daughter of Edgar Polleys and Bess Gould Polleys. She taught English at Paxson School in Missoula. Her father started Polleys Lumber Co in Missoula in 1910. Polleys Square in Old Sawmill District is named for him.

Their letter is greatly appreciated, omissions or not.

McLeod Tells of Missoula As It Was When He Arrived 66 Years Ago

Sixty-six years in Missoula.

Few have that distinction, but one is C. H. McLeod, who arrived here March 29, 1880 – a little more than a month after he had reached the age of 21 – and he was actively engaged in business here for 61 years, identified with the Missoula Mercantile company and its predecessor.

On the eve of the anniversary of his arrival here, Mr. McLeod said Thursday he was glad he came west – and to Missoula.

“I arrived here at 6 o’clock in the evening – went to work the next day, and kept at it until I retired in 1941,” Mr. McLeod said. “I came here as a clerk for R. A. Eddy, A. B. Hammond and E. L. Bonner in the Eddy, Hammond & Co. store – and was the only clerk.”

Mr. McLeod, who celebrated his eighty-seventh birthday February 14, was born in New Brunswick in 1859. He worked on a farm as a youth, but at the age of 16 started clerking in a country store, a job he held until leaving for Missoula.

“I was getting $400 a year in New Brunswick, and the job offered me in Missoula was at $1,000 a year,” Mr. McLeod said. “Nothing would have stopped me from taking advantage of that opportunity. I would have walked to Montana, but came across the country by rail and from Corrine, Utah, to Butte by narrow-gauge railroad. In fact, I came only to Bear Canyon, south of the present town of Dillon, by rail. From there to Missoula the trip was by stage. That old narrow gauge was the only railroad into Montana. The transcontinental lines had not yet been built.

Town of 441 Inhabitants

“Missoula was a village of 441 inhabitants the night I arrived, but it was bigger than Spokane, which had 350 residents. Portland had 1,700 population and Seattle boasted of 3,200 inhabitants. Butte was a lively camp of 6,000 then.[1]

“Arriving in Missoula, I had a good dinner and went over to the store – a stone structure, 30×100 feet, at what is now the corner of Higgins avenue and Front street. However, 20 feet of the back of the store was required for receiving the overland freight and for the store office, so in reality the store was 30×80 feet, and it handled every kind of merchandise that a frontier town of those days had. Thomas Hathaway was the bookkeeper and assisted in the store.

“My duties? Oh, I made the fires, swept the floor, cleaned the lamps and waited on customers.”

That was Eddy, Hammond & Co. The store was the outgrowth of a small trading post established in 1865 by Eddy, Bonner and D. J. Welch under the firm name of Bonner & Welch. It was successful from the start. In 1885, Eddy, Hammond & Co. effected a reorganization and incorporated as the Missoula Mercantile company. Mr. Bonner also had a store at Deer Lodge and an interest in the M. J. Connell company of Butte.

Became Manager in 1885

Under the reorganization in 1885, Mr. McLeod was made manager, later he was vice president and manager, and then president and manager, a dual position he held until his retirement in 1941 after 61 years of continuous merchandising with the organization.

“When I came to Missoula there were three other general stores, a drug store, four saloons and a barber shop, but the barber divided his time between barbering and bricklaying, for he was a brick mason also.

“Those were days before the electric lights and telephones. Electric lights came into being in 1881 at Buffalo, N. Y., and the first telephones were used in the country in 1876. Missoula in 1880 was a town of cow paths on the frontier. It was a mighty small village, but we called it a town. Outside of the regular trade the only unusual interest was the arrival of the freight teams with the merchandise, and then some news was brought us from the east or west. I was proud of my first vote, which was cast in Missoula, and every vote which I have cast since has been here.

Railroad Came in 1883

“The coming of the railroad in 1883 was an event for Missoula, as well as the rest of the then territory. The country started to build up, and the settlement and prosperity dated from the coming of transportation.

“Mr. Hammond had a contract with the railroad for clearing the right-of-way, and cutting and furnishing bridge timber, and also lumber for section houses and stations on the division. When the first train came through here, bringing financiers who had become interested in the railroad, the visiting delegation rushed to the telegraph office to order sale of stock, fearing the Northern Pacific was a bad investment, as there were no large population centers along the railroad line to support it. That was a mistake, however, as the real development came with the railroad. Through Mr. Hammond I met the first president of the Northern Pacific, and have known every one since.

“The Bitter Root branch was built in the ‘80s, and later the Coeur d’Alene, the Philipsburg branch, and last, the Flathead branch from Dixon to Polson. All have contributed much to Missoula and Montana.”

Mr. McLeod, long head of the Missoula Mercantile company, one of the biggest and best known mercantile firms in the northwest, has seen Missoula grow from a village to a community of upward of 30,000 inhabitants. He recounted numerous developments of the region, among them the building of the Bonner sawmill, the mining boom in the Coeur d’Alenes, the birth and growth of Montana State University.

1930 Testimonial Dinner

Back in 1930, the community honored Mr. McLeod with a testimonial dinner on the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in Missoula. Headed by the then governor, John E. Erickson, Montanans came from all parts of the state to honor the pioneer businessman.

Mr. McLeod said Missoula never has been afflicted with boom growth. On the other hand, “just a steady one with some years moving ahead faster than others, but fortunately the city has never overgrown,” he said.

Mrs. McLeod died here August 29, 1935. They had two children, Walter H. McLeod, president of the Missoula Mercantile company his father headed so many years, and Mrs. Dudley D. Richards of Washington, D. C.

Among present-day Missoulians who were here when he arrived in 1880, Mr. McLeod recalled, are Will Cave, Mrs. Joseph M. Dixon and Mrs. Linda Reinhard.

The above article appeared in The Missoulian on March 29, 1946.

 

C. H. (Charles Herbert) McLeod died in September, 1946. He lived at 1401 Gerald Avenue in Missoula. He married Clara L. Beckwith in 1886 in Missoula. She was also a native of New Brunswick.

McLeod gave a short speech at a dinner given for him in 1930 which was summarized in his obituary in The Daily Missoulian in 1946:

In a brief response which many of his long-time associates said characterized his humility, Mr. McLeod commented that the most enduring thing about his many years here was the friendship of the people, which “I cherish as a finer possession than any business success or any material success or any material prosperity that may have come my way. In fact, if there has been any material success, it has been due, I am sure, to that friendship which has been so generously given to me. I can only say that I have honestly tried to merit that friendship, and that Mrs. McLeod and I appreciate, more than we can tell you, this latest evidence of your good will.”

McLeod’s were the grandparents of 5 children – Mrs. Thomas E. Mulroney, Walter H. McLeod, Jr., of Missoula; Clara Marsh McLeod, New York City; and Jean Richards and Annie Marie Richards of Washington, D. C.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/349186777/?terms=%22m%2Bj%2BConnell%22

Mayor recalls fires of 1889

 

Mayor Recalls “The Dark Days” in Summer, 1889

Present Forest Fires Rival in Severity Those of That Year.

Forest fires in this vicinity are not a new thing. There are many Missoula people who remember the fires of 1910; perhaps not so many who remember those of 1889. Little attention was given to fires in the forests here at that time and for that reason little is known of their exact character. But according to descriptions given by Mayor H. T. Wilkinson the blazes this year might rival those of that time.

He said:

“It was my first year in Missoula. Forest fires were something new to me, and for that reason I guess I paid more attention to them than did most people of the town at that time. I was working for the Northern Pacific railway in the superintendent’s office. The office was in the second story of the building now used as a freight depot. The smoke was so dense here in the valley that it was impossible to see across the street. At noontime I could just distinguish the outlines of buildings across Railroad street, as I sat in the office. This condition prevailed for a week or more in the middle of August.

“With the fires as bad as they are now, I can’t quite make out why it is that the air remains so clear about the city. People here didn’t seem to pay much attention to the fires, though complaints of the smoke were common. There was no organized effort to extinguish the flames. Some of the logging companies tried it, I think, but as to their success I don’t know. Just where the fires were, too, is unknown to me. I guess they were everywhere. The year had been dry. After a week’s time, the air began to grow more clear, and by the end of the month the fires seemed to have gone out. As I remember it, it was rain that did the successful fire fighting that year.”

The above article appeared in The Missoulian on July 27, 1919.

H. T. Wilkinson served 3 terms as the Mayor of Missoula. Originally serving as clerk and recorder he was first elected mayor in 1916 as a Democrat.

For a short biography of Wilkinson see the link below:

https://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/DocumentCenter/View/8281/Wilkinson-HT?bidId=

Missoula Woman Tells A Story – Martha Edgerton Plassman

One evening near sunset, in the spring, or early summer of 1865, a small company of Indians rode into Bannack and to our front door, where they dismounted. A front door having been mentioned, the inference will be that our house, unlike most in the town, had more than one exit. There were two, which fact served to place it in a class by itself as one of the architectural triumphs of that locality.

A visit from Indians was not unusual, but they came to the back, not the front door; entered unannounced; examined with curiosity the various cooking utensils, or whatever else in the room attracted their attention, asking as they did so in musical accents, “Mericana what you call ‘em?” then giving the Indian name, that we might gain in knowledge as well as they. After this preliminary was ended, they generally intimated that they would like something to eat, and left as unceremoniously as they came, with no suggestion from them, or us, that they should tarry a while at the close-at-hand wood pile.

Looked in Windows.

They also, old and young, daily flattened their noses against our front window panes, in their laudable desire to learn what was going on within, meanwhile making audible comments on what they saw, in a language unintelligible to us. Perhaps, for our peace of mind, it was well that we could not understand what was said, for our observers were frequently moved to gales of laughter. No, Bobbie Burns was mistaken. It is best not to crave the “giftie” “to see oursel’s as ithers see us,” even though those “ithers” may be savages, for it might disturb our “poise,” “morale” or whatever it may be termed.[1]

We were not surprised at a visit from Indians, although they were not accustomed to come at so late an hour, but we saw at once that these newcomers did not belong to any of the tribes with which we were familiar. They were smaller men; dressed their hair differently, and the fashion of their moccasins was not the same. Moreover they came to our front door, and showed that they were somewhat conversant with civilized customs by knocking, and waiting to be admitted. On entering the house, one of their number, who dressed like a white man, and speaking English fluently acted as interpreter, introduced his companions and told why they came.

Were Flathead Indians.

It was a delegation of Flatheads sent by Chief Victor, to negotiate peace with the Bannacks, and they wished my father to act as mediator. Having obtained my father’s consent to their request, and arranged that the conference should be held the following morning at our house, the delegation left, but not before a very devout old man had blessed us one and all. At least we thought it was a blessing he pronounced, because of the many times he crossed himself. I recall that I watched the performance with a great deal of interest, as I had never before seen anything like it.

Later that evening, the interpreter returned, and entertained us for a couple of hours with thrilling tales of adventure, that whether true, or false, proved him to be a good narrator, and endowed with a fertile imagination. He claimed to be a Delaware half-breed, and had doubtless often narrowly escaped death while on his way to this far western country.

Conference Is Held.

The next morning the conference was held between the interpreter, and George, chief of the Bannacks. The latter was a fine specimen of savage manhood, being six feet tall and well proportioned. He entered the house with the air of a monarch honoring a vassal, and seating himself, remained apparently indifferent to what was said during the meeting. There was no mistaking his attitude from the beginning towards the proposed treaty. He was emphatically “fornist” it and, unlike our modern statesmen, indulged in no subterfuges of secret diplomacy, but spoke his mind at once in words that were capable of but one meaning.

His ultimatum ended the conference. With no abatement of his regal bearing he drew his blanket about him, left the house, and strode away to his camp beyond the Grasshopper; the bedraggled eagle feather set at an absurd angle in his battered slouch hat, alone detracting from his dignified appearance.

Interpreter Admits Failure.

The interpreter, although manifestly in haste to leave, remained long enough to acquaint the feminine portion of the household with the failure of his mission.

“You are a long way from home and in an enemy’s country. What will you do?” we asked.

“Ride like hell,” was the quick reply. This he did, judging from the speed his party was making when they left town.

They started none too soon, as they were followed by the Bannacks, and shots interchanged. Whether any of the Flatheads were killed in the encounter we never knew. But the silence of the lovely moonlight night that closed the eventful day was rudely shattered when, from their camp on Horse Prairie hill, was heard the weird ulullu of the Bannack women mourning for their dead, slain by the Flatheads, whose proffer of peace had been so disdainfully rejected.

 

The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on July 27, 1919.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/349053742/

 

The talented author above is the subject of an online profile sponsored by The Montana Historical Society. She had an amazing life in Montana’s early days as a frontier daughter of Montana’s first territorial governor, a wife and mother of seven children, and as an editor of a fledging newspaper. She lived in Missoula for a time, while her children attended the university in Missoula. She was involved in socialist and suffrage causes and wrote a column, “Socialist Notes”, for the Missoulian newspaper. She also wrote a wonderful story about her father’s appointment as Montana Territory’s first governor which appeared in “Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana”, Vol. 3 – available on the internet.

Ernie Brace and the sale of Johnson Flying Service – 1975

Sale of Johnson Flying Service Is Complete

By John Stromnes – Missoulian Staff Writer

After 20 months of litigation, the formal announcement of the sale of Missoula’s Johnson Flying Service was made Wednesday by Jack Hughes, president of the airline, and Robert R. Johnson, 83-year-old veteran pilot who started the firm in Missoula 52 years ago.

Assets and liabilities, including the firm’s valuable supplemental air carrier license, were purchased by Evergreen Helicopters, Inc., McMinnville, Ore. Sale price was $1 million cash, company officials said.

Operations of the Missoula-based flying service, known since 1974 as Johnson International Airlines, will be transferred to a new corporation, Evergreen of Montana. No Missoula employes presently with the firm will be terminated, company officials said.

However, the nonscheduled carrier service operation that uses Lockheed Electra prop-jets is being transferred to another Evergreen corporation in Arizona, Hughes said. The Electras haven’t been based in Missoula since last year.

Named president of Evergreen of Montana was Ernie Brace, a veteran pilot who has been associated with Evergreen Helicopters since 1974. Brace formerly was operations manager for Evergreen Helicopters and general manager of the McMinnville base. Hughes, formerly Johnson’s chief pilot, will assume duties as chairman of the board of the Montana operation.

“We’ve bottomed out and we’re going up now” Brace told The Missoulian Wednesday.

Delay of sale approval by the Civil Aeronautics Board was “one of the things that really hurt us over the last 18 months,” he added.

From being prime contractor for numerous Forest Service flight operations throughout the western United States and employing more than 100 people, Johnson International has reduced its work force to about 40 in recent months. The largest aircraft based in Missoula will be a DC-3.

However, plans for expanding the helicopter operation at Johnson-Bell Field are in the works, Brace said.

Johnson, who has been trying to sell the flying service since 1967, said he is satisfied with the purchase arrangement, including transfer of some operations to Arizona.

“I’d have been more happy if that damn CAB had got off its butt earlier,” Johnson said Wednesday.

While company officials awaited approval of the sale from the CAB, the company’s management was “in limbo,” according to Hughes and Brace. Evergreen could help the Montana company financially but could not give management assistance until final CAB approval.

Johnson and Evergreen had to apply to the CAB because the flying service holds one of the nation’s 13 permanent supplemental airline certificates.

The Forest Service prime contract was lost last April to Christler Flying Service, Thermopolis, Wyo. It was the first time in more than 40 years the Missoula firm didn’t get the contract.

Layoffs and labor disputes have plagued the company since then. Seasonal pilots usually hired for the Forest Service contract could not be rehired this summer.

A management dispute surfaced last April when Hughes replaced former Johnson President Morton S. Beyey as president of the airline. Beyer’s “philosophy was different than ours,” a company spokesman said then.

Beyer reportedly favored keeping the main headquarters of the supplemental air carrier in Missoula and went so far as to propose expanding hangar facilities at Johnson Bell Field to house the large charter aircraft. He said Johnson would sign a long-term lease with the airport if the hangars were supplied.

The hangar proposal will not be pursued, Brace said, since Electras will not be based in Missoula. The air service’s maintenance facility at Johnson-Bell Field will continue to service all Evergreen aircraft in the area, he added.

“The facility we have now is plenty big for the operations we have now,” Brace said.

Johnson will remain active with Evergreen of Montana while he is in Missoula, officials said. The former barnstormer, who pioneered Montana’s back country in numerous types of aircraft, will vacation in Hawaii this winter but will return in the spring.

“I’m going to work here for awhile as a peon,” Johnson said.

According to Brace, the new company will bid on Forest Service contracts, agricultural spraying and small charter work as well as “utility” contracts. Employes are currently flying in Senegal on a “utility” agricultural contract.

Another contract for power line construction in Colstrip is being fulfilled.

“We’ll pursue every Forest Service contract there is,” Brace said.

“Evergreen (of Oregon) has a terrific marketing setup,” Hughes said. “Rather than a seasonal operation it will be a 12-month operation.”

Evergreen Helicopters is the “umbrella” company for three flying services throughout the nation, including Evergreen Air of Montana, Evergreen Helicopters of Alaska and Evergreen International in Marana, Ariz. The corporations are wholly owned by Del Smith of McMinnville, Ore.

The sale of Evergreen followed three other attempts to sell the airline. In 1966, Executive Jet Aviation, Columbus, Ohio, offered $1,750,000 for an 80 per cent interest. Three years later U.S. Steel Corp. offered more than $2 million for the firm. Both sales failed to gain CAB approval. A proposal to buy the firm by Richard “Bud” Rude, Spanaway, Wash., made in December 1973 fell through because of financial reasons. The proposal never was submitted to the CAB.

Johnson Flying Service was incorporated in 1929 for $14,000, with Johnson, himself, controlling $6,900 in shares.

The new president of Evergreen of Montana has a biography that reads like a sequence from Terry and the Pirates.

He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1947 and was commissioned as a Marine pilot in 1951. He flew fighters in Korea and transports and helicopters after the war.

After leaving the Marine Corps as a captain, he was a test pilot for North American Aviation. In 1964 he went to Thailand, employed by the Agency for International Development (AID) as an “advisor” to Thai border patrol police. As a civilian pilot he was captured in 1965 by regular units of the North Vietnamese Army and imprisoned for seven years and 10 months.

Word of his capture was not released by the North Vietnamese and he was assumed missing in action, perhaps dead. His first wife remarried two years after his capture.

Brace was one of the last prisoners of war released in March 1973. After his return to the United States he spent a year recuperating in the San Diego Naval Hospital. He went to work for Evergreen in January 1974.

He has four sons, one in the Air Force Academy in Colorado, and a 13-year-old boy who will live with Brace and his present wife, Nancey, in Missoula.

 

The above article appeared in The Missoulian on November 6, 1975.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/350043610/?terms=%22Morton%2BBeyer%22

 

Ernie Brace did not live in Missoula for long. He was the subject of a column by a Missoulian writer, Mike McInally, who wrote about him in 1989:

Civilian POW gets his story in print at last

“The most important thing about good writing is to find a cracking good story,” says Charles Hood, “and this struck me as a cracking good story.”

Hood, dean of the University of Montana journalism school, is describing how he got involved in helping to write, “A Code to Keep,” a book by former Missoula resident Ernest Brace.

The book is the true story of Brace, who was captured by the Pathet Lao while flying secret missions to Laos as part of a CIA operation during the Vietnam War. Brace, imprisoned in North Vietnam and eventually in the Hanoi Hilton, became America’s longest-held “civilian” prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Hood says he met Brace in the mid-‘70s. Then working at the Missoulian, Hood had written a series of stories on Laotian guerilla general Vang Pao, who had moved into the Bitterroot.

Shortly afterward, Hood says, he met Brace – then employed by Evergreen Aviation in Missoula – for lunch. Brace asked for help in writing a book about his captivity.

Hood agreed, although not because he sympathized with Brace’s politics. “This guy and I are as far apart politically as you get,” Hood said, but the lure of the “cracking good story” proved irresistible.

Hood and Brace wrote a first draft as a third-person account and shopped around for a publisher. They found no takers. Years later, after “Platoon” became a movie hit, Brace – sensing a renewed interest in the Vietnam War era – reworked the book into a first-person narrative and resubmitted it to publishers. St. Martin’s Press bought the book, although by this time Hood’s name had been taken off it.

That doesn’t bother Hood: “It’s really his book,” he said. (Brace does give credit to Hood in an acknowledgment at the book’s beginning.) And Hood still has a 50 percent share in the book, although it’s not likely to make either Brace or Hood wealthy.

Brace lived in Missoula from 1976 to 1979, and now serves in Beijing, China, as a vice president of Sikorsky Aircraft.

 

The above excerpt appeared in The Missoulian on January 6, 1989.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/351638719/?terms=%22Brace%22%2Bevergreen

 

Ernie Brace died Klamath Falls, Or. in 2014. Described as undergoing the longest imprisonment of any civilian American, he was a cell-mate of John McCain while held at the Hanoi Hilton. McCain and Brace communicated by tapping code through the wall to each other while incarcerated. The two finally met at a White House dinner in 1973. McCain wrote a forward for Brace’s book, ‘A Code To Keep’ where he called Brace “a true American hero.”

Buffalo Saved by Walking Coyote

Other Days by John Toole

Some time in the winter of 1884-85, the body of Walking Coyote, a Pend d’Oreille Indian, was found frozen under the Higgins Avenue Bridge. Walking Coyote was dead from a monumental binge, made possible by his sale of ten buffalo for $250 each. These were probably the only buffalo on the face of the earth at this date. The millions of these animals which had roamed the plains had been systematically slaughtered by the whites for their hides and tongues.

In 1874 Walking Coyote and his tribe had traveled to Milk River for a buffalo hunt. Four calves were cut out of a herd, and in accordance with a peculiar characteristic of buffalo, pathetic to observe, followed the horses of the hunters who had either slain or separated their mothers from them. Walking Coyote took his four strange little protegees with him to St. Ignatius Mission, the calves faithfully following the ponies across the Rocky Mountains. They soon became unusually tame, and were real pets. When the heifers were four years old, each had a calf. From that time on, they increased slowly year by year until their Indian owner, finding them too great a tax on his resources, decided to dispose of them in 1884.

C. A. Allard, a rancher of the Flathead Reservation, became impressed with possibility of a profitable investment in this small herd of what was then regarded as practically an extinct animal. He interested his friend, Michel Pablo, in the scheme and bought the ten head. This sale probably saved the buffalo from extinction, since they increased rapidly under capable supervision. At length, a large herd roamed free on the Flathead Reservation. Allard and Pablo sold their animals all over the world. The large herds in Canada and Yellowstone Park all had their genesis on the Flathead. Periodic roundups provided excitement and adventure for local cowboys, and Charles M. Russell came over to participate and to illustrate the stampeding of the great beasts. About 1908 Theodore Roosevelt became interested in the herd and induced Congress to establish the National Bison Range at Moiese. Thus was this great animal preserved forever.

The photo shows one of Walking Coyote’s bulls at full maturity.

I am indebted to Jack Weidenfeller for this photo and material, as well as the story and photos on the hanging of the four Indians in last Sunday’s Missoulian.

The above article appeared in The Sunday Missoulian on March 16, 1975.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/350174987