Old Missoula

Mercury Climbs To Tube’s Top

Government Thermometer Shows Record For Missoula, 102 Degrees.

Yesterday the thermometer recorded a temperature that is unprecedented for Missoula and western Montana, 102 degrees. It was the government instrument on the campus of the University of Montana that made this record, too, and it stands as official, as the hottest day ever. Once before, on July 18, 1899, the thermometer mounted to 100 degrees, in 1901 it recorded 101, according to Dr. M. J. Elrod of the university, but yesterday’s mark is the very hottest ever.

So says Judge F. H. Woody, and when he says that these days of effete modernism can excel something that the days of old furnished, it is a safe bet that a record has been established Since 1856, when Judge Woody shook the dust of North Carolina and came to Montana, there has not been a day as hot as yesterday.

Still, the warmth had its compensation – that is, it didn’t seem quite as hot as it really was. There was a breeze most of the time and the air was fairly dry. We miss lots of uncomfortable humidity out here, high up in the mountains. Dr. Duniway, who returned yesterday from the east, says that he was much more uncomfortable in Boston, with the thermometer at 88 degrees, than he was in Missoula, with the mercury 14 marks closer to the top of the tube.

Yesterday the government observatory turned out the following figures:

Maximum – 102

Minimum – 52

At 6 a. m.

Thermometer – 54

Barometer – 26:52

At 6 p. m.

Thermometer – 86

Barometer – 26:96

Wind from the northwest.

 

The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on July 15, 1910.

By this date people in Missoula were complaining about the smoke. Several forest fires were burning in Montana by the 15^th of July. By August 21 of that year the largest forest fire in Western Montana’s recorded history had devastated Wallace, Idaho and was moving west toward Missoula. It would burn millions of acres and kill at least 87 people.