Old Missoula

Bear Town History by Mary J. Pardee

Long Forgotten Bear Town Produced Gold Valued at Millions

Noted Men Once Mined in Region

W. A. Clark a Peddler in 1886; Founder of Warm Springs State Ward Attended Ills

Frenchman, Spaniard Gave Grubstakes to All; Funerals Cause of Big Celebration

Bear Town is the only one of the great placer camps of Montana whose history has not been definitely recorded. Yet this camp, in Bear gulch, 40 miles east of Missoula, produced gold estimated as high as $30,000,000 and was the scene of the entrance into Montana life of not a few men and women who later became prominent in the state’s history. Bear Town’s story, as presented here, is the result of laborious research into original records and of a painstaking quest for survivors of the days when the camp was one of Montana’s greatest camps. It is a valuable contribution to the state’s history because it has never before been told. It is authentic and furnishes a record which heretofore has been missing.

A. L. Stone.

By Mary J. Pardee

Bear Town, reputed “toughest, fightingest,” mining camp of Montana in the sixties, crowded the full drama of its existence into 15 lively years. Immense fortunes wee made and lost. “Fightin’ Bar” daily witnessed bitter battles. Everyone worked for but one thing – gold.

Today the hidden little bowl of that far famed Bear gulch is quiet. The once busy street is crossed only by the shadows of those evergreens which hide from sight seven graves on the hillside. Seven graves – all that remains, But –

Five thousand men were camped in Bear gulch a few weeks after Joe and Bob Booth, Charles Hickey and Jack Reynolds, prospecting out of Elk creek, discovered gold there late in October, 1865. Spanish, French, Dutch and Irish, men of every nationality, rushed to stake claims in Bear gulch. Montana territory was then not a year old.

Out of the quiet a boom mining town sprang almost overnight. Hillsides, one day timbered, the next were stripped. And alongside the pleasant gulch stream, where Deep creek joined it from the east, a log town grew.

Bear gulch is narrow, steep sided, gravel bedded and widens in only a couple of places to as much as a few hundred feet. The “bowl” wherein Bear Town lay is no more than a quarter of a mile long and 450 feet wide. But for canyonlike openings at either end it is hemmed in by ragged mountains. Into this small area Bear Town life seethed for 15 years.

Along Main Street.

There was but one street, yet the town settlement included 17 saloons, several blacksmith shops, restaurants, a hotel, a general store and sometimes two, residence cabins, a brewery, a jail, livery stables, slaughter houses, a drug store and Gee Lee’s Wash house. Although a town plat marked the ground off into four blocks (blocks No. 2 and 4 on the west side of the street and blocks No. 1 and 3 on the east side) there was no regular order to the building situations. They faced whichever way the builder chose. For a distance up and down the gulch cabins were built at about 200-foot intervals, each miner building on his own claim which gave the town the appearance of covering miles of ground.

The street served a triple purpose; First, it was a street; second, it housed a placer water ditch, into which most of the waters of Bear creek and Deep creek were diverted, and third, when placering was through for the day and the water had cleared, it provided water for the town. Each resident kept large barrels along the edge of the ditch (around which pack strings and townspeople had to weave to make their way from building to building), filling them each evening for use as the next day’s water supply.

For the most part, buildings were one-story, one-room and of logs, although Ball’s hotel and Pelletier’s saloon attained two-story height. Roofing was either of sod or shakes; flooring was of dirt or rough lumber. A typical cabin of early Bear Town was a one-room shack, about 10 by 12 feet, often smaller, built of roughly matched logs, loosely chinked and roofed with shakes. It was furnished with a plank table, a bench or boxes for seats and just the necessary amount of cooking and eating utensils, usually dirty. A shelf sometimes graced the wall, housing every manner of article from cans of food to shaving soap. A bunk would complete the interior, built to the wall, under which were kept such treasures as “best” shoes, trunks and anything that happened to be in the middle of the floor.

Few Had Families

This was the cabin of a bachelor. The very few who lived there with their families had nicely constructed cabins of several rooms and more carefully furnished. In all of them cooking was usually done over large, open fireplaces. Stoves were too hard to pack in.

Ball’s hotel was operated by Mr. and Mrs. Ball, a friendly, homeliking couple, and occupied a commanding place at the upper end of the street. Patrons were miners who came in for supper, or found it was too late to start back to their diggings that night.

Pelletier’s saloon, adjoining the hotel, in contrast, was seldom quiet. A long, high ceilinged building, with the second story a balcony around the central room, the saloon shone with polished bar, spotless bar mirror and good natured Paul Pelletier. An ornate billiard table occupied one end of the room – gaming tables for faro, roulette, black jack or poker, the other, Chicago Joe, with her troupe of dance hall girls; Spanish Jack, who played her hand alone and won; the stubborn Chinese girl, whom they nicknamed the “Mule” – all found the Hurdy Gurdy house, as Pelletier’s was called, a warm and inviting center from which gold, life, liquor and fleeting friendship were endlessly flowing.

The southern end of town panned another kind of gold – another and more lasting kind of friendship. A short, stocky, kindly Spaniard named Joaquin Abascal and a kindly Frenchman known as LaForcade had a general store, the largest in town and the most popular. An appeal for a grubstake to these two was never denied; with a slap on the shoulder, a hearty drink of imported liquor kept for “private use,” there was hardly a man or woman in Bear Town who at one time or another didn’t receive a full grubstake from them. Two men of foreign birth, yet speaking the universal language. The path to their stone cellar, where whisky for “private use” was kept, was well worn through the rocks, leading straight from the store but weaving in its return, it is said. The cellar, built of stone and half dug into the hill, is the only one of Bear Town’s structures remaining.

Among the thousands who made of Bear Town an unforgettable chapter in the history of Montana were some about whom the life of the town eddied. And out of the daily routine some incidents stand apart, giving the town its own individuality.

Doctor Amputates Arm

There was Dr. Armistead H. Mitchell, for instance, whose irregular visits to Bear Town meant celebration in a big way. One weekend visit of his in particular is remembered:

Early one Saturday morning Dr. Mitchell had been sighted riding hard up the trail on his little pack horse. As the news spread a group of miners, enlarging with the passing minutes, formed outside Joaquin Abascal’s general store. “Mit,” as the doctor was affectionately known, who was inside, was a good fellow, generally in his cups, and he brought with him each trip news from Deer Lodge and outside; it meant a change in daily routine when he arrived.

Inside the store Abascal and Shorty, who was responsible for the doctor’s trip, (there was no doctor in Bear Town), watched with interest while a blackened, charred arm was being sawed off. Shorty’s interest was personal – it was his arm. Abascal’s – because the doctor was being none too careful about stains appearing on his freshly swept floor. The night before Shorty, in a drunken stupor, had stumbled and fallen into his own fireplace, where the dying embers of the fire burned his arm beyond recognition.

The operation was soon completed and his stub arm wrapped in a rag that showed previous use, Shorty jumped up to open the door, with one motion indicating all was over and those outside might enter for the expected round of drinks.

While they clinked glasses in the corner over a barrel of whisky, kept for “general use,” Dr. Mitchell collected pieces of burned flesh in an old flour sack. He had some alcoholic idea of taking them back to Deer Lodge for dissective study. Joaquin busied himself at putting the plank and two whisky barrels, which had served as an operating table, back in their accustomed niche, ready to be assembled for the next operation. As he walked back and forth, Joaquin scraped his feet over the stains on the floor – a little dust would change their color and in a couple of days they would wear away. Other stains had.

Doctor, Patient Gamble

Numbed against pain by sufficient whisky, Shorty, with Dr. Mitchell and some others, were soon playing poker at a table within reach of the barrel. Joaquin waited on customers, who invariably asked for credit. The little hole in one end of his counter, his cash register into which gold dust was poured, seldom had a full box under it. Both Abascal and La Forcade extended credit any time. Under pressure of heavy trade, these two, one Spanish, one French, made entries in their account book, each in his own language. Reckoning at the end of the month was never accomplished, for neither could understand half of his partner’s entries. Who “Petit Joe” may have been Abascal could not fathom. And who Abascal’s account for “El Muchacho” meant remained unknown to his partner.

When the French madame, Madame Louise, stepped up to the counter this morning for her small daily purchases she was careful to avoid the still noticeable stains on the floor. At a glance she grasped the scene and rushed up to Shorty to say, “Oh, Poor arm!” She put such a deep emotion in the exclamation that it impressed Shorty. Forever after he stroked the arm where it had been amputated and muttered, “Poor arm.”

Madame Louise’s appearance suggested further plans for the celebration of Mit’s visit. A dance should be held that night at Pelletier’s, where the French madame, Spanish Jack, Chicago Joe with her troupe of girls, and maybe Old Sheepskin would surely be, and, lacking enough girls, men could fill the part.

At Pelletier’s

Tables and chairs had been pushed back to make room for the crowd of milling miners who jerked about to Steve Huntley’s lively fiddling. Naturally not very graceful, hobnailed boots and working clothes took from their movements everything but an undeniable enthusiasm. At the hospitable bar Pelletier steadily handed out drinks to a crowd two deep, toasting Dr. Mitchell and his morning’s successful operation. Among them were one-eyed Mike Kelly, Spanish Jack, Jimmy, the packer; Shorty, in the best of spirits, and old Greenwood.

One-eyed Mike Kelly’s face showed signs of having recently been shaved. One could tell it because of fresh-made cuts, visible here and there through grizzled whiskers, rather than because of a smooth cheek. Suspicious of the too frequent use of soap and water, his jaw line accented by cuts and one eye out. Mike looked every inch the desperado he liked to be considered.

But Mike’s viciousness was mostly native Irish bluff, backed up now and then by clenched fists. His hard boiled face had been achieved in two ways. He shaved once a week or so with a rusty and chipped butcher knife blade, without soap. And in an argument with a Chinese, to whom Mike’s clinched fists were an old story, Mike lost his eye. According to account, Kelly had tried to jump a claim belonging to the Chinaman. But the Chinese wouldn’t be bluffed out; they had “words which soon became a scrap and then a fight.” Without a word to anyone, they went down to Fightin’ Bar, the town’s official scrapping place, and had a pistol duel. Each got behind a tree. For several minutes there was silence. Then, Mike’s curiosity getting the best of him, he peered around the tree trunk to see what his opponent might be up to. Just then the Chinaman fired, made an Irish bull’s eye, and the fight was over. Mike staggered to his cabin, to lie there for two or three days before he was discovered with his face half shot and torn. Recovering without surgery or medical attention, his healed face was drawn into ugly lines by the jagged scars. Later recounting the incident, Mike claimed he was hit with his own bullet. “We both fired at the same time – the bullets met in mid-air, and mine bounced back and hit me. My aim, begorrah, was perfect!”

Spanish Jack a Beauty

In contrast to Mike Kelly, Spanish Jack presented a picture of beauty. She leaned over the bar, indolently rolling a cigarette, the center of a group of hilarious rowdies. Spanish Jack had come to Bear Town from the California camps, with the first rush to Bear gulch. Blackhaired, fiery, slim and lithe in men’s clothing, she could always hold her own and for that was respected. Her uncanny luck at cards also brought whole-hearted respect, tinged even with reverence. Just now she was trying to coax old Greenwood into a game of blackjack – and he was weakening, though he knew it would be her pot.

Greenwood was typical of the miners of the gulch. Rough spoken but kindly, he worked hard six days of the week, but Saturday nights he came to town to play cards and drink steadily until early Monday morning, when another sober six days of work would ensue. Greenwood’s peculiarity was his habit of talking to himself. One of the few who had no partners, he carried on conversations by the hour as he worked. His claim was about four miles down the gulch from Bear Town, and he had to work in a shaft since bed rock was under about 70 feet of top gravel. Talking, cursing, arguing, Greenwood at the bottom of the shaft would shout up to his “silent partner” to hoist up the bucket. After a brief interval, during which, of course, the bucket was not hoisted. Greenwood would climb out, scold the offending imaginary partner and hoist the dirt himself.

With another round of drinks, Spanish Jack, together with Greenwood, Shorty and Jimmy, the packer, moved out of the way of the dancers and set up a game of poker. Spanish Jack got the draw and from then on the game was hers. Shorty found it awkward, with one arm gone, to handle the cards and yet be ready with his six-shooter. Later he practically gave up cards in favor of a ready firearm.

Old Greenwood Loses

Steve Huntley’s lively fiddling and shouts of carefree men who stocked up on each celebration to last over to the next, soon faded from the consciousness of the players. The girl was winning. Old Greenwood, losing heavily, muttered to himself incessantly, then would come out with “50 down” – “Raise you $100.” Invariably he raised the stakes on a poor hand. They all felt Spanish Jack’s game depended on a good bluff – but none ever ran her bluff.

Only Jimmy, the packer, seemed to really enjoy the game. Jimmy Smith had packed in many camps – had come from California in 1866 to Bear Town and found nothing in life serious enough to worry over. He had long since given up prospecting to the “dreamers” and settled down to the profitable business of being a packer. With a string of 200 animals, Jimmy had his camp down the gulch from the town, where the trail from Deer Lodge joined Bear, about four miles from the town and near Greenwood’s claim. He packed goods from any point, Deer Lodge, Helena, Corrine, Walla Walla, and usually his chief cargo was whisky. It was said he had acquired a taste for whisky because of this close association of years. On a long, thirsty trip it was no trick at all for Jimmy, the packer, to slip a splinter of wood between the barrel staves, separating them just enough to allow a needle-fine stream of golden liquid to drip into his cup. Jimmy’s left leg was lame, gotten, some said, in a fight down in California, though others maintained Jimmy had been lame from birth.

A Week of Work

Towards daybreak the crowd at Pelletier’s began to disperse. Miners left the bar reluctantly, for it was Monday, and that meant an entire week of hard work. It was the rule of the camp to remain sober on working days to use the water and mine to best advantage. Habitual drunkards found no quarter in Bear Town.

Steve Huntley took one last drink to “relieve his fiddlin’ arm,” then staggered out, the official signal for disbanding.

Without sleep, those who had been at Pelletier’s, as well as all the rest, started back to their diggin’s, up Deep creek, over to Elk creek and to nearby claims. Monday morning Shorty went home, this time giving his fireplace a wide berth. Dr. Mitchell caught his horse and, singing lustily, though unintelligibly through “hic’s,” started for Deer Lodge with Shorty’s arm. All the way down the gulch he passed miners busy about their claims and as he passed old Greenwood’s diggings he heard shouts of “$50 down, Raise you $100,” accompanied by vicious blows of a sledge hammer. It was Greenwood’s way of evening the score of a hard lost poker game.

Dr. Mitchell’s little horse took him over the trail while he alternately slept and maintained his balance. Somewhere along the way the “medical sack” containing Shorty’s arm was lost. “Poor arm!”

First discovery of Bear gulch was made in the late fall of 1865 at the junction of Deep creek and Bear by Bob and Joe Booth., Charles Hickey and Jack Reynolds, who were prospecting out of Elk creek. Winter prevented further prospecting because of heavy snow, so the largest number of later discoveries were made early in the spring of 1866. The area was included in Deer Lodge county, Montana territory, and, since the county seat was at Deer Lodge, the town later referred to as “the village on the trail to Bear,” a long distance over untrodden country, a number of claims were never recorded until years later.

Custom Is Law

As was the custom in early mining camps, local regulations consistent with rules recognized in mining camps throughout the west, were observed. Each claimant was allowed one claim, 200 feet streamwise and from rim to rim of the gulch. No one tried to override the custom since his misdemeanor would be taken care of by all others in the gulch without trial and with a rope. A few did make the trip to Deer Lodge during the winter of 1865-66, when the country was under snow, to record locations. Since there was no definite and permanent landmark by which to identify claims, these records read in the nature of a rebus puzzle:

“Commencing at a blazed pine about four inches in diameter, about 700 feet from the mouth of Gambler’s gulch, running thence northerly about 125 feet, to a blazed pine; from thence easterly to a stake marked ‘ – ‘, and from thence westerly to place of beginning.”

There is no record of tampering with stakes by claim jumpers, probably because the miners’ court in those days was swift and led a straight path to the stanch limb of a tree.

The pay streak in Bear and Deep gulches was narrow but rich and favorably situated for drifting. Gravel was piled as high as 70 feet over bedrock in many places, making it necessary to hoist out the pay dirt in buckets to the top to be sluiced. It is claimed that when the individual underground workings became connected, one could walk 8 or 10 miles underground up Bear creek and its main tributary without once coming to the surface.

Regulating Water

To regulate water for sluicing was the biggest problem of the miners. Bear and Deep creeks were only spring freshets, fed by snows. When this water was gone no more would be available until the following spring. To preserve the supply reservoirs were built at the head of the gulches and water released for only a couple of hours daily. It was necessary to close the reservoir gates to store enough water to work gravel the next day. Early in 1866 some fights occurred over water rights, but generally the miners worked in unison, each using the water in turn as it flowed past his claim.

Since there was only a comparatively short time for actual sluicing, miners spent most of the winter making ready for the spring rush. Riffles were made by hand, sluice boxes repaired and kept clean, dump boxes made and dirt piled high, ready for working.

Piles of tailings may be seen today, rather evenly spaced at 200-foot intervals along Bear creek. Each miner was required to take care of his own tailings, dumping them on his own ground, that the claim down stream might not be buried under worthless material.

Gold Under Boulders

Some of the tailing piles tell a story of almost superhuman strength. Placer gravel contained huge boulders, too large to span with one pair of arms. Yet every one of the boulders was moved by hand. Water force was too weak to move them. Roger Bar tailings, at the mouth of Deep gulch and directly at Bear Town, tell this story strikingly.

Good, rich dirt was often found directly under the huge boulders. Some of them were as high as a man. Early day miners cut four-inch pines into about two-foot lengths, peeled them so they were smooth and, by leverage, placed the pine lengths under the boulders, thus making crude rollers. Then, by leverage, pushing and shoving and “main strength and awkwardness,” rocks were moved far enough away to make working of dirt under them possible.

Yield from this small gulch reached into the millions and even tens of millions of dollars. There is no definite estimate, since much of the gold was never sent to the mint, but was passed around in trade. It is notable, though, that in 1893, years after the gulch was worked out, $10,000 was taken from Roger Bar in three box lengths by Mike Kreuitzberger, Col. G. W. Morse and Mel Magee. Estimates of the Bear gulch yield vary from $10,000,000 to $30,000,000, but records at the mint alone show $10,000,000.

No merchant in Bear Town was free from the mining fever. Everyone had primarily come in quest of gold; a few doubled their income by establishing businesses, but they also retained claims and worked them, sometimes closing shop during working hours and sometimes hiring men to do the work. No matter how they gained the gold, through trade or direct mining, it is of record that only a couple of the estimated 10,000 who populated the tributary gulches and Bear ever left with even a modest fortune.

No Officers of Churches

Law and order were maintained in Bear Town more through fear of consequences than through jurisdiction. There were no city officers and there were no churches. Though there was never any work done on Sundays, and although every faith was represented, only Catholic priests included the mining camp in their itinerary. Father Ravalli, whose tolerance and understanding made him in demand throughout the northwest, found time to visit Bear Town on occasion, as did Father DeRyckerie.

Representing “law and order” to Bear Town’s satisfaction was McElroy, an Irishman, who was highly respected for his glib tongue in matters of law. He was regarded as the town’s judicial officer.

McElroy had drifted into town during the earliest days from the east. No one inquired too closely and he mined now and then in a desultory way. It was soon discovered, though, that when about two-thirds full (pretty exact measure) of good lager beer and Abascal’s choice whisky, McElroy could handle the intricate language of law as though born to the bar. He soon came to be regarded as an authority on matters of arbitration and by common consent he was elected justice of the peace, provided he didn’t intrude his authority except by request. He proved efficient and as long as McElroy was in town there was need for no other officer.

A small, spare, dark man, he nevertheless appeared quite ominous and domineering when standing before an assemblage of miners, weaving in and out of the fine parts of the law. When sober he was hesitating in speech and was, indeed, rather timid. Therefore, when any case came before the bench the first solemn procedure of the court was to escort McElroy to the bar, administer just the proper amount of inspiration and then present the facts. His agile brain, on fire, handled the details in masterly fashion and a long, involved oration gave him a chance to display high sounding Latin.

Mining by Spaniards

Succeeding McElroy, G. W. Brock and Pat Woodlock were justices, though they were more formal, less colorful and, therefore, had less appeal to the unruly fancy of hard living frontiersmen.

Brock, like Mike Kelly, avoided water and soap as though they were the foulest contagion and omitted the ceremony of shaving with any kind of blade. Brock simply clipped his whiskers when they became bothersomely long or too thickly matted. Both Brock and Woodlock, in office during the eighties, held but short terms of office, while McElroy’s popularity had gained a foothold as his cases increased.

Spaniards who found their way to Bear Town were indolent, colorfully dressed and sly. Instead of placering streams, they built themselves a arastra, picked up gold quartz float on nearby ground and crushed out the gold dust by hitching a fat little “burro” to the pole and driving him around the circle for hours.

Every commodity bought or sold in the town up to 1880, that is, for 15 years, was brought into town by pack train. For, during the busiest and most prosperous years of Bear Town’s existence, there was no wagon road but only a narrow and winding pack trail. The Mullan road, following the Clark Fork of the Columbia river, passed the mouth of Bear gulch six miles from the town. Yet it was not until 1880 that a wagon road was completed up that narrow, steep gulch. Packers also preferred to follow mountain trails than to take the more circuitous road.

Jimmy “Clubfoot” Smith

Hence, instead of materials being brought in by wagon loads, they were packed in, 50 pounds to a sack and two sacks to an animal. Or, as in the case of Pelletier’s billiard table and several other such unwieldy articles, one pack animal carried the entire load.

Of the packers who worked around Bear Town, Jimmy “Clubfoot” Smith is best remembered. With a pack string of 200 animals, he carried by far the most of Bear Town’s freight. Always in the lead was his Magpie, with a musically tinkling little bell tied to her neck.

The bell told those along the way that Jimmy Smith was coming before he ever came into sight. By the time Jimmy reached town a small crowd would be gathered to watch him unload. Jimmy’s pack train, together with the small crowd and water barrels, filled Bear Town’s street to overflowing. Indeed, to get a better view, some would stand on the hillsides, caustically commenting and giving the flustered packer good but unnecessary advice about unloading.

Out of his shapeless packs Jimmy could produce articles of a caravan. When freighting from any distance his cargo would include tobacco, flour, perishable fruit, red flannel underwear, household pans, brooms, furniture, candles, garters, broad brimmed hats or cans of lard. Foodstuffs, such as green vegetables and meat, were the only things he didn’t bring from any distance, for they were furnished from nearby farms. Both Andrew Whitesides and John Lennon, situated on the Clark Fork of the Columbia river, found profit in that field.

Prices were naturally much higher than at present. For one thing, there was never an oversupply. Too, to bring in goods was a long, curse-provoking task. Also, as was true in all gold camps, an abundance of gold made the purchaser careless as to value received.

Prices Not Stable

A few entries noted from the account books of Joaquin Abascal and LaForcade kept in 1867 show prices as follow: Five hundred pounds of flour, $65, or 13 cents a pound. Prices were not stable, as evidenced by listing a couple of days later of a 50-pound sack of flour at $6, or 12 cents a pound.

Other entries show one pound of tobacco, $1.50. Page’s twist and Navy plug were used for pipe and chewing. The Spaniards were the only ones who smoked cigarets, which they rolled out of Bull Durham. One gallon of whisky, $5.50; one gallon of cagnac, $10; one case of wine, $18. Eggs varied in price between $1.50 and $2 a dozen; one roll of ranch butter, which approximated three pounds, $2.50; apples, in season, 50 cents a pound; a can of lard, probably five pounds, $4.50.

Other than foodstuffs, red drawers (flannels) were $5 and the red (flannel) shirt was also $5; buckskin vests, $4; “dress up” vests, $7; one pair of garters, $2.50; a sombrero, $4.50, and a broom, $1.50.

These are but a few of the articles handled by Abascal’s store, but they serve to show the price range.

Gold dust was the accepted medium of exchange. In fact, greenbacks were taken under face value. It was during the period when federal currency was unstable. Thus, $25 in greenbacks was worth only $20 in gold dust; the paper dollar was worth only 80 cents in gold.

Shipments of gold dust to the mint at this period, as recorded in Abascal’s postoffice records, were valued at $18 an ounce.

Joaquin Abascal

No account of Bear Town can be long in the telling without mention of Joaquin Abascal. Not one of the old-time residents speaks of that colorful camp without giving him homage.

Joaquin came to the gulch with the first rush from California. He boasted of Castilian birth, his features verifying the assertion. He was a short, handsome, black-haired, stocky man. During his first years in the town he was always well dressed. Well dressed, that is, in having a clean shirt and his trousers held well up over an enormous waist by stylish suspenders. It was in those days of prosperity and good looks that he wooed and won the sister of W. A. Clark of Montana political fame.

He was prosperous – until his native generosity brought him ruin and penniless death. In partnership with an illiterate Frenchman named LaForcade (he was nicknamed Laugh at the Cat), Joaquin established a store near the center of the Bear Town bowl. There they kept every merchandise and grocery dear to shelves of a typical country store. In one end stood the inevitable barrel of whisky, ready to tap, and tables for cards. At the other end was a postoffice and scales for weighing gold dust, the medium of trade. Joaquin’s scales, however, seemed to gather just dust. Miners discovered his disposition to easy credit and were unashamed to trade him worthless claims.

The barrel of whisky in the store was kept for free drinks to customers. There was always a jolly crowd around it. Joaquin kept another for his special friends, locked away in a small stone cellar back of the building. An acknowledged connoisseur of liquor, it was a great feat, indeed, to inveigle an invitation “out back.” The liquor, kept under lock and key, was always of some rare old French vintage. As he grew older, Joaquin’s private excursions to the cellar became more frequent, until the order was reversed – his excursions were made to the store.

But for all that, Joaquin was the favorite of the town. He was leader in every community affair, whether a posse for tracking and disposing of a murderer or organizing a dance. His store was the clubhouse of Bear Town, the clearing house of grievances, the meeting place of friends.

Died a Pauper

The respectable ladies (there were two in the town in those early days) found him jolly and ready to carry bundles or look after their children. Men found him a good companion and able to swap stories with the best of them. The French madame and Old Mother Sheepskin found him no less courteous and respectful.

One of Joaquin’s chief assets was his little fat mule, which he rode when delivering merchandise to neighboring gulches, or loaned to ladies and children for pleasure jaunts through the surrounding country.

Thus Joaquin – his life was that of Bear Town. And, as with the town, thousands of dollars were once his fortune but he died a pauper and $12,000 in debt. Joaquin spent his last days at Warm Springs, the sanitarium founded by Dr. Mitchell in partnership with Mussingbrod. He died in debt in 1889 and abandoned by his wife.

The first four years of Bear Town’s existence, from 1865 to 1869, were the most colorful in its entire history. The population was solely that of the frontier mining town. Men of all nations drifted there, Spanish, Dutch, Irish, French, English, Chinese. And though most of them left again, Bear Town legend still claims some of the characters for its own.

W. A. Clark a Peddler

W. A. Clark, later a leader in Montana mining operations and politics, a man whose fortunes reached the peak, drifted into Bear Town early in 1866. Then, however, he peddled jewelry, tobacco, meat and anything else there was a market for. With an uplift in his fortunes, he, together with Sam Larabie and Donald [Robert Donnell], in 1869, founded a bank a Deer Lodge, the oldest bank in the state. They were known as Donald, Larabie and Clark. Clark’s subsequent history is widely known.

Clark gained holdings in placers around Top O’ Deep and held many limestone claims, usually in partnership with Larabie or his brother-in-law, Abascal. There is an abundance of limestone in the Bear Gulch district but, though many locations on limestone were made, it was recognized that location of claims on this mineral merely gave claimants additional water rights for placer mining.

Another about whom Bear Town legend grew was Dr. A. H. Mitchell, later an outstanding physician of the state and a partner in the development of the hospital at Warm Springs. He performed many unhygienic but, none the less, successful operations in those early years. “Mit” made the rounds of western Montana mining camps from his headquarters, which he had established at Deer Lodge, performing veritable miracles. He had drifted into Montana during 1865 from California camps. A good fellow, he was ready for any type of surgery, with a good drink warming his veins and a butcher knife in his hands.

An operation which spread his fame, in addition to that on Shorty, was amputation of Frank Fitzgerald’s leg. The patient was summarily placed on the usual plank and, without ado, Mitchell cut off the member. Fitzgerald lives to praise the job. Another to survive such a strenuous operation was Hyland, owner of the Hurdy Gurdy house before Pelletier. He had contracted infection from a gum boot.

$17,000 in a Season

The two who were believed to be the only ones who made fortunes and left with them were Keenan and Hennessy. “Honest” Tom Keenan was reported to have panned $17,000 in 1867, one season’s work. His ground produced, literally, buckets of gold. Keenan figured later in Drummond history.

The other, Tom Hennessy, is credited with a stake of $25,000, which he prudently pocketed and retired on, going to Alaska, where record of him is lost.

Of women of those earlier days, Old Mother Sheepskin and Spanish Jack are best remembered. Old Mother Sheepskin owned a ranch down the Hellgate canyon, just west of Missoula, a distance of 40 miles from Bear Town. When the notion took her, Mother Sheepskin would saddle her horse, tie a few sheepskins on the cantle and strike out. Her nickname was given her because of the skins, which she used as a bed. Wherever night overtook her, mountain ridge or deep ravine, she spread her dirty skins and made her bed. She was rotund, blonde, slovenly, but welcomed.

Spanish Jack lived in the town in a small cabin near Pelletier’s saloon. She is recounted as being strikingly beautiful, tall, slim and black haired and one of the few poker players who played the game with real understanding. Spanish Jack used to dress in men’s clothing and lean over the bar indolently, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette of Bull Durham, a gesture of individuality for the seventies. Cigarets were then used mostly only by the Spanish.

Funeral a Celebration

It is human nature that hard work brings a desire for an outlet, a chance to play. In frontier towns, where theaters and the more regular forms of amusement were nonexistent, the desire to cut loose was ever near the surface. A good fight or game of cards needed no second invitation.

Peculiar to this town alone was the absence of a road for 15 years and the practice of taking the dead to a distant town for burial. Without loss of respect for their departed friends, a trip to Deer Lodge to bury a comrade meant celebration and, incidentally, from $1,200 to $2,500 in the pockets of Deer Lodge merchants and barkeepers. Practically the entire population of Bear Town would leave for the occasion, leaving the gulches in a deathlike calm, if the procession were not.

The body would be slung over a mule or carried in a wooden box for the long journey by pack trail to Deer Lodge. And, according to their inclination, the funeral dirges might range from a hymn to some lively dance hall ditty. But there was always lusty singing. A makeshift cemetery at Bear Town was built on a steep sloped mountain, rising directly from the bed of Bear creek and in plain sight of every building. The mountain then was barren, though since it has become well covered with second growth pine, spruce and cedar timber. Only seven were buried there as the residents believed Bear Town was but a temporary mining camp. Two of these were children and one a Chinese, who in 1928 was recovered by members of his ancestral family from China and reburied in his native land.

On a steep slope, it was necessary to build up the “down side” of the graves in Indian fashion by a stone wallwork to prevent bodies from being exposed when heavy rains caused landslides. And it is probable the burial ground was placed on the mountain side because the floors of the gulches were too rich in gold to set aside.

The graves were fenced in by gleaming white palings and marked with wooden headboards, now decayed, with only a decipherable letter here and there. But, it is told, and with a ring of truth, that in the brilliant moonlight of a Bear Town summer evening, men leaving Pelletier’s would be haunted by “white ghosts walking over the cemetery hill.”

Celebrate the Fourth

Chief of their diversions, however, was playing cards, for funerals were not held every day. It was the habit of the miners to come to Abascal’s postoffice for mail and to talk, drink and gamble. Abascal’s, Pelletier’s, Brown’s, Kroeger’s and Ball’s hotel all were equipped for card games and all were usually well filled.

It was at Pelletier’s, however, that Spanish Jack, Chicago Joe and the other girls of the Hurdy Gurdy section made their cleanups. Work was never continued beyond Sunday, no matter how urgent the need.

July Fourth, of course, was a big day. Usually horse racing would be held down at Bearmouth, a settlement at the mouth of Bear gulch.

People from Deer Lodge, Missoula, Bear Town and surrounding gulches would gather behind John Lennon’s old hotel to witness the races, including many Indians. No blooded stock, only Indian ponies and packhorses, took part in the races but they were exciting affairs and better ran wild.

Occasionally dances were held. At these affairs, there being but few women in town, men took the part of ladies and danced a lumbering schottish or polka. There were two fiddlers, George Hughes and Steve Huntley, whose music is still remembered by the old timers.

Sept. 5 was another day of celebration, the miners’ union day. It was much as July Fourth and preparation in the way of extra consignments of whisky were brought in for days ahead.

At Christmas miners would go to Deer Lodge, Helena or Missoula for a large spree, for their claims were under snow and there was little danger from claim jumping.

But for the most part, the winter was spent in visiting from cabin to cabin, meanwhile working on rifles and repairs and fashioning tools for the coming spring’s work.

Shakespearean Monologs

On rare occasions John MacGuire came to Bear Town and in Pelky’s (Pelletier’s) old saloon, with glittering bar for a background, gave monolog presentations of Shakespeare. The favorite was Hamlet. Afterwards, of course, the bar being so near at hand, drinks were passed around and a general holiday ensued.

In 1868-1869 rumor started that Bear gulch was about to play out. The town became deserted but for a few hundred. Men left, as quickly as they had come, headed for new strikes in Montana and the new Alaska fields. Among those who remained behind were Abascal, Shorty and Jimmy, the packer. Another was J. K. Wells, who had married, had established a meat market and felt his interests would be best served by remaining.

Surprisingly, those who stayed in the gulch continued to pan rich, as shown by a clipping from the Deer Lodge Independent of Jan. 19, 1871:

“There are as many claims worked in Bear gulch this winter as there were last. . . Business men are all doing a good business and as a consequence are in good spirits. It is thought by many that the diggings were worked out two years ago, but it seems that the ground that was not supposed to contain gold in paying quantities is really paying very well and bids fair to do so for at least two years longer.”

The town boomed again. This time, though, the onrush brought a different type of population. Several of the men married – bringing to the town the influence of the home.

A road was first built up the gulch after 15 years of entrance by winding pack trails. Up to 1878 an attempt had never been made to bring in a wagon, for the trails were too narrow and steep. Until 1879 all goods were brought in by pack train.

In 1878-1879 need for a wagon road became great enough to encourage building of a road from the mouth of Bear. It was an open winter and everyone “hove to.” Jimmy Smith loaned most of his pack string and tools to carry on the work.

Forded River With Mail

With the new road, it was possible to bring in better furniture and establish a closer link to the outside world. The road joined Mullan’s road near the banks of the Clark Fork of the Columbia river and was a direct connection to Deer Lodge and Missoula.

Bearmouth, a small station through which mail and supplies were received, was across the river and no bridge had yet been built. The mail carrier, at that time the sturdy and youthful Frank Keim, forded the swift water daily, winter and summer, holding the mail sack over head.

First to bring in a wagon over the newly built road was J. K. Wells, one of the early settlers in Bear Town and a merchant. Jimmy Smith, of course, had the first teams. The road was merely the pack trail, widened, and it is still used in part by prospectors who work near Garnet. Later an improved road was built, using sections of the old road and parts of the now dry stream bed. Dead-X wagons gradually took the place of pack strings, though packing was never abandoned.

The road brought with it building of a bridge across the Clark Fork, which “wasn’t much but served the purpose.” A few years later, McCarty, who owned a ranch a few miles from the mouth of Bear, built a toll bridge, still standing but condemned.

Before the bridges had been built, Lennon, at Bearmouth, had constructed a crude ferry. Lennon had a milk route and a hotel. The ferry was a flat float, large enough for one wagon and team and was propelled by pulley.

Spills on the old ferry were not uncommon. Chris Lennon, a son of John, who still has the Bearmouth postoffice and hotel, tells of many such mishaps. One day the ferry was loaded with two men and three pack mules, each mule carrying two 50-gallon barrels of whisky. The cable broke and all went overboard. As Chris said, “One of the men drowned but they saved all of the whisky.”

School is Established

By the early eighties there were several children in town – Winnie Wells, her two brothers, the Lehsous, McConvilles and John Kreitzberger from the Top o’ Deep. It seemed feasible to build a school, though, admittedly, the town was on a fast down grade.

John Wells took out a team and Dead-X wagon and began hauling logs for the school building. As a community, the miners became interested and all chipped in to help. Mr. Wells was, among other public posts, elected to the board of trustees, the first board of trustees in Bear Town.

The schoolhouse was 12 by 16 feet, but was ample for its attendance. Girls and boys were seated at opposite ends of the room, around crude tables and on splintery benches; writing was done on slates. James Castner, a young man, was the first teacher, employed through the county office at Deer Lodge. Others who taught there were Gussie Galbraith, Mrs. Jim Boles, George Reed and Josiah Schull.

Before the school was built, two Catholics, Sister Katherine from Walla Walla and Sister Laroque from Vancouver, Wash., made two or three trips into the Bear camp each year from Catholic schools to either tutor, while on their short stays, or to take the children back to their schools with them. Those hardy sisters traveled by pack train, with only each other for company, camped by the trail, ministered to whomever sought their counsel and felt no fear of the wilds. Ed Lennon, another son of John Lennon, now living at Hall, was sent by his parents to Walla Walla with Sister Katherine to obtain his early schooling.

Gee Lee’s Wash House

Though there was never any work done on Sundays, there was no church at any time in the town. And although every faith was represented, only Catholic priests included the mining camp on their itinerary. Father Ravalli , whose tolerance, tact and understanding made him in demand throughout the northwest, found time to visit Bear Town on occasion, as did also Father DeRyckerie. When they came to town services were held in any cabin that happened to be vacant, and everyone attended. Father Ravalli married John Wells and baptized his children, Winnie Wells, now living at Drummond, and her two brothers.

As always, the Chinese didn’t move into camp in any great numbers until after the first fever had worked itself out. Gee Lee, however, was with the town from its beginning. He had tried mining but found laundering more profitable. Gee Lee’s Wash House was one of the cornerstones of the town.

Later there came to town a Chinaman whom everyone called “One-Eyed Tom.” Tom would go into the mountain each fall to gather herbs. And when anyone was injured or ill Tom never failed a cure with his herbs, which hung in a large sack from the rafter of his cabin.

Thus the tapestried picture of Bear Town, now almost forgotten, but once the “toughest, fightingest camp” in all Montana.

Echoes of the miner’s picks are silenced; there is nothing left at the site to indicate the thrill of those days, the fever pitch of gold hunting. Only seven neglected graves remain hidden on the hillside, where once souls took refuge at the end of the rainbow and where hangs the real pot of gold.

 

The above article appeared in The Sunday Great Falls Tribune on September 6, 1931.

 

The author, Mary Pardee, was the daughter of Joseph and Ruby Schoonover Pardee. Her father was a geologist who worked for the U. S. Geological Survey and was an important contributor to the theory that Western Montana was subject to Glacial Lakes. With another important geologist, J. Harlan Bretz, Joseph Pardee helped identify what came to be known as Lake Missoula. Mary attended the University of Montana, graduated in journalism, and then worked at the Great Falls Tribune for a time. She married Ralph Kelly in Great Falls. They worked in Alaska and later moved to Philipsburg, Mt., where her Schoonover grandparents had a ranch. Her grandfather, James Pardee, came to Montana in 1874 and was involved in mining and smelting. He later ran the Algonquin Silver mine near Philipsburg, Mt. Mary Pardee Kelly died in Missoula in 1994 and is buried in Philipsburg.

A list of early Missoulians who spent time placer mining in the Bear Town area would be a long one. My GGrandfather, Owen Kelley and his brother William worked near there in the 1860’s. How successful they were at mining in that area isn’t known, however they had enough resources to homestead in Missoula in the early 1870’s.

The Kelleys were neighbors of two other Target Range settlers who were also miners in the Bear Town area, Joseph Booth and Terrance McMurray. Booth, in fact, is credited as one of the discoverers of Bear Town in the article above. His biography, linked below, noted that he was very successful mining in that area, having earned $11,000 in gold which he took to Philadelphia to be minted in 1866. He then returned to Bear Town and made even more money. He settled on 240 acres in Target Range in 1874.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101079825855;view=1up;seq=1320