Old Missoula

Life in Montana in the Seventies By Mary Curtis Knowles

When I first came to Montana in the early seventies, the roughest and most dangerous elements which threatened the building of a more civilized social structure, had been eliminated. “The Vigilantes” had done their work and given place to the organized and effective courts of the United States, and a really peaceful community was Deer Lodge, my home. For while there might be drinking, fighting and even murder upon the main street of the village, the families slept in sweet security, with no dread of even sneak thief or tramp, and often with unbolted doors. We were a community of young and middle-aged people, and sometimes, when I look back and think of the strong, vigorous, confident lives that made up our environment and remember how many have passed into baffled, disappointed, hopeless decrepitude, I am filled with a great sadness – a sadness felt by all who have left behind them their own exultant youth.

At that time each household, which held the dear grandparents of the little ones, was envied by those who held not the blessing, and the love that enclosed the children of the one hearthstone, was in most cases found to be elastic enough to cover many a little one whose own grandmother or grandfather were far away in “the States.” I wonder if such an expanded nature does not meet its reward in the next promotion, and find that it has “skipped a grade” in its progress towards the “commencement” of the perfect life.

Socially we had our divertisments – dinner parties, tea parties and dances – all conducted with strict propriety, and, although there might be beneath the placid surface an undercurrent of violent feeling to be made manifest in some future time, none but the few concerned were aware that it existed. We had our reading clubs and our coteries of intimate friends with whom we discussed the problems of the day, with a zest and discrimination that I wonder at as I remember. The telegraph, the stage coach and the freight trains drawn by mules and oxen were our only means of communication with the outer world, and often many weeks would pass without our receiving mail of any description. Snow blockades and floods were more effectual then, than now, in interrupting communication. And when our mail did reach us it was always the latest news, we first received. The mail sacks would be piled upon one another, in some corner of the last station reached, and when the trouble was ended,the top ones, of course, were the first sent upon their onward way. We would generally find our magazines cut nicely for us, but we never begrudged the reading of them to the storm-stayed wayfarers with enforced and dreary leisure. The old stage line has forever passed from Montana. The great coach, with its six horses, armed express messenger with undaunted courage and many resources, the indomitable and never to be forgotten driver, are things of the past.

I suppose, in the curious mixture of good and bad, among our citizens, we were like all other frontier communities. Among the motley crowd of loggers, miners, cowboys, ranchmen, sheepmen, and gamblers, there were many who never revealed their birthplace or antecedents, and certain facts concerning their former lives, would be known perhaps in later years, to our great surprise.

Among our amusements we had what we called “camping picnics.” With a chartered coach and a few private vehicles, a big tent, a driver for the coach, who made himself generally useful, and with cooked food enough to last us for two days, the young people of the village, with one or two chaperones, comprising a joyous party of eighteen or twenty, would gaily take ourselves to a remote canyon in the mountains, where they could pick raspberries, climb, romp, and enjoy themselves exceedingly, even if they did not have to keep a sharp “look-out” for bear or mountain lion, in that day never very far away. The tent was the sleeping place of the women, while the men rolled up in blankets by the roaring fire that made the center of the camp.

Our Christmas trees were always union festivals. Every denomination was represented and every child in the village was remembered.

The Indians, of course, we had always with us – wandering Flatheads, or perhaps, Bannacks – and twice a year the village would be overrun with hundreds of Nez Perces, or Pend d’Oreilles, “going to buffalo,” or returning therefrom. Then we might expect our fences to be lined with staring aborigines, in their gayest rig, who calmly violated all the rules of civilized life and respected in no way the sanctity of our households, leaping over the fences peering into the windows, resting on our doorsteps with a simple dignity and attitude of superiority that was sublime. Of all the Indians that I have seen, the Pend d’Oreilles are the finest. As specimens of physical beauty, they excel them all. The Nez Perces have a more alert and vivacious countenance, but the Pend d’Oreilles is larger, more finely proportioned, and his composure, under all circumstances, is simply impregnable.

Many a squaw and baby has rested within my doorway, and I have listened to many a tale of sorrow and privation, told more by signs than words, while the speaker rocked herself to and fro in her agony of remembrance. Many have been the crimes committed by the red man; but, alas! many have been wrongs.

He is fast passing away with the buffalo and the elk, still in stubborn resistance for the most part, to the civilizing  influences brought to bear on him “ ‘Tis true and pity ‘tis ‘tis true,” for he has many attributes that should render him of value.

These same Nez Perce that we saw so often, whose coming my little children hailed with delight, were destined to fight their way through Montana, bearing sorrow with them – leaving sorrow behind them and finding sorrow before them in captivity. Old Ben Lo Lo, who looks with such calm dignity upon the peaceful valleys at his foot, then felt the hurrying tread of 300 armed and mounted Indian warriors, resolute, skilful and courageous, carrying with them their women and children, followed by General Howard’s regulars, overtaken and surprised by Montana volunteers, rallying and crippling their enemy and again retreating, bearing their wounded with them, only to be captured at last on the very verge of, as they supposed, their final escape. A story of vital interest to Indian, citizen, and faithful regular, but too long for these pages.

As I look upon our lives at this period, I realize that we were a cosmopolitan people. Each section of our country had its representative. This compelled a charity regarding the opinions of others that is not always known in more sectional communities, and as we lived as territory, in closer relations with the central government, so our knowledge of events was national, not local.

We have entered upon another phase of existence. “The Old Timer,” with his liberality and prodigality, cannot hold his own with the frugal “tenderfoot.” But as we gladly hail the new era, I trust we may always retain the broad charity and wide thinking of our earlier days, and may the time be slow in coming when the citizen of Montana shall become a prisoner of conventionality.

The above article appeared in ‘The Woman’s Souvenir of Missoula, Montana’, published by the Ladies of the Christian Church in 1910.

Made available courtesy of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library – Special Collections.