Old Missoula

Wellington Duncan Rankin

Wellington D. Rankin was born in Missoula, Montana, on September 16, 1884, the son of pioneer Missoula businessman and rancher John Rankin and his wife Olive Pickering Rankin, an early Missoula County school teacher. His oldest sister Jeannette was the first woman elected to the United States Congress. He had four other sisters: Harriet, Mary, Edna, and Grace.

After graduating from the University of Montana with a degree in science, Wellington attended Harvard University, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1905 and a law degree in 1909. He also attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship.

Rankin began his law practice in Helena in 1909, in the offices of Thomas J. Walsh and Cornelius B. Nolan. He opened his own office in 1911. He specialized primarily in industrial accident cases, representing many workers injured in mines and on the railroads. He thus took on as opponents many of the largest corporations in the state.

Rankin first became involved in politics in 1914 when he ran unsuccessfully for the legislature on the Progressive Party ticket. Two years later he was campaign manager for his sister Jeannette in her successful bid for the U.S. Congress as a Republican. In 1920 Wellington Rankin was elected Montana attorney general and served in that post until 1924 when he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Montana Supreme Court. After an unsuccessful run for governor in 1928, Rankin was appointed U.S. district attorney by President Calvin Coolidge, and was reappointed by Herbert Hoover in 1930. Rankin ran unsuccessfully for public office several more times, including U.S. Senate in 1942 and 1948, and U.S. House of Representatives in 1952.

In addition to his law practice and his political campaigns, Rankin was also involved in numerous business ventures. Most important were his ranching businesses. In the 1930s he began acquiring large ranches, including the Avalanche Ranch, the Birch Creek Ranch, the Stafford-Floweree Ranch, the Miller Brothers Ranch, and the 71 Ranch. At the height of his ranching success in the early 1960s, he owned about a million acres. He sold the Miller Brothers property to a Blaine County grazing association in 1964. At the time of his death he still owned about 600,000 acres.

Rankin was also a partner in the Placer Hotel and the Weiss Café/Mint Bar in Helena, the Montana Ready-Mix Company in Missoula, and numerous oil and mining properties.

In 1956, Wellington Rankin married Louise Replogle, a member of his law firm. They had no children. He died June 4, 1966, at the age of 81.

From the finding aid for Wellington D. Rankin papers> 1904-1969 ( Montana Historical Society Research Center )

For a biography of Wellington Rankin see: “Wellington Rankin: His Family, Life, and Times” by Volney Steele.

For more digital background information regarding Wellington Rankin see the link below to Bob Brown interview of Rankin’s widow, Louise Galt.

 http://ir.lib.umt.edu:8080/xmlui/handle/10844/605