Old Missoula

Angevine Marks Half Century’s Residence Here

Well-Known Missoula Man Arrived in City December, 1885.

Fifty years a resident of Missoula.

That is the length of time spent here by R. W. Angevine, one of Western Montana’s best-known citizens. He landed in Missoula December 15, 1885, just 50 years ago today. During his many years in Missoula Mr. Angevine has held many positions of trust, the last being that of county commissioner, which he held for 12 years. He is now retired and lives at his home, 222 West Spruce street. He has lived in the house for the past 45 years. It is on land which he purchased from Captain Higgins and the house was the first erected in the 200 block on West Spruce street.

“When I came to Missoula there was nothing on the south side of the river but some wagon trails,” Mr. Angevine said Saturday. “At the south end of the Higgins avenue bridge, and close down to the river was a small hog ranch, but that is about all I can recall of the South side. And there was not very much on the north side of the river. There was the settlement in the business section around Higgins avenue and Front and Main streets, with a few scattered houses in various directions. Higgins avenue did not have anything north of Broadway.

Second Settlement.

“There was another little settlement around the present freight depot of the Northern Pacific. That was both the freight depot and passenger station when I came to Missoula. There were a few houses, some hotels, saloons, restaurants and stores. A cross country path led from the depot past my property and to the settlement downtown.”

Born in Nova Scotia, Mr. Angevine came to the states and settled in Minnesota. During the construction days on the Northern Pacific he worked on the line west from Glendive. He returned to Duluth and was married and then returned west, coming to Missoula in 1885 as a bridge and building carpenter for the Northern Pacific, where he was engaged for seven years. Mrs. Angevine joined him in Missoula in the spring of 1886.

Mr. Angevine soon got into politics after coming to Missoula and served as an alderman and public administrator. In 1892 he was elected county auditor.

In 1895 he was made chief of police and street commissioner, holding the job for five years, and after a few years again served in the same capacity.

Few Police, Many Laborers.

Mr. Angevine recalls that when he was chief of police and street commissioner he had two policemen who worked nights and he worked days and at times had from eight to 15 teams working on the streets of the city at one time.

Mr. Angevine recalls an order he made back in 1904 that women could not enter saloons and drink at the bar. That order was enforced, Mr. Angevine said.

While he was chief of police and street commissioner licensed gambling was conducted in the state. He also was in the office when the laws permitting gambling were repealed.

After leaving work for the city Mr. Angevine had a team outfit and did contracting work on grading for the Northern Pacific, Milwaukee and Great Northern railways. For the latter railway he worked on the line between Butte and Great Falls and Havre. He followed the railroad contracting work until after the World war started.

In 1920 Mr. Angevine was elected county commissioner, and served in that capacity for 12 years and often covered the more than 1,000 miles of highway in the county.

Survives “Landslide.”

Back in 1892 when he was elected county auditor, he was the only Republican in the county to be elected. Missoula county then took in all of the seven counties which now make up the western part of the state. On the Northern Pacific Missoula took in all of the territory from Nimrod to the Montana-Idaho line. “It was the railroad vote which elected me during that Democratic landslide,” Mr. Angevine said. “And then, too, I polled the railroad vote along the Great Northern line in what is now Flathead and Lincoln counties. That helped to put me over. I only stayed in that office one term. The office of auditor seemed useless to me then and has ever since. After that one term as auditor I could never see where there was an excuse for it.”

One of the most interesting of early day election controversies, Mr. Angevine says, was the location of the second Higgins avenue bridge. The contest simmered down to those in favor of the “crooked” bridge and those for the “straight” bridge. Mr. Angevine was on the council and that body was divided in the controversy.

“The original bridge, which many were backing for the permanent site, was known as the ‘crooked’ bridge. It extended from the north bank of the river in a southwesterly direction and reached the south bank at a point near the west end of the present Milwaukee passenger station.

“Others favored the ‘straight’ bridge which was the predecessor to the present steel and concrete bridge known as the Higgins avenue bridge.

“There had been a lot of heckling back and forth and the controversy was waxing warm. Bonds had been voted for the bridge, but there was a technicality in the way of their legality and they had to be voted again. Because of the controversy over the location that matter was also submitted to the voters along with the bond question. The people voted for the ‘straight’ bridge site and that is where the bridge was built. Then when the present new bridge was built it was on the same site. Piles from the old and original bridge can yet be seen in the river bed west of the present bridge.”

One-Vote Candidate.

Mr. Angevine said the early day elections in Missoula had many interesting incidents. He recalls one when a delegate to the Republican county convention wanted a nomination for office and got only one vote – his own. It was a case of where the man who placed him in nomination did not vote for him.

“However, the Democrats in those days did not have anything on the Republicans,” Mr. Angevine said. “They too had a convention when a man who was not a delegate sought a nomination and got his friend who was a delegate to nominate him. However, when the convention votes were counted the delegate who had made the nomination failed to vote for his friend and the latter did not pole a single vote from the delegates in the convention.”

Mr. Angevine has two sons, Fred Angevine, practicing attorney in New York city, and Eugen E. Angevine, with the legal department of the Department of Justice at Washington D. C. Both are natives of Missoula and both visited their father here last summer. Mrs. Angevine died in Missoula in June, 1932.

 

The above article appeared in The Sunday Missoulian on December 15, 1935.

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Rufus W. Angevine was born in Nova Scotia in 1856 and died in Missoula in 1946 at age 90. He lived at 222 West Spruce for 55 years. His wife, Mrs. Etta (Jones) Angevine, died in Missoula in 1932. She had been active in the Legion Auxiliary in Missoula and had served as that organization’s president.

They were the parents of two sons, Fred and Eugene, who were born in Missoula – Fred in 1889, Eugene in 1893. They both attended local schools and graduated from the Missoula High School. They volunteered for the Army during WW1 in 1918, but they never served overseas. They also both received law degrees and at different times worked in the nation’s capital.

Fred was elected as a Missoula County attorney in 1920, but shortly went to Washington D. C. to work as an assistant solicitor general of the Internal Revenue Service. He later worked in N.Y.C. for a prominent firm as a tax attorney and finally returned to Missoula where he died in 1956.

Eugene worked as a druggist with the government for a short time and then attended George Washington University where he graduated in law in 1925. He then worked for the Internal Revenue Service and later transferred to the Department of Justice. He died in Washington D. C. in 1944 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

While the history of Angevine Park on the Blackfoot River is undocumented, it’s likely named for this family.