Old Missoula

McLeod Tells of Missoula As It Was When He Arrived 66 Years Ago

Sixty-six years in Missoula.

Few have that distinction, but one is C. H. McLeod, who arrived here March 29, 1880 – a little more than a month after he had reached the age of 21 – and he was actively engaged in business here for 61 years, identified with the Missoula Mercantile company and its predecessor.

On the eve of the anniversary of his arrival here, Mr. McLeod said Thursday he was glad he came west – and to Missoula.

“I arrived here at 6 o’clock in the evening – went to work the next day, and kept at it until I retired in 1941,” Mr. McLeod said. “I came here as a clerk for R. A. Eddy, A. B. Hammond and E. L. Bonner in the Eddy, Hammond & Co. store – and was the only clerk.”

Mr. McLeod, who celebrated his eighty-seventh birthday February 14, was born in New Brunswick in 1859. He worked on a farm as a youth, but at the age of 16 started clerking in a country store, a job he held until leaving for Missoula.

“I was getting $400 a year in New Brunswick, and the job offered me in Missoula was at $1,000 a year,” Mr. McLeod said. “Nothing would have stopped me from taking advantage of that opportunity. I would have walked to Montana, but came across the country by rail and from Corrine, Utah, to Butte by narrow-gauge railroad. In fact, I came only to Bear Canyon, south of the present town of Dillon, by rail. From there to Missoula the trip was by stage. That old narrow gauge was the only railroad into Montana. The transcontinental lines had not yet been built.

Town of 441 Inhabitants

“Missoula was a village of 441 inhabitants the night I arrived, but it was bigger than Spokane, which had 350 residents. Portland had 1,700 population and Seattle boasted of 3,200 inhabitants. Butte was a lively camp of 6,000 then.[1]

“Arriving in Missoula, I had a good dinner and went over to the store – a stone structure, 30×100 feet, at what is now the corner of Higgins avenue and Front street. However, 20 feet of the back of the store was required for receiving the overland freight and for the store office, so in reality the store was 30×80 feet, and it handled every kind of merchandise that a frontier town of those days had. Thomas Hathaway was the bookkeeper and assisted in the store.

“My duties? Oh, I made the fires, swept the floor, cleaned the lamps and waited on customers.”

That was Eddy, Hammond & Co. The store was the outgrowth of a small trading post established in 1865 by Eddy, Bonner and D. J. Welch under the firm name of Bonner & Welch. It was successful from the start. In 1885, Eddy, Hammond & Co. effected a reorganization and incorporated as the Missoula Mercantile company. Mr. Bonner also had a store at Deer Lodge and an interest in the M. J. Connell company of Butte.

Became Manager in 1885

Under the reorganization in 1885, Mr. McLeod was made manager, later he was vice president and manager, and then president and manager, a dual position he held until his retirement in 1941 after 61 years of continuous merchandising with the organization.

“When I came to Missoula there were three other general stores, a drug store, four saloons and a barber shop, but the barber divided his time between barbering and bricklaying, for he was a brick mason also.

“Those were days before the electric lights and telephones. Electric lights came into being in 1881 at Buffalo, N. Y., and the first telephones were used in the country in 1876. Missoula in 1880 was a town of cow paths on the frontier. It was a mighty small village, but we called it a town. Outside of the regular trade the only unusual interest was the arrival of the freight teams with the merchandise, and then some news was brought us from the east or west. I was proud of my first vote, which was cast in Missoula, and every vote which I have cast since has been here.

Railroad Came in 1883

“The coming of the railroad in 1883 was an event for Missoula, as well as the rest of the then territory. The country started to build up, and the settlement and prosperity dated from the coming of transportation.

“Mr. Hammond had a contract with the railroad for clearing the right-of-way, and cutting and furnishing bridge timber, and also lumber for section houses and stations on the division. When the first train came through here, bringing financiers who had become interested in the railroad, the visiting delegation rushed to the telegraph office to order sale of stock, fearing the Northern Pacific was a bad investment, as there were no large population centers along the railroad line to support it. That was a mistake, however, as the real development came with the railroad. Through Mr. Hammond I met the first president of the Northern Pacific, and have known every one since.

“The Bitter Root branch was built in the ‘80s, and later the Coeur d’Alene, the Philipsburg branch, and last, the Flathead branch from Dixon to Polson. All have contributed much to Missoula and Montana.”

Mr. McLeod, long head of the Missoula Mercantile company, one of the biggest and best known mercantile firms in the northwest, has seen Missoula grow from a village to a community of upward of 30,000 inhabitants. He recounted numerous developments of the region, among them the building of the Bonner sawmill, the mining boom in the Coeur d’Alenes, the birth and growth of Montana State University.

1930 Testimonial Dinner

Back in 1930, the community honored Mr. McLeod with a testimonial dinner on the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in Missoula. Headed by the then governor, John E. Erickson, Montanans came from all parts of the state to honor the pioneer businessman.

Mr. McLeod said Missoula never has been afflicted with boom growth. On the other hand, “just a steady one with some years moving ahead faster than others, but fortunately the city has never overgrown,” he said.

Mrs. McLeod died here August 29, 1935. They had two children, Walter H. McLeod, president of the Missoula Mercantile company his father headed so many years, and Mrs. Dudley D. Richards of Washington, D. C.

Among present-day Missoulians who were here when he arrived in 1880, Mr. McLeod recalled, are Will Cave, Mrs. Joseph M. Dixon and Mrs. Linda Reinhard.

The above article appeared in The Missoulian on March 29, 1946.

 

C. H. (Charles Herbert) McLeod died in September, 1946. He lived at 1401 Gerald Avenue in Missoula. He married Clara L. Beckwith in 1886 in Missoula. She was also a native of New Brunswick.

McLeod gave a short speech at a dinner given for him in 1930 which was summarized in his obituary in The Daily Missoulian in 1946:

In a brief response which many of his long-time associates said characterized his humility, Mr. McLeod commented that the most enduring thing about his many years here was the friendship of the people, which “I cherish as a finer possession than any business success or any material success or any material prosperity that may have come my way. In fact, if there has been any material success, it has been due, I am sure, to that friendship which has been so generously given to me. I can only say that I have honestly tried to merit that friendship, and that Mrs. McLeod and I appreciate, more than we can tell you, this latest evidence of your good will.”

McLeod’s were the grandparents of 5 children – Mrs. Thomas E. Mulroney, Walter H. McLeod, Jr., of Missoula; Clara Marsh McLeod, New York City; and Jean Richards and Annie Marie Richards of Washington, D. C.

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