Ovando versus A. L. Stone – Mr. Jakway’s liver is ashiver – 1914

Ovando versus A. L. Stone – Mr. Jakway’s liver is ashiver – 1914 THE NEWSPAPER AND THE NEWS Editor, Missoulian – I have read with great interest during the winter the statements of various persons in your columns, regarding the rigorous climate of the Ovando country – how W. R. Read More

Where’s all the gold?

One of the reasons for starting this website was that I didn’t have any place to store or retain the links, articles and information that I keep finding while reading about the history of the Missoula area. I’ve occasionally spent hours trying to retrace information that I neglected to keep. Read More

Trip to Florence, Id Ghost Town Site – 2018

9/11/2018 – Along with my son, Ben, I just spent a day at Florence, Idaho, the site of fantastic gold prospecting activity in the early 1860’s. It is now an overgrown, forlorn landscape, submitting inexorably to nature’s power.  Many who came to Bannack, Virginia City, and Alder Gulch (Mt. Territory) Read More

Great Hunt in Big Blackfoot Valley Wilds

Snipehunter Adds Mouthorgan To Candle Forestry School Men Have a Great Hunt in Big Blackfoot Valley Wilds John (Oliver D.) Layton, president, organizer and membership of the Society for the Inculcation of Religious Aspiration Upon Snipes, returned yesterday from the Blackfoot, where he conducted a thorough survey of the conditions Read More

Wilma Plunge Closing – 1935

Wilma Plunge To Close Closing of the Wilma plunge May 18 was announced Thursday by R. W. Schofield, proprietor. While the pool is closing before the end of the school term, students at the high school receiving instruction there will be accorded credit. Mr. Schofield learned from Principal G. A. Read More

Orchard Homes Frenzy – Hoard of Purchasers

Orchard Homes Frenzy Johnston and Orton Hold Reunion Here When Sheriff P. F. Johnston of Sanders county came to the city from Thompson Falls Tuesday afternoon he had a brief reunion with an old friend, Pete Orton. The renewed acquaintance of years ago when they operated a ranch together in Read More

Ode To West Front by Deane Jones

Ode To West Front – by Deane Jones When the Thunderbird Bar closed on West Front Street early this month, it was more than the closing of another bar. For the Thunderbird was the successor to the old Hawthorne Club, which, if it could talk, could have revealed more secrets Read More

Life in Taft 1908 – “So far from civilization”

Life In The Camps Is Strenuous An Idaho Officer Tells About The Current Of Events At Taft. Big Deputy Sheriff Dennis, who looks after the law and order of the Milwaukee construction work on the Idaho side of the line from the tunnel at St. Paul pass to the St. Read More

Dredging @ Martina on Nine Mile – 1901

The Engineering and Mining Journal – July 13, 1901 Western Montana Placer Mining Company – This company is working the Bessie M. dredger near Martina*. The machinery is supported on a double boat 70 by 30 ft. in size, and has a capacity of 2,000 cu. yds. In 24 hours. Read More

“The Margaret” – Beautiful Bonner hotel 1892

  “The Margaret,”   Bonner’s Beautiful Little Hotel Ready for Business   The Margaret, the new hotel at Bonner, opened quite unostentatiously, is now ready for and already doing a large business. It is a magnificent little hostelry, a perfect specimen of a modern hotel, fitted up with all known Read More