Old Missoula

Caught On The Run About Town – The Missoulian – 7/11/1910

Sunday is a great day for fishermen of Missoula. Sunday morning the tired newspaper man, done with helping at the birth of another edition, sees the men of rod and reel in the restaurants, getting a snack for the present and a lunch for after while, sees them starting out for the woods and streams. For many miles some of the fishermen travel, by automobile, on horseback, on bicycles and on foot. All day long they ride and tramp, whipping the streams of western Montana to a froth, filling their baskets with fish, their boots with water or their shoes with sand. Weary, footsore, tanned, the fishermen return at dusk, having worked harder than on any of the real workdays, usually in time for the newspaper man to see them as he comes back to his perpetual task of perennial midwife. It seems to agree with the fisherfolk, however, for every Sunday brings its hundreds to the creeks and rivers.

Floyd J. Logan returned last evening from a trip up the Blackfoot valley. He says that the new railroad has already done a lot of work and that signs of retrenchment are not very evident to the layman. I got as far as the second bridge past the Bonner postoffice,” said Mr. Logan last evening, “and the roadbed is graded all that distance. There are plenty of other indications of strenuous work, and the people of the valley say that the year is to be a memorable one. From those I talked to I gained the idea that conditions in the Blackfoot were never better.”

Over on the south side Dr. M. J. Elrod is getting ready for his umptyumpty trip to the Flathead. He is collecting apparatus and instruments for the summer’s work at the university’s biological station on the big lake, and expects to be ready to start within a week. There is much to be done this year, and Dr. Elrod anticipates a busy summer. It is in prospect that a new station will be established at this end of Flathead lake, and there are other things that are to be done. Therefore, Dr. Elrod is eager to get started, and any day may see him beating it for Ravalli, whence the trip across the reservation begins.

“What is the general situation as to good roads?” a Missoulian man asked James T. Voshell at the Savoy last night. “The interest is increasing all the time,” he said. “The people feel the need of better highways. They are more prosperous, and look at the proposition from a business standpoint.” “Has the automobile helped the movement?” “It has in some communities and in others it has not. Automobile clubs have prodded the authorities in some places and done a good service in that way, but in a few farming communities, where there is a prejudice against the machine, they may have retarded the work.” “What states are spending the most money?” “California counties have voted something like $10,000,000, Texas districts, $5,000,000 and New York will spend $100,000,000 in 10 years. Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and many other states are becoming very much interested. The interest is widespread.” Mr. Voshell will suggest to the Missoula commissioners that they employ Peter Longpre for the entire season, so that he will have a perfect working organization, and, thereby be enabled to do higher class work.

F. M. McHaffie, who is camping on his Flathead homestead nowadays, tells of a recent fishing experience upon the Jocko river. “My brother came out to visit me,” said he, “and I was trying to catch some fish for him. We were on the river bank, near Ravalli, when we saw a tremendous fellow swimming just below the surface. “’What is that?’ asked my brother. “’That’s a bull trout,’ I replied, as I dipped in to hook him. I had seen that sort before. Well, after some preliminaries I lifted him out, and he was a whopper that tipped the scales at 17 pounds. There was nothing odd about the makeup and size of the trout, but he carried in his side a long buckskin-covered spear or hook. As soon as I saw this I knew that the big fellow had escaped from some Indian. Later, as we moved up the stream, we met two Indians and I gave them the fish, but kept the weapon. It was at this juncture that I had to laugh, for the redskins indulged in a jabbering conversation, I could not understand, except to the extent to realize that I had their hook.” “What about bear? Do you find any?” Mr. McHaffie was asked. “Yes, occasionally. I had an interesting experience with a tenderfoot brother and two bears. One day, while roaming in the mountains, we came upon a black bear. We had nothing but a 22 – caliber pistol, but I thought if we could get a good shot with that we might kill him. On seeing us however, he went into a clump of trees and vines and stopped, and my brother ran back to the house and got the gun and rifle. On returning, he went to the upper side of the thicket, where he could get a shot, and I remained where I had been to soak him if he passed out that way. But, much to our surprise, an old grizzly put in his appearance, and I warned my brother not to shoot him. I knew the nature of the brute. This was a long while ago. In connection with this experience I was telling of what happened to a hunting companion of Judge Woody one day. It was way back about 1860. Judge Woody and two young fellows went out to kill bears. The inexperienced man was told not to shoot a grizzly. That night the young fellow did not show up and the next day, when his friends found him, he lay in the woods with his skull crushed. That was not unusual, but what came when I told the story was. I put all the life I could muster in that story and, in concluding, tapped a college student who stood near, on the side of the head to show where the grizzly struck his victim. No sooner did my hand come in contact with the boy’s temple than he fell, and I never saw a much sicker person. I thought I had played havoc with my eloquence, but after it was all over, and the boy was himself again, one of his schoolmates told me that the little rascal had smoked his first cigar just before I had appeared on the scene.”

The above article appeared in The Missoulian on July 11, 1910.

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