Old Missoula

First Car Over Gibbon’s Pass – 1907

Up the Steep Pitch of Gibbon Pass and Into the Big Hole in an Auto

Remarkable Trip of a Missoula Car and Three Boys Who Stayed With It in as Difficult a Ride as Was Ever Undertaken in an Automobile Anywhere.

At 9 o’clock last night Arthur Thompson, Will Smith and Sam Dinsmore reached Missoula after having covered more than 400 miles in the big automobile that Mr. Smith drives. They had crossed mountains, forded streams, pulled through mud, driven over good roads and bad roads, slept in the open, gone through pleasant weather and the hardest kind of rain, and they came home without an accident to the car and without injury to themselves. It was the most remarkable trip that has ever been undertaken by a Missoula car and the fact that the young men brought back their car in good shape after a terrific endurance test is to their glory.

When the three left Missoula it was simply to take a run up the Bitter Root valley on a fishing trip. They went to Hamilton and didn’t find a good place to fish, so they kept going. The end of the first day found them 100 miles from home and when the people in Ross’ Hole asked them where they were going, Smith told them the party was on its way to Anaconda.

The query as to their destination had been repeated so frequently that before they had reached Hamilton they had fallen into the habit of saying that they were going to Anaconda. Nobody believed them, for no automobile had ever been over the steep trail that crosses the divide at Gibbon’s pass. At Hamilton they were told that it was impossible to get the machine over the pass.

That was enough for the boys. It was as good as a dare and they accepted it. At Hamilton they equipped themselves with block and tackle and started out for the upper end of the valley, where the steep pass starts over the range to the Big Hole basin. The run from Missoula to the head of the Bitter Root was made the first day.

That was more than 100 miles. The next day and the next day and the next they did not make 100 miles in any one day or in all three days. In those three days the boys and the big machine made just 18 miles and the days were long and busy.

From Ross’ Hole up the east fork to the foot of the pass is as pleasant a trip as anybody could wish for. But it was after the foot of the pass was reached that the trouble began. It looked like trying to ride up the side of a house to get over that pass with the machine. But there was pluck and determination and the boys were equal to the task. The block and tackle were taken out of the car and then the ascent of the long hill was begun.

It is five miles up that hill over the pass. They are long miles, as those can testify who have walked them. But they are as sliding down hill when walked, as compared with what they are when you are tugging a big 70-horsepower car up the steep grade. It was slow work and the ascent took all day.

Over the top of the hill, the troubles of the tourists were not ended; they had, in fact, only just begun. Down the road along Trail creek to the battle ground it was down hill all right, but the road had been badly washed and it was necessary to ford Trail creek 20 times. A rainstorm had preceded them and the roads were muddy; another rainstorm caught them and they had to sleep under their shelter tent one night in a downpour.

The crossings of Trail creek are bad for a mountain buckboard; they are doubly bad for a long, low, racing machine. The banks are steep; the ground is muddy, and there is a pitch in some places of three feet straight down. It was slow work and it took two days to get from the summit of the pass down the hill to the battle ground. The block and tackle had to be used all the way down, almost as regularly as they had on the way up. It was slow work, and the tourists were glad to see the old Frazer ranch at the battle ground.

There was a rest at the battle ground for recuperation and for the necessary overhauling of the machine and then the car was run across the Big Hole basin to Wisdom. This was comparatively a good run. Had it not been for the fact that the roads were muddy, it would have been all right, but the condition of the highways was not good and there was not much chance for speed.

From Wisdom it was back across the basin again to Fishtrap, where a night was spent, and from there a run over the low divide to Anaconda. The Copper city was hospitable to the visitors and they found plenty of friends there.

They had started from Missoula to be gone only a day and they had not supplied their treasury with enough money for a trip of a week or two. It was natural that they should find their purses empty when they wheeled into Anaconda. They took account of stock and they found that the joint capital of the party was 7 cents.

But they met Mon Mentrum and he was their good angel – though his a tough-looking specimen of an angel. He supplied them with funds and helped them in a score of ways. He was the fellow that they had been looking for all the way, and when they saw him they knew why they had gone to Anaconda.

The tourists spent a couple of days at Anaconda and then ran over to Butte for a day. Back to Anaconda, they remained another day to say goodby and then they ran down to Deer Lodge. There they spent a day with a friend, and yesterday morning at 10 o’clock they started for home.

They ran down to Garrison and then followed the railway and the river to Missoula. The last day’s run was over 95 miles of bad roads and there was no chance for speeding in the 11 hours of the run. The total mileage of the run was 402.

The above article appeared in the Missoulian on August 9, 1907.

 

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Family Search records show an Arthur B. Thompson of Missoula, born 1885, married Lavina Latimer in 1909. Lavina was a Missoula native. Arthur was the son of William Thompson.

Family Search records show that Sam B. Dinsmore of Missoula, born 1887, married Sadie Harris of Missoula in 1908. Sam was the son of William Dinsmore and a nephew of Sam and Charles Dinsmore of Missoula.