Old Missoula

A Foolhardy Man

Loses His Life Attempting To Swim Across The Big Blackfoot.

His Identity Unknown – Supposed to be a Rancher from the Clearwater Country.

A report reached Missoula today that an unknown man was drowned in the Big Blackfoot river near the McNamara bridge. It is not known who the man was but he is supposed to be a rancher living on the Cottonwood above the Clearwater country. Mrs. McNamara says that the man rode up to their place on horseback and procured a drink there. He had been drinking as she could smell liquor upon his breath. He was a grey headed man, and she had seen him before but does not remember of ever having heard his name. He wanted to get across the stream, and said he would swim it on his horse. He was told that it was too dangerous an attempt to be made but he declared he had swum worse streams than that and rode into the water. He had reached midstream, when horse and rider were seized by the resistless current and rolled over and over and finally both disappeared from view.

A telephone message to Bonner brought back the reply no one had heard anything about a drowning there, but the information which reached Missoula can be depended upon as correct. It looks unreasonable that a person should attempt to cross the Big Blackfoot by swimming, a stream that in its lowest stage is very rapid and now, higher than it has ever been known before by old timers, it is as swift as a mill race. Since the bridge has been washed away it is crossed by boat, and one takes his life in his hand when he steps into the frail shell though it be under the control of the most skillful boatman.

The above article appeared in the Daily Missoulian on May 18, 1897.

 

Another article found in the Daily Missoulian on August 1, 1903 stated that Mr. and Mrs. McNamara were having domestic difficulties:

Deputy Sheriff John Gannon went up the Blackfoot last night to arrest Mike McNamara on a charge of disturbance and drunkenness. McNamara is accused by his wife of having run amuck again, chasing her from the house and terrorizing the neighborhood. . .

 

Mrs. McNamara has left town for New York in order to pay a visit to Mrs. Meagher, widow of General Thomas Francis Meagher. Mrs. McNamara came to Montana with Mrs. Meagher about thirty-five years ago, when the general was acting governor of the Territory.

 

[Quite a strange coincidence above. While the second mention of a Mrs. McNamara above appeared in the same newspaper edition, on the same date, nearly together, the second Mrs. McNamara mentioned here was not the same one as Mike McNamara’ wife. The second Mrs. McNamara, who was a friend of General Thomas Francis Meagher, was the wife of another Missoula pioneer Thomas J. McNamara, who died in Missoula in 1903.Thomas J. McNamara married Anna Cunningham in Virginia City, Montana, in 1867. Miss Cunningham came to Virginia City, Mt. as a companion of the Meaghers.]

https://www.newspapers.com/image/348670865

 

An article in the Daily Missoulian in 1907 found that Mike McNamara was also in the farming business:

M. McNamara came down the Blackfoot from the landing yesterday and spent last night in town. “Connemarea” is not much of a farmer as a rule, but this year he combined his spare ground and his spare time and produced a crop of oats that is the talk of the Blackfoot country. Frank Nelson came down from Camas to thresh the crop and it kept his big outfit on the jump to get the straw out of the way. He bucked straw all over the place and then he hadn’t room for it all. He had to turn some of it into the river and there was so much of it that went into the stream that it blocked the riffles and tied up a lot of the logs that were going down to the Bonner mills. When he was asked about his crop last night, Mr. McNamara said that it wasn’t much. “I had a little time and there was the ground back of the house that wasn’t doing anything, so I thought I’d raise some oats. That’s all there was to it; I had a good crop, but if I had tried hard I could have shown them something to talk about. If things are all right next summer I’ll have some oats that will be oats and then they will have something to tell their folks about; the yield this year was only play; wait till I go after it right and then they will know what a crop of oats is; they don’t understand real farming up that way; when they see what I will do next year they will sit up and take notice and you can tell them that.”

 

 

Another article in the Daily Missoulian in 1938 stated that a CCC crew was staying at the historic McNamara’s Landing:

Work Starts on Telephone Line Monday by CCC

McNamara’s Landing Camp for Crew, Eight Miles Tough Going.

Digging of holes for telephone poles for the Bonner-Seeley Lake telephone line is to be started Monday near Bonner. The first eight miles of line present difficult work in rocky soil. The line is to extend over the new highway bridge and will extend from McNamara’s landing into the Potomac valley.

The CCC workers, most of them from New York city, are quartered at McNamara’s landing, where 50 years ago a popular roadhouse was established by Mike McNamara, an oldtime logging contractor. The hostelry originally was the McNamara home when the contractor was getting out logs for the Hammond mill, and later its use was extended to the public.

Mrs. McNamara [Belle], who for years conducted a country hotel there, lives in Missoula now with her daughter, Mrs. E. McEacheron.

The Forest Service has leased the place from Don Mitchell. The old buildings are being used as a clubhouse and mess hall and as quarters for the overhead forces directing the line work.

 

Mike McNamara died in Missoula in 1934:

 

Mike M’NaMara Is Called By Death

Resident of Montana for Nearly 50 Years, Dies At Daughter’s Home

Mike McNamara, aged 80 years, resident of Western Montana for nearly 50 years and of the Blackfoot valley for 45 years, died Monday afternoon at the home of a daughter, Mrs. Ernest McEacheron, 621 South Fourth street west.

A native of Ontario, Canada, where he was born June 12, 1854, Mr. McNamara came west to Missoula in 1886 and in 1889 he moved to the Blackfoot where he was engaged in logging for the Big Blackfoot Milling company for a number of years. Later he settled on a ranch at what has been known for years in the Blackfoot as McNamara’s landing, a landmark in the valley. He remained on the ranch until 1932 when he came to Missoula to make his home with his daughter.

Mr. McNamara is survived by several brothers and sisters in Canada, also by four daughters, Mrs. McEacheron, Missoula; Mrs. Chester Lien, Bonner, and Mrs. Helen T. Witter and Miss Bonnie McNamara, Seattle, and by three grandchildren, Jack, Janet and Bonnie Belle McEacheron of Missoula.

Mrs. Witter and Miss McNamara, the daughters in Seattle, recently returned there after a summer visit to Missoula. They will return here this morning by the Northwest Airways mail plane.

The body is at the Marsh & Powell chapel. No funeral arrangements have been made.

The above article appeared in the Daily Missoulian on July 24, 1934.

 

 

Without doubt Mrs. McNamara’s description of the river’s condition was rendered out of many years of observation. McNamara’s landing of today derives its name from these McNamaras. Big changes in the Big Blackfoot River came about when a railroad was built there early in the following century. If you have ever swam in this river in high water in May, you probably understand how the gentleman above could easily have lost his life. He was one of many that would suffer the same fate over the following 120 years, not always from carelessness or drinking, but from a failure to recognize that the river is a changeling, and that in high water it bears little resemblance to its usual demeanor.