Old Missoula

“When a lot of veterans came back to school with wives a big housing problem arose. The University immediately sent for government trailer houses and pre-fabs and set up a 56 house village at the bottom of Mount Sentinel near the ROTC shack and the vets and their wives moved in. About 525 more housing units are expected for next year.”

So said the U of M Sentinel Yearbook in 1946. The tiny trailer house village merited a small blurb in the Yearbook and included two pictures of the trailer colony butted up against the bottom of Mt. Sentinel. Little else was said in that edition regarding WW2 veterans and the impact they were going to have on the school.

The school administion saw it differently and began planning for an influx of veterans a year earlier. The school had been involved in military matters since early in the war when they were asked to vacate facilities for incoming soldiers. Student registration in 1946 doubled that of the previous year.

 A churlish article in the school newspaper, The Kaimin, described the trailer colony in March of 1946:

The article was prefaced with a picture of a married couple inspecting the kitchen of one of the trailers. The caption read, “Wedded Bliss – In a Trailer”

Trailers Providing Homes For GI Vets and Wives by Jack Kuenning (from Communique)

As surely as the robin appears as the first sign of spring, the first few trailer-house units indicated brighter day ahead to many a hopeful veteran couple.

The “GI-do” and, the “anchored sailor” and the married Marine had this in common – all were anxious to be with their little families from whom they had been separated by war, all had found housing conditions at the university far from adequate.

One-Room Homes

Of the 226 veteran couples, a fortunate few had located apartments or homes through the University Veteran’s Housing Office, but the average couple, confined to living in one room and eating out, had searched doggedly and vainly for a place to set up light housekeeping. Hubby had dashed across town between classes, but most often his lead was old before he got there. “Mrs. GI Joe,” if she had no babies to care for, had spent days looking for an apartment, then given up.

Where married couples gathered they discussed kitchen sinks, stoves, furniture and plumbing in the manner of gourmets dreaming of caviar and hoping for soup.

Trailers Welcome

They were goldfish without the bowl, and the goldfish were ready to settle for tin cups when a limited number of cups appeared. These arrived on the campus in the form of trailer houses obtained from the Army. That the units were painted a dull green didn’t seem to matter to the man who had just shed his olive drabs. Nor did they gripe because he would have to haul his water from outside in a bucket. His wife didn’t complain because she would have to share a community shower, in another trailer, with other wives; nor did she complain that there wasn’t shelf-space enough to stock a week’s supply of groceries. To them, the trailers were a sign of early spring.

Inside View

Each trailer had a daveno, which made into a bed, in each end, and were equipped with gasoline cooking stove, oil heating stove, sink, icebox, cupboard space, two small closets and two dressers.

First veterans’ family to kindle the home fires in the trailer colony was the Anthony A. Hannel’s. Hannel, an ex-GI of South Dakota majoring in forestry, had been living with his wife and four-year-old daughter in a Missoula tourist camp.

Two Army veterans of Klein[1], Gabriel Trouchon and Edward G. Thomas, followed in Hannel’s footsteps as number two and three citizens of the vet community.

The above article appeared in the March 1,1946 issue of The Montana Kaimin.

 Another Kaimin article described the closure of the Vet Tailer Colony in 1950:

Trailer Exit Marks End Of Vet Housing Program (9/27/1950)

One feature of the Montana State University campus that has been a landmark to some and a nightmare to others for the last three years is scheduled to exit from the scene sometime during the next 30 days. The veterans’ trailers at the southeast corner of the campus are now deserted and have been put up for bid. Bob Breen, Veterans Housing center director, announced yesterday.

Families formerly living in the trailer area have now moved into the housing center, Breen said. Bids on the trailers were opened in Helena yesterday. They will be hauled from the campus as soon as the names of the successful bidders are announced.

Changes In Center

Another change in the campus housing situation is scheduled to take place at the housing center itself. The name of the area has been changed to University Family Housing and effective Oct. 1, residents of the 366 units will no longer be required to be veterans, Breen said.

After the first of the month, the only requirements will be that the student is married and has his family with him and that he is enrolled in the University and carrying at least 12 credits. Breen said that the change is the result of a shortage of veterans.

Vacancies Now

At present, there are a few two and four room apartment vacancies in the units. At this time last year, there was a waiting list of 60. Two years ago the figure stood at 80.

With the departure of the trailers, the University Family housing area, Jumbo hall, and the prefabs will be the sole survivors of the post-war housing development which mushroomed on the campus through government aid. The prefabs are operated under the dormitory system. The University housing is operated under a separate program.

Prefabs, trailers, and striphouses first appeared on the campus during fall quarter of 1947.[2] They were furnished by the government and later turned over to the University which has since operated the units. As the trailers are University property, the bids were mailed to the Chancellor’s office in Helena and final disposition will be made there.

Sharp Drop

The June graduation of MSU’s largest veteran class brought a sharp drop in the number of students needing veterans’ housing. Within a year or so, the veterans will have become past history at MSU and the housing units will have become almost a completely non-veteran community, Breen said.

 The above article appeared in The Montana Kaimin on September 27, 1950.

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