APRIL 2022 Ghost Towns and History of Montana Newsletter From the Searchlight, April 8, 1910 FIRST DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN MONTANA IN 1858 (An excerpt from the unpublished memoirs of the late Granville Stuart) In the spring of 1858 John Powell, Fred Burr, Thomas Adams, Rezan Anderson, James Stuart and myself camped on Flint Creek just above the forks and just below where the town of Hall now is, and built and Indian-proof corral, as we were much harassed by a war party of Blackfeet, who made nightly attempts to steal our horses. Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz The principal object of our visit to the Deer Lodge country was to kill and dry meat enough to last us to Fort Bridger and to do a little prospecting, rumors having reached us that a half-breed from the Red River of the North had found gold on Benetsee Creek. On May 2nd, 1858, James Stuart, Rezan Anderson, Thomas Adams and myself packed up what tools we had, which comprised of an old square-ended spade with the hand-hold broken out of the top of the handle, a blunt old States pick with an ill-fitting willow handle which Adams had found in his wagon when he bought it in Salt Lake, and a tin bread pan that we had brought with us from California, and we started for Benetsee Creek on a prospecting trip. Accessed via: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov We followed up the creek about five miles, carefully searching for any signs of prospecting having been done, but found nothing. We tried the gravel
P a g e 2 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r in the creek several times and at one place we got a color. Near the bank of the creek at the foot of the mountain, we sunk a hole about five feet deep and found ten cents in fine gold, to the pan of gravel. This convinced us that there were rich gold mines in that vicinity, but as we had no tools or provisions we could not do much prospecting. Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz It was almost sundown; we built a fire, cooked our supper, which consisted of nice speckled trout, which we roasted and then sprinkled with ashes in lieu of salt; and creek water. After supper we sat around the campfire discussing the situation until dark. We were entirely out of provisions and had been living on meat straight without salt for several months, so it was finally decided to stick to our original plan- kill and dry meat enough to last us to Fort Bridger and then buy supplies and return and prospect for mines. The Blackfeet Indians were very troublesome and horse-stealing parties lurked everywhere. We selected a dense patch of willows near the creek and when it had become quite dark extinguished the fire and quietly led our horses into the center of the willows. Here each one selected the softest spot that he could find, rolled up in his blanket and went to sleep, leaving one man, gun in hand, to watch over the horses and ourselves. The guard was relieved every two hours. This prospect hole dug by us was the first prospecting for gold done in Montana and this is the account of the first real discovery of gold within the state. Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz We killed and dried meat and went to Fort Bridger but failed to get the things necessary to mine with and we did not get back to Montana until 1860 and did not get our sluice boxes in operation on Gold Creek until May 7, 1862. Our letters to my brother, Thomas, who was in Colorado, were the means of starting a large party of prospectors from that country to Montana. -The Dillon Examiner, March 23, 1921, Accessed via www.montananewspapers.org
P a g e 3 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r Cornue Homestead Part 1 My second visit to Montana for photography was in February 2007. My cowgirl friend had told me that a lady rancher friend of hers (Lillian is the rancher’s name) had said we could photograph her boneyard where there were numerous old, dead vehicles and other assorted things. But that is a different story than the one I want to tell now. After leaving Lillian’s boneyard we drove by an abandoned homestead that is on property owned by the Bohn family. As such we referred to it as ‘the Bohn homestead’. Years later we learned that the original homesteader was named Harvey Cornue. We decided to return to the homestead later in the day for some photography when there would be better lighting. Also it was lunch time and we were thirsty and hungry. This will be a 2-Part story, with my photographs in Part 1 being from my first visit to the homestead in February 2007. I’ve been to there 4 or 5 times on my many visits to Montana and Wyoming. Here then is Part 1 of the Harvey Cornue homestead story: CORNUE, Harvey [Sec 18-l4—28] Harvey E. Cornue was born in Hebron, Illinois, on January 18, 1887. He had attended a business college, but due to a recession, there was no job for him in the area at that time. He was not needed on the home farm, so he came to Montana to take up a homestead. The property was locatPhoto by Shawn Shawhan ed about four miles north of the present-day Petrolia Reservoir. A one-room tar paper shack served as his home for a few years. To help eke out a living, he hauled freight from Lewistown to the Cat Creek oil field with a six- or eighthorse team or sometimes with mules. The trip would take two days, with one layover at the Winnett Ranch and one at the Ayers Ranch west of Grassrange. Martha Freed came from Ohio to homestead with her brother, Elden Freed. This homestead was about one mile north of the present Petrolia Dam. She was a schoolteacher. Martha and Harvey were married June 2, 1918, and lived in Harvey's homestead cabin. Harvey loved horses, raised Percherons and Belgians, and broke them to work. Each fall he would ship a train carload of horses to his brother’s farm at Hebron, Illinois, and they would have a big sale. All farming was done by horses at that time. When the horse market gave out due to the influx of tractors. Harvey raised more cattle and wheat. Each fall he and others shipped their cattle by train to be sold. Some of the owners always went along, living in part of the train car, to take care of the animals on the trip and to see that they were properly handled at the stockyards in Chicago. Photo by Shawn Shawhan Photo by Shawn Shawhan
P a g e 4 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r Later, Harvey worked at the Agriculture Adjustment Act office in Winnett. That office took care of records for President Roosevelt's farm programs which were designed to reduce surpluses. In 1936 Harvey was elected Petroleum County Commissioner, an office he held for 16 years. He was one of the commissioners who worked very hard to establish the county manager form of government. He was a member of the school board of District #121 for many years. Martha taught, after she was married, at the Circle Bar School and the Pilgrim School (sometimes known as the Jerue School). During World War II, when teachers were very scarce, she taught English at Winnett High School. She also taught at Upper Flatwillow for a time. She took her turn at being one of the teachers who gave, and also graded, the seventh and eighth grade state examinations. The Cornues built up a fine ranch from the homestead started in 1912, and they were highly respected in the community. Mrs. Cornue was a master at arranging community programs and parties. In 1954 the Cornues moved to Winnett. They bought the former Sullivan house from Otto and Myrtie Senst. Mr. Cornue passed away in July of 1969, and Mrs. Cornue and Kathryn bought a home in Lewistown. Mrs. Cornue passed away in December 1972. The Cornues were parents of four children. The first children (twin boys) died at birth and were buried in the Winnett Cemetery. Annabel was delivered by her aunt, Dr. Hazel Freed, at Grassrange, Montana, on April 13, 1924. She graduated from Winnett High School in 1942 and from Montana State College Photo by Shawn Shawhan at Bozeman. She worked as a medical technologist until she married Robert Durnford in 1948. She and Robert have two children — Joyce Durnford Rashid and James Durnford. Kathryn also was delivered at Grassrange by her aunt. Dr. Hazel Freed, on March 9, 1926. She attended country schools. When Cornues sold their ranch and moved into Winnett in 1954, Kathryn became a very capable and industrious helper at the Rimrock Dairy. In spite of some physical impairment, she washed bottles, wrestled cases of milk, drove the delivery station wagon door-to-door, and cheerfully delivered the milk. When the dairy went out of business, Kathryn worked for the school district. After moving to Lewistown, she married Fred Ferrell. But now lives alone there. Among the papers Mrs. Cornue left her family were the following memories with note attached: “I wonder whether anyone except my own girls (Kathryn and Annabel) and Lola and Ruth (nieces) will ever read this. I hope some of the next generation can weave a romance into it and write a book.” [To be continued…] -Courtesy of Shawn Shawhan, Check out more of his beautiful photos at: https://abyssart.smugmug.com/?fbclid=IwAR0g5qKKbL9fGEjGeQOfnoe7G6IIxGIYn298nyBvXDiHu36eR34AqgCzA4 Photo by Shawn Shawhan
P a g e 5 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r RED MOUNTAIN CITY- RIVAL CAMP Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz Old Cabin in the Highland Mining District Butte once had a populous and promising rival camp which was the scene of many rich placer “strikes” and great activity. It was in the late sixties that a few roving prospectors made a “strike” on Silver Bow creek and up towards the old Butte townsite, in the neighborhood of the present gas plant. The stampede which followed resulted in the building of cabins, sawmills, blacksmith shops, stores, saloons, dance halls, and all the requisites of a thriving little town, which they named Red Mountain City. At the first Silver Bow county election, there were a thousand voters at Red Mountain City—a sizeable settlement. At one time, after that outside capital had been interested, wild-cat ideas were promoted in a somewhat “ shady” manner, and the town assumed an apparent air of stability and future, for extensive operations were started on one or two of the properties. However, the bubble burst, and the placers being worked out, the town began to dwindle. Somewhere, on the old townsite of Red Mountain City lies buried a large fortune. It was the property of a man known as Beastly Butler. He was so called because of his extreme carelessness in dress and of his person. This was all the more noted and criticized because of the fact that he was a man of unusual mind and education. He worked diligently upon a placer claim and made a lot of money, which he put into tin cans and buried somewhere near his cabins, it was supposed. One day he was killed by a fall of earth on his claim. His fellow citizens searched in vain for the cache, but the gold was never found. This is another of the many secrets which lie buried with those Montana mining camps which used to be but are now no more. -The Choteau Acantha Newspaper, October 1, 1942, Accessed via: www.montananewspapers.org THE FIRST HOUSE IN BUTTE It’s fairly common knowledge that the first home built in Butte was located on what is now East Quartz Street. For me, at least, that was all I knew. But the special edition of The Butte Bystander newspaper for April 15, 1897, recounts stories of “old timers” and Butte history that is lost, including this sketch of that first house.
P a g e 6 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r Prospectors the Porter brothers, Dennis Leary and George W. Newkirk built the house and outbuildings in 1866. Their living quarters was the taller building at left, beyond the corral. Behind the house (to the right) stood their blacksmith shop; next to the right was a horse stable. They kept milk cows in the shed at right front. The view here looks west, so Quartz Street would be along the left side of the image. The men established the Parrot claims with Joseph Ramsdell and built a small smelter (likely Butte’s first) on the lower reaches of Town Gulch (Dublin Gulch) not far from this house. They could not make the fire hot enough to get molten metal to flow, so the smelter failed. They tried again on Parrot Gulch, right below the mine, employing a windmill fan to create a draft in a crude blast furnace, using an 8-horsepower threshing machine as the driving source for the fan. That one failed as well. The Parrot and Ramsdell Parrot Mines would go on to become important excavations, both more than 1,000 feet deep, and other smelters would succeed. The partners sold the buildings in 1869, to become the core of the Girton House, an early hotel. This makes it easy to determine the precise location for this first house in Butte: East Quartz, between Main and Wyoming, on the north side of the street, just east of the alley that runs north to Copper Street. A parking lot today. In 1884, the Girton House (#17 in Bird's-Eye view at left, and including the two-story building above the word "Quartz") was just west of one of the early Miner’s Union Halls, which stood on the northwest corner of Quartz and Wyoming. The building survived in 1891, as the Cotter House, successor to the Girton, but by 1897 the space was covered by waste rock from the Gold Hill mine, whose shaft stood just to the north, below the intersection of Pennsylvania and Copper Streets. There has not been a building on this spot since before 1897. –Richard Gibson Sources: Butte Bystander, April 15, 1897, The Story of Butte; Sanborn maps. Richard Gibson is a geologist. His career has ranged from analyzing kidney stones to 35 years in oil exploration. Butte's history, architecture, and people captured his interest like he thought nothing could, and have expanded his life significantly. He’s still passionate about geology, but now he’s passionate about Butte, too. His book "What Things Are Made Of" came out in March 2011; his writing blog focuses on it. The Butte History blog contains interesting stories discovered in Butte, Montana, which are documented in "Lost Butte, Montana," from The History Press. Check out more great stories from Richard by visiting his sites: http://buttehistory.blogspot.com/ http://butte-anacondanhld.blogspot.com/ https://www.verdigrisproject.org/butte-americas-story
P a g e 7 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r Aldridge, Montana Coal veins discovered in 1892 in Park County fueled the life of Aldridge, a mining town about seven miles northwest of present day Gardiner. Mostly Austrian immigrants, and a fair share of Italians, populated what briefly became one of the greatest coal producers in the country. By 1895, the mine’s main entry had been driven 1,800 feet into the mountain. By 1897, the mines produced between three and five hundred tons of coal daily for transport to the coke ovens eight thousand feet away. When the Miners’ Union organized that year on April 19, Montana Coal and Coke Company officials shut down the mines and coking plant, refusing to employ union men. But the workmen voted to stay with the union, and after several months, the company finally accepted a union contract. Aldridge became a strong union town with a union store and a hospital with three staff doctors. The two most important holidays it celebrated were Union Day on April 19 and Labor Day. There were so many in Aldridge who could not speak English that the workmen were glad to have the union as their leader and spokesperson. The fortunes of the union thus became the fortunes of the camp. Progress came to Aldridge, but helped spell its demise. Mules delivering the coal to the coke ovens were replaced by a flumed water system and later by an expensive electric tramway. Shortened shifts, shrinking work weeks, and inevitable strikes beleaguered the town. Finally in 1910, the Montana Coal and Coke Company defaulted on bonds issued to pay for the tramway. Despite its rich veins, the mines closed and residents deserted Aldridge as quickly as they had come. –Ellen Baumler Ellen Baumler is an award-winning author and Montana historian. A master at linking history with modern-day supernatural events, Ellen's true stories have delighted audiences across the state. She lives in Helena in a century-old house with her husband, Mark, and its resident spirits. To view and purchase Ellen’s books, visit: http://ellenbaumler.blogspot.com/p/my-books.html “The Miners' union at Aldridge will celebrate Union day with the usual festivities, Tuesday, June 13. A picnic is the diversion advertised for the day and purses aggregating $150 will be given to the competitors in the sports and games. Foot races, horse races, jumping, pitching quoits and a tug of war will be in evidence and the day's amusement will be ended by a grand ball in the evening at Welcome's hall. Mentioned on the programme are Alex Stuart and William Ralph, who have charge of the entertainment part of the affair: Mike Obrion. Charles Dixon and Thomas Somerville, who will look after the dance: Joseph Bailey, William Williams. Elmer Hancock. Joseph Guelde, William Thomas and Timothy Obrion, who will see to the refreshments. It will be a great day for Aldridge and for union labor and the fraternity of the toiler will be cemented more closely by the anniversary entertainment.” -The Anaconda Standard, May 24, 1899, Accessed via: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ Aldridge in 1902. Photo courtesy Montana Guide Service
P a g e 8 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r ROUGH AND TUMBLE LIVING- Combine 17 saloons with a brewery. Sprinkle in a fair share of gold fever and you have the ingredients for a wild town. A group of partying miners called the “Beartown Roughs” kicked up their heels on the weekends after a hard week muscling rocks on their claims. In contrast to Garnet where family living was common in the late 1890s, this early mining community fit the classic image of the Wild West. Miner Henry Bose never saw anyone “serious hurt,” but other accounts recall shootings and murder in Beartown. Jimmy Ryan, a fiery Irish saloonkeeper, shot at a miner for insulting his singing, but missed and killed the miner’s partner. -Courtesy of Garnet Ghost Town Interpretive Sign Photo Courtesy of www.mtmemory.org Become a member today and help us preserve history! VISIT: https://www.mgtps.org/membership Join me in my quest to help this much needed and appreciated organization. As a member you’ll receive our quarterly newsletter of which I have become the editor. Thank you! Founded in 1970, the Montana Ghost Town Preservation Society is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public to the benefits of preserving the historic buildings, sites, and artifacts that make up the living history of Montana. My/Donor Information: SUBSCRIBE TO THE GHOST TOWNS AND HISTORY OF MONTANA NEWSLETTER! Renewal? Y/N Send a Gift to: NAME____________________________________ NAME___________________________________ ADDRESS__________________________________ ADDRESS_________________________________ CITY______________________________________ CITY_____________________________________ STATE__________________ZIP________________STATE_________________ ZIP________________ Yearly subscriptions are $19.95 (published monthly). Please make checks payable to Ghost Towns & History of MT, LLC and send with this clipping to P.O. Box 932 Anaconda, MT 59711
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