AUGUST 2022 Ghost Towns and History of Montana Newsletter From the Madisonian, Aug. 28, 1880 Montana’s Ghost Town Loop– Glendale, Hecla, Lion City and Trapper City Welcome to part three of Montana’s Ghost Town Loop! This 70-mile loop tour in southwest Montana passes through scenic territory with plenty of camping options while visiting ghost towns and mining camps that helped establish the state. You will find it easy to social distance yourself from others and world events as you enjoy this loop. If you missed the last entry you can read it here. This time, we will head north on I-15 from our last stop at Farlin turning off at the small settlement of Melrose, Montana then heading west up Trapper Creek exploring the ghosts of Glendale, Hecla, Lion City and what is left of Trapper City. Glendale will be the first stop as you head up Trapper Creek. In 1875, a 40-ton smelter was built on Trapper Creek about five miles northeast (downstream) from the mines in and around Hecla, Lion City and Trapper City. The settlement of mill workCourtesy of https://northwestrving.com Remaining building in Glendale Accessed via: https://montananewspapers.org ers that grew up around it was named Glendale with a post office being opened the same year. Numerous smelter employees and their families
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 Courtesy of https://northwestrving.com soon made their home in Glendale, which was much tamer and civilized than the (mostly male) mining camps upstream. The population averaged around 2,000 souls for the nearly thirty years the smelter operated. Today you can view ruins of the smelter and several other remaining buildings. Continue up Trapper Creek to encounter the next three ghosts. The first mining camp to be established in the area was Trapper City, which established a post office in 1873. Quickly, the camp boasted a hotel, several saloons, a brothel, general store, butcher shop, livery stable and numerous cabins lined up and down Trapper Creek. The settlement reached a population of nearly 200, but was short lived, as mining operations began to move up onto nearby Lion Mountain. Also growing was the new camp of Lion City at the base of Lion Mountain and by 1878 almost everyone had abandoned Trapper City in favor of Lion City. Trapper City’s businesses followed the residents with Lion City soon boasting three saloons, Remains of a mill in Trapper City Courtesy of https://northwestrving.com Old stamp mill in Lion City two brothels, two hotels, several retail businesses, a school, mining buildings and numerous cabins. At its peak, Lion City had a population of five to six hundred people consisting mostly of miners and merchants. In 1881, the Hecla Mining Company reorganized their mining efforts in the area founding the town of Hecla a short distance above Lion City. The primary reason for the new town was to remove the miners from the saloons and brothels available in Lion City along with providing easier access to the mines. The town grew to an estimated 1,500 to 1,800 individuals and included boarding houses for the miners, a water works, fire protection, a church, a school for 200 students, company offices and other businesses typical of a small mining town. Many buildings remain in Lion City Courtesy of https://northwestrving.com
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 Unfortunately, the mining district was hard hit when the Sherman Silver Purchase Act was repealed in 1893. Though operations continued on a smaller scale over the years, the ore was dramatically played out by the turn of the century. The company’s major producing mine, the Cleopatra, shut down in 1895. All told, nearly $20 million was mined from the area mines over the years. When you go: Travel west from Melrose on Trapper Creek Road to the remains of Glendale which you will encounter at N45° 38.530 W112° 46.943 At the fork in the road in Glendale stay left along Trapper Creek on Trapper Creek Road for about 3.25 miles to the end of the maintained forest service road at N 45° 38.993 W112° 50.663 There are several nice boondocking campsites along the creek at this point if you want to drive your RV this far. From this point to the mining camps (5-6 miles) the road is unmaintained with four wheel drive or ATV travel recommended. Note: Glendale is located on private property and you are requested to please view the remains of Glendale from the public road. The three mining camps farther upstream are on public property which you can freely explore while keeping safety in mind. You will find "downtown" Lion City at: N45°36.215 W112°55.473, the scant remains of Trapper City at: N45°35.963 W112°54.966 and Hecla at: N45°36.205 W112°55.798 Camping: Those looking for full hookups or a place to dump and take on water before heading to a dry camp site will want to visit the Sportsman Motel and RV Park located at the north end of Melrose on Hwy 91. Those wanting a less formal campground with easy access and minimal amenities will want to spend their nights at Salmon Fly Fishing Access Site on Trapper Creek Road. Not only does it make a great base camp, as all the sites you will be exploring are up Trapper Creek Road, but it is located on the beautiful Big Hole River offering world class fishing opportunities. Fees are $18/night or $12/night with a Montana fishing license. Those that like to social distance themselves camping in the boonies with the wildlife will want to head west about 3.5 miles up Trapper Creek Road (well graded gravel) taking a side road crossing onto BLM land at N45° 38.169 W112° 44.904. The author camped at this location and was treated to an evening showing of moose, deer and antelope coming out to feed in the farmers alfalfa field to the south of camp each night. Alternately there are the locations noted above at the end of the maintained portion of Trapper Creek Road. In the next and final installment we will explore the Canyon Creek charcoal kilns that produced the much needed charcoal to operate the Glendale smelter and the mines of Vipond Park high above the kilns then Courtesy of https://northwestrving.com completing up our loop at Quartz Hill. By Dave Helgeson for https://northwestrving.com/ Dave Helgeson is the MHRV Show Director. He and his wife love to travel across the west in their RV. Dave writes about all things RVing but loves to share destinations and boondocking advice. Hecla ghosts
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 African Americans in Montana Several instances of the presence of African Americans in the territory before the major gold rushes are known. William Clark’s slave, York, traveled with the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805–1806, Henry “Negro Henry” Mills worked for the American Fur Company in Fort Benton from the late 1850s, James Beckwourth was a well-known trapper of the 1820s and 1830s whose life has been the subject of some interest, and Isaiah Dorman served as a Sioux interpreter for the army who fell with Custer at Little Bighorn. Blacks also often worked on the steamboats that traveled widely up and down the Missouri River and docked at Fort Benton. With Emancipation in 1865, African Americans realized new opportunities and joined the westward migrations. While small in numbers, these pioneers contributed significantly to their communities. In 1870, the federal census counted 183 black people in Montana. The number doubled in 1880, reached 1,490 in 1890, and peaked in 1910 at 1,834. Western blacks, many of whom carried the burden of slavery, tended to settle in Montana’s larger urban areas and founded communities within a sometimes hostile and discriminatory larger society. Against the backdrop of the Civil War, blacks often found themselves caught in the bitter struggle between Democrats and Republicans who in theory supported African American equality, but did so in varying degrees. School segregation, black suffrage (achieved in 1867), and anti-miscegenation laws were controversial racial issues in Montana’s early territorial period. Finding consolation and community together, black citizens often established their own churches, benevolent societies, newspapers, and social clubs. James Beckwourth. Photo courtesy Nevada Historical Society The Montana Federation of Negro Women's Clubs meets in Butte, August 3, 1921. Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 96-25.2 Despite the proportionately small numbers, the 1870 census shows that blacks on the Montana frontier engaged in diverse occupations and mostly concentrated in towns, especially Fort Benton and Helena. More than half of males listed their occupation as laborers, domestics, servants, or cooks, and twenty-seven percent represented themselves as barbers. A smaller percentage proffered their occupation as ranch hands, cowboys, and miners, with one listed as a saloon keeper. A decade later in 1880, blacks still clustered in the larger communities of Helena and Butte where mining activities necessarily attracted service providers and laborers. Fort Benton’s
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 African American population jumped from twenty in 1870 to fifty in 1880 because of the steamboat travel that brought in population from diverse places and because of the employment opportunities steamboats offered. Canyon Hotel waiters, Yellowstone National Park, 1901. Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, H-4873. African Americans who came to Montana in the nineteenth century include William Taylor, a teamster, Samuel Lewis, a highly successful Bozeman barber, John Gordon, a trained chef, and James Crump who worked as a miner. African American women also came to Montana with the first settlers and some assumed non-traditional roles. For example, sisters Parthenia Sneed and Minerva Coggswell ran a Virginia City restaurant, Sarah Bickford eventually owned the Virginia City Water Company, Mary Gordon owned a restaurant in White Sulphur Springs, and Mary Fields drove the stage and held the mail route between Cascade and St. Peter’s Mission. In an interview in 1979 for the Helena Independent Record, Norman Howard, grandson of James Crump, reflected on what it was like to be black in Montana. He believed that discrimination was tougher for blacks than for Indians. While Montana never posted signs for “Whites Only” as in the South, the same rules applied and most blacks found menial employment as waiters, janitors, and hotel workers. Blacks were excluded from restaurants, bars, and barber shops. By virtue of such exclusion, tightly knit black communities formed; however, as the civil rights movement brought changes for the better, these communities slowly disappeared. Maintaining a strong black community also proved difficult as the lack of job opportunities in the state drew second and third generation blacks elsewhere. Mary Fields. Photo courtesy Ursuline Convent Archives, Toledo, Ohio. Although Montana has made small gains in the last decade, 2012 statistics show this ethnic group makes up only 0.6% of the state’s population compared to 13.1% nationally. -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 DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO WOULD ENJOY THIS NEWSLETTER?? The digital version is FREE to all and we love to share! Just have them send us an email at ghosttownsofmontana@gmail.com with NEWSLETTER in the subject line to be added to the mailing list. Thank you!
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 Bound for Butte...On the Titanic Nineteen-year-old Frederick William Pengelly, a miner from Devonshire and Cornwall, was bound for Butte to begin work in the mines there when he died in the Titanic disaster April 15, 1912. A coal strike had reduced the number of steamers crossing the North Atlantic; Frederick planned on taking a different ship but ended up on the Titanic. At least four Pengellys lived in Centerville in 1912, including likely brothers William, a barber, and John, a miner, who lived at 175 East Center Street, but whether they were related to Frederick, I do not know. He may have been coming to America to connect with his widowed mother’s new husband, Mr. G. Reynolds, a miner. William Gilbert was on holiday in late winter 1912, back home in Pollardras, near Carleen, Cornwall, from his carpentry job in Butte. He delayed his return trip so that he could take the Titanic, but was among those lost. He was 47. William Gilbert and his father Thomas came to Butte about 1908; Thomas’s wife stayed in Cornwall and managed a grocery store. William and his father were both carpenters; William specialized as a joiner, a carpenter who tooled wood to fit pieces together without nails or screws. Both lived in a two-story brick boarding house at 1021 East Park, between St. Lawrence and Parrot Streets—both streets long gone into the southern edge of the Berkeley Pit. Their home stood just two blocks below the Pennsylvania Mine where Thomas worked. In 1911 before his ill-fated holiday, William worked at the Mountain View Mine further up the hill. William’s sister Mary came to Butte sometime around 1908-10, and according to family history was the proprietor of the boarding house at 1021 East Park. She was famous for her Cornish pasties. Frederick Pengelly and William Gilbert both boarded the Titanic at Southampton, and both held second class tickets costing £10 10s—ten pounds, ten shillings, equating to something like $50 in dollars of the day. The Gilberts’ carpentry skills probably earned them about $3.00 to $3.50 per day (carpenters’ pay was close to that of miners), so the one-way fare amounted to more than two weeks’ pay. One might conclude that William Gilbert was frugal with his money, to save a month’s wages for a round-trip excursion to Cornwall and back to Butte. –Richard I. Gibson Photo by F.G.O. Stuart (public domain; copyright expired). 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 John and Nan Marty Homestead Photo by Shawn Shawhan This is Part 3, and the final part, of the John & Nan Marty homestead story as being told by Joan, their daughter. For my final group of photographs I will include some color versions of those I previously posted in sepia tone. I know some viewers prefer color over monochrome. Also with my own photographs I’m including 3 images of John & Nan that I copied from the book where I found their story. Here is Joan’s continuing story about life on the Marty homestead: The rear of a bunkhouse and the main house. “The terribly black dust storms of the 1930s and the annual hailstorms made a lasting impression on me as a child. As I look back, it seemed the weather completely controlled our lives. If it rained the crops grew, but you couldn't travel until the roads dried. If it hailed you lost your year's work, and the winter drifts kept us isolated as long as six weeks at a time.” Photo by Shawn Shawhan The 2-room bunkhouse and a doghouse. Photo by Shawn Shawhan “It was a hard, harsh life, but I know my parents, especially my father, felt a great sense of accomplishment in the ranch he had built, one stick at a time. Coming from a fairly genteel life as a parlor maid in London, I admire my mother for being the best helpmate my dad could have found. What an adjustment that had to be! I think she lived out some of her hopes for a ‘better life’ through me, as she urged me to practice the piano and get an education.” Inside the main house where the kitchen was located. Photo by Shawn Shawhan The Winnett Times of September 24, 1946, paid fine tribute to the Martys: Looking out the rear of the garage with the workshop ahead on the right and the chicken coop in the distance. “One of the outstanding successful farmers of the North county is John Marty residing about 18 miles north of Winnett. Mr. Marty homesteaded his present location in 1913, coming here from Iowa. His farm is located on the edge of the Missouri Breaks, which gives him timber for building as well as shelter. With the exception of his granary, all the buildings, including the comfortable Marty home, are built of logs which were hewed on his own land
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 by Mr, Marty.” “Due to the fact that Mr. Marty has a warm, wellventilated hog house, he has been successful in raising winter hogs which brought him fancy prices when placed on an early market. He recommends the building of good hog houses and raising winter hogs.” “Two pastures fenced with woven wire and seeded with winter rye supply the bulk of his hog feed, although corn and skim milk is also fed. He markets about one hundred hogs annually.” "Mr. Marty is far from being dependent upon grain crops; along with his hogs he also has a fine herd of Guernsey-Jersey dairy cows and receives large cream checks monthly.” “Advantage of his timber land for shelter and pasture is obtained by ownership of a fine herd of white-face beef stock which add to the financial returns of the ranch each year.” “Mrs. Marty successfully handles a large flock of turkeys and chickens and is very well satisfied with the checks she receives for eggs and fowl.” "A sixty-foot well supplies a large volume of pure water which is elevated to a storage tank by a windmill. From the elevated tank, the water is piped to the house, garden, and hog house. The hogs are watered by turning a valve. The garden is irrigated likewise. Mr. Marty has endeavored to copy the conveniences and systems of the Iowa farmers where he was reared; his ranch is not only a place to live and prosper, but it is an ideal home as well.” "One of the things that first attracts a stranger as he approaches the premises is the bird houses built and erected on posts by Mr. Marty. One large and prettily painted one has sixteen rooms. In the nesting season all the rooms are occupied. Mr. Marty is enthusiastic about the number of insects and bugs the birds destroy each year. They keep his garden free from these pests.” - Courtesy of Shawn Shawhan, Check out more of his beautiful photos at: https://abyssart.smugmug.com/?fbclid=IwAR0g5qKKbL9fGEjGeQOfnoe7G6IIxGIYn298nyBvXDiHu36eR34AqgCzA4
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