Our Town 100 Years Ago: October 1921, Part 1

October 1921, Part 1

The Jefferson Valley was a busy place in 1895. The Sunlight Mine, Lime Spur, the Parrott Smelter project, and a large sawmill in Perry Canyon were just a few business endeavors bringing in people and money to our young and growing community. The following is taken as written from October 4 and 10 editions of the Whitehall Zephyr. The photo is an ad that appeared in those editions.

Homestake Trestle Burned. The Northern Pacific met with another severe loss yesterday morning, says the Inter Mountain, of Monday last, in the burning of trestle No. 81 near Homestake. The trestle was over 400 feet in length, and was one of the best constructed, independent truss bridges on the whole system, and will cost $25,000 to reconstruct. The fire had apparently started at the bottom of the trestle, but whether caused by an incendiary or by sparks from a locomotive, is not known.

What's In a Name? It is generally conceded among the uninformed that the name of "Bloody Dick" creek, situated at the head of Horse prairie, Beaverhead county, mid-way between Bannack, Montana, and Salmon city, Idaho, derived its blood curdling name from some crimson dyed escapade of bygone days. However, in that they are at error, as our old time friend Bob McConnell, who was a pioneer of Bannack and Alder gulch, and who prospected these gulches when the surrounding mountains were just sprouting from the ground, informed us, the name "Bloody Dick" originated from the familiar vocabulary of a certain Son of St. George, who was an early settler on that remarkable stream and who "blasted" the "bloody" country, the bloody Indians, coyotes and the bloody creek in particular, as he harvested his rutabagas and prepared himself to become a good American citizen

Disastrous Fire. Monday last the grain stacks on the ranch of W. J. Elmer were discovered to be on fire, presumably set by children playing with matches. The neighbors rallied from adjacent ranches, part of them carrying water from the well to throw on, while others dug a trench from the irrigating ditch so as to run the water to the stacks. Despite their efforts, however, two stacks were destroyed, involving a loss of about 2,500 bushels of grain.

Zephyrettes: Last spring Jo Maurice killed three large brown bears, and W. M. Fergus bought the skins and sent them to St. Paul to have them made into rugs. They have returned finished, and now grace various rooms in his home. "Schneider" and lady are the only ones not pleased with them, and to them they are a source of torment.

"Is that a French count?"

"Naw! That's Billee Fergus, with his new beaver fur overcoat; ain't it a James Coxcomb!"

William must have made a killing this season, to sport such a garment as that. Ed Kenedy, the sober-visaged superintendent for the Perry Canyon Sawmill company, was in town this week, after a car-load of boiler flues for repairing the power plant. The 10-horse power prairie schooner, Jim Galusha, loaded to the scuppers with merchandise, and with six cases of glory hallelujah on the poop-deck, unfolded her snowy canvas Monday morning, and with bridled topsails and mizzen spanker aback, bore away for Sheridan.

A set pugilistic encounter between a couple of our local braves, down in the "tenderloin district," caused our usually quiet burg to rock with emotion, Friday evening. Miss Sophie Johnson, formerly of the Whitehall hotel dining room force, departed for Butte, Monday morning, leaving the throbs of bliss in many a manly breast, to ebb away on the cold, cold tide of joylessness.

Fishing tackle that will catch a rich widow, at the P. O. store. Barbed wire cartridges for hobo's, at Pillsbury's. You can smile twice for 2 bits, in Whitehall. Smith, the shoemaker, can save your sole. Don't carry a brick in your pocket to add weight, but go to Harry's Café and become plump, like a porpoise.

Twenty-six years later in 1921, Whitehall was still a busy, growing community with a now solid business district of brick structures. Our high school has a football team for the first time and the women of Whitehall are busy turning it from a wild frontier town wide spot in the road to a desirable 20th century hometown.

Our young men at Whitehall High School are making a great showing in their first year of the new sport of football, even though they lost to Butte Central 37 to 6. That six points, and the first touchdown ever, was made by Hugh Mosier. In their second game, WHS lost to Dillon 45 to 6. Our only touchdown that game was scored by Johnny Smith. Another first for the school is the publication of the first edition of the new school newspaper, the White Lite. It will be available on a monthly basis with all the latest school news worth printing. In other school news, teacher Mary Funk of the Messenger School on the Pipestone bench will be putting on a Halloween program later this month.

Valley agriculture is good or bad depending on who you talk to. William H. Tebay reported harvesting 400 sacks of spuds per acre while several other farmers said they only managed 200. Emma Jones has told us that her orchard of wealthy apples has produced 400 boxes and she is selling them for $1.75 to $2.00 per box. Mr. Mack of the Cardwell basin said his dry land farm had a good crop of "Late Rose" spuds. But, Mr. F. Irvine of Cardwell states that this is one of the worst crop years he has seen in the 16 years he has been here. Hanson Packing in Butte is paying $5.25 per hundred-weight for steers to area ranchers.

Two area gentlemen represented our valley very well at two fairs in late September. Bud Cowdrey of Bone Basin won the bucking contest at the Twin Bridges fair and Heber Donohoe won first place for his boar at the Midland Empire State Fair in Billings.

Our local Liberal Culture Club has accomplished another great project for the town. They now have two ground floor rooms secured at the Jackson Hotel on Main Street at a cost of $7.50 per month. One will be used as a community restroom for those visiting from local ranches and neighboring communities and the other will be a public reading room with a lady's restroom.

And that's the way it was, 100 plus years ago in Whitehall, Montana.