Betters' Station

One of the many things I was curious about was what the Hellgate Canyon was like when the Betters moved there around 1880. I got my first glimpse by reading Miners and Travelers' Guide to Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado , by John Mullan (and digitized by Google). John Mullan, in case you don't know, is the man who built the military road from Fort Benton to Fort Walla Walla that became known as the Mullan Road. The road, which was never used by the military, was the first wagon road to cross the Rocky Mountains to the Inland of the Pacific Northwest. Mullan's book was published in 1865, and based on his experiences as he built the road from 1859 to 1860. I figured that 20 years difference wasn't too bad... ...until I found Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage by Carrie Adell Strahorn (and digitized by Google). One of the chapters in Strahorn's book tells of a stagecoach trip from Helena to Missoula that took place in the late 1870s. I have e...

In a previous post , I stated that a post office had existed in Clinton prior to 1892, it had simply changed its name. That may not be correct. In flipping through Roberta Carkeek Cheney's book, Names on the Face of Montana , I discovered that she also had an entry for Wallace, which says: Wallace (Missoula) was granted a post office in 1892 [ sic ] with Elias Bryan as postmaster. Postal records say the name was changed to Clinton in 1892 but actually, the postal business for this area was merely transferred to Clinton, which is nearby. Based on information contained in Montana Post Offices and Postmasters  by Dennis J. Lutz, and on the usps.gov website, I believe Cheney meant for that first date to be 1883. I don't know what Cheney's source is for the fact that the change from Wallace to Clinton in 1892 was more than a name change, but it makes sense. The town of Wallace was established by 1883 in Wallace Gulch (area circled in red), close to the mines, while Clinton ...

This past week, my parents sent me a photo of Aunt Fannie's family from October 1959. Pictured in this photo are (from left to right): Ernest Terry (Fannie's son, one-time owner of the general store in Clinton and co-operator of the Hobo Mine), Margaret Pickering Whitney (Fannie's granddaughter and Martha Terry Pickering Swartz's daughter) Fannie Betters Terry (Austin and Jane Betters' daughter), Ben Whitney (Margaret's husband), Martha Terry Pickering Swartz (Fannie's daughter), Edna Pickering (Fannie's granddaughter and Martha's daughter), Mable Terry (Fannie's daughter, and longtime Clinton postmaster), and Earl Swartz (Martha's husband). I'm not sure where this photo was taken. I'm assuming it was inside Fannie's house. 11/23/2013 Update: Guy Howlett confirmed that this photo was taken in the living/dining area of Fannie's house.

Yesterday I did some old-fashioned research at the Bozeman Public Library. I flipped through some books that are not available in digital form online. One of those books was Names on the Face of Montana  by Roberta Carkeek Cheney, which the Montana Historical Society had pointed to as one of the sources for the fact that Clinton was once known as Betters' Station . Indeed, both the 1971 and 1984 versions of the book state essentially the same facts that appear in Montana Office of Tourism publications and the Montana Historical Society's  Montana Place Names book: CLINTON (Missoula) is an old mining and lumber town. Ore deposits were discovered in 1889 and the Charcoal Mine yielded thousands of dollars worth of lead and silver. The name Clinton was chosen that year in honor of Henry Clinton. Originally the place had been known as Betters' Station. It was started as a stage station on the Mullan Road in 1883 and named for Austin Betters, a homesteader. The Northern Pacific...

One of the most comprehensive histories of the Clinton area that I have found online is actually from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. They have a historical narrative about the Clinton/Wallace mining district . 2023 Update: The original link was broken and I couldn't find the content on the current DEQ website, so the link now goes to an archive of the page.

I wasn't going to post for a third time in one day, but I decided to try to figure out why "Betters Station (historical)" was appearing on all of these online maps. I found out why pretty quickly. It's an entry in the USGS Geographic Names Information System . Here are some of the facts provided in that entry: Description: Stage stop Coordinates: 46.7665939 (lat.), -113.7092628 (long.) - approximate Entry Date: 09-Feb-1998 Citation: Lutz, Dennis J. and William Ashton. Montana Place Names. (More information to be added when the book is published. - 9606). Variant Name: Baker's Station It looks like I have something new to search for (Baker's Station) and a couple of unpublished authors to find.

If you are interested in the history of the Hellgate Canyon, you will want to check out Two Rivers History . This website, and the physical Bonner Milltown History Center in the Bonner Post Office Building, are "devoted to exploring the rich history found at the confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers and neighboring communities of Bonner, Milltown, Piltzville, Pine Grove, and West Riverside." Although Clinton is not included in that list, the fact that it is a mere 13 miles away, and sits on the same river and railways, means that it shares a similar history, and I think a lot can be learned about what was going on in Clinton at any given time by examining what was going on in Bonner-Milltown. In particular, you will want to read about The Great Flood of 1908 , the Northern Pacific Railroad , and the Milwaukee Railroad . Two Rivers History was instrumental in a breakthrough in my research of the Betters. I had seen a  September 23, 2012 article in the  The Miss...

Do you ever receive a response to an email you sent so long ago that you forgot that you sent it? Earlier this week I had that experience, when the Montana Historical Society Research Center responded to the email inquiry I sent to them back in March.  In the book,  Montana Place Names, published by the Montana Historical Society, it says "When it was established in 1883 as a stage stop and post office on the Mullan Road, Clinton was known as Betters' Station, after settler Austin Betters." In all of my research, I have yet to come across any mention of Betters' Station, or find any existence of a stage station run by the Betters in old Montana maps, history books, and land records. So I emailed MHS to see if they could provide me with the original source of their information. Here is their response: As far as I can determine, the info came from two sources---1) similar information is in "Names on the Face of Montana," by Roberta Cheney, 1984.  2) ...

I love digitization! So, even though I moved to Montana in 2008 and the facts I have learned about the Betters line have grown exponentially since then, the irony is that most of that additional information has been learned through the internet, so it's research I could have done anywhere. One thing I'd been meaning to do, the next time I had some spare time in Missoula, was to just flip through microfilm of old newspapers, to see if I could come across something that I was not able to find through the available indexes. Well, last night, on a whim, I decided to see if the early Missoula papers had been digitized yet. They had! Not only that, but they appear to be searchable as well. I found the clipping to the left at Chronicling America . Several early newspapers have been digitized, and are available for free on the Chronicling America website. Chronicling America "is a Website providing access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspape...

The old mining and lumber town of Clinton, Montana was originally known as Betters' Station. According to the Montana Office of Tourism website at the time of this post, "It was started as a stage station on the Mullan Road in 1883 and named for Austin Betters, a homesteader." Austin Betters was my great-great-grandfather. Since moving to Montana in 2008, I have taken the opportunity to more deeply research this branch of my family tree. Up to this point, most of my findings have been cataloged on ancestry.com or in my own private files, but genealogy is something that is best done when everyone shares openly, and I have become increasingly displeased with Ancestry's paywalls and content restrictions. I understand that they are a business that has to make money, and digitizing and storing all of that information is not cheap, but millions of individuals have shared content with Ancestry without being compensated, and now Ancestry is monetizing that. Anyway, I hop...