First Families of Montana Certificate


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History of Clinton, Montana

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.
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Before it was Wallace, Montana, it was called Baker's Station

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The oft-repeated history of Clinton, Montana claims it was established in 1883 as a stage stop and post office on the Mullan Road and was initially known as Betters’ Station, named after my great-great-grandfather, Austin Betters. The reality is that Col. J.C. Baker had established a stage station on the Mullan Road in the vicinity of present-day Clinton at least 13 years earlier. Not only that, but the stage stop that became known as Baker's Station was much closer to the Wallace Mining District and the eventual locations of the railway stations for the NPRR and Milwaukee Road than the Betters homestead was. Baker's Station, the Stage Station The earliest mention I have found of Baker's Station in any printed documentation was in the January 20, 1872 edition of The Pioneer , which referred to Col. Baker as "the proprietor of Baker's station on the Deer Lodge road," but it's likely he established his stage station a few years before that. In the 1870 Censu...
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One more clue about how and when the Betters came to Montana

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I have written previously about my attempts to nail down exactly when the Betters came to Montana and what route they took from Vermont.  In that post, I shared an article about Fannie (Betters) Nettle's 99th birthday, which stated that she came to Montana at age nine. If true, that would mean the Betters came to Montana sometime between May 3, 1879, and May 2, 1880, but I have since discovered that I should be skeptical of any facts sourced from an aged Fannie Nettle . Austin Betters' obituary in the October 9, 1921 edition of The Missoulian states that he came to Montana in 1881. Fannie told Don Omundson the same thing when he interviewed her in 1961. If it was 1881, Fannie would have been 10 or 11 when they took the train to Montana. A few months ago, I came across this notice  in the October 1, 1881 edition of The Butte Miner that included Austin Betters on a list of people with letters waiting for them in the Butte post office. This was a common practice in t...
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