Betters' Station

I visited the Lewis and Clark Library in Helena earlier this month. While there, I decided to see if they had anything in their collection that would be useful for my research. They did! The book, Tough, Willing, and Able by Lois Flansburg Haaglund "tells the story of the Flansburgs, a logging family in Clinton, Montana, whose combined courage sustains them through the hardships of the Great Depression and beyond." Not only did the library have this book in its collection, it was in circulation and it was on the shelf, so I checked it out. I'm pretty sure I had heard about this book before, but even when I had a copy of it in my hands at the Lewis & Clark Library, I didn't fully understand its potential relevance to my family history research. The Flansburg name was familiar to me, though, and since the book was about a logging family in Clinton, I figured it was worth a read, in case there was some useful information in it. I realized later why the Flansburg name...

I came across this August 17, 1964 photo of the then-newly-constructed interstate highway near Clinton at the Montana History Portal . I have been hoping to find construction photos of the interstate where it passes through the Betters homestead, but this is the closest I have come. This is west-northwest of Clinton, where the interstate crosses over the railroad. The view is looking west-northwest (towards Missoula). I have labeled notable landmarks. One thing I haven't yet delved into in my research is the McQuarrie siding. If you have driven past Clinton on the interstate, you may have seen sign(s) for it. I have included a photo I took in 2013 below. At first, I thought McQuarrie had been a station on the NPRR, but it's too close to Clinton for that to make any sense. Dan McQuarrie was heavily involved in logging, so my current theory is that the siding was where he loaded his logs onto railcars. Ironically, there is an old rock quarry in the vicinity. I don't know when...