Betters' Station

My Facebook feed presented me with some sad and unexpected news this morning: Guy Howlett passed away this past Thursday. He was 58. I was introduced to Guy by Willie Bateman (from Bonner) in April 2013. Willie was featured in a article in the The Missoulian about traveling by stagecoach through the Hellgate Canyon. I tracked him down to ask him what he knew about Betters' Station. He referred me to Guy, and what a referral it was! Guy not only seemed to be the unofficial resident historian for the Clinton area, he had lived next door to my second-great-aunt Fannie and her son, Ernest ("Ern") when he was little. Guy had all kinds of information for me about the Betters family and the history of the area, and what he didn't know, he was willing to research. All for this complete stranger who called him up out of the blue. He even offered to give me a "five cent tour of the area" the next time I was in Clinton. I took him up on that offer, stopping in on ...

Today, on a rare visit to the Renne Library at Montana State University, I picked up a book on the "free" rack, titled "Montana's Benton Road." While Benton Road does not pass through Clinton, it was part of the Mullan Road, and I thought it might contain clues to what was going on along the Mullan Road in the Hellgate Valley about the same time. So far, I haven't found anything directly relevant in the book, but it renewed my interest in researching Better's Station, which led to tonight's breakthrough discovery... Thanks to the University of Montana digitizing all of their theses, dissertations and professional papers, tonight I found the earliest reference to Better's Station that I have found. Here is what Don Bert Omundson's 1961 thesis "Study of place names in Missoula County, Montana" says about Clinton: Clinton T12N R17W. Small community 15 miles e. of Missoula on the N.P.R.R. and C.M. & St.P. Named in November, 1...

The 2014 Mullan Road Conference will be held in Missoula May 2-4. Here's what the organizers have to say about the conference: The 2014 Mullan Road Conference is coming to Missoula May 2-4, just in time to help Montana celebrate its 150th year of territoryhood.  Take a step back to the 1860s to hear stories from some of the nation's foremost experts about what happened and what's happening on the road that built Montana. The conference evolved out of the annual Mullan Day celebration that was initiated 25 years ago by the Mineral County Historical Society in Superior, Montana. Since 2006 it has been held each spring along the 624-mile military wagon road that Lieutenant John Mullan and his crews engineered and built in 1859-62 through the Northern Rockies from Walla Walla to Fort Benton.  A Friday night reception hosted by Fort Missoula museums will be followed on Saturday by a day of presentations and an evening banquet at Ruby’s Reserve Street Inn. On Sun...

I was in Missoula for the Montana Masters State Championship Swim Meet this weekend, and was able to snag 55 minutes at the Missoula Public Library before they closed. It was hard to know what to do with such little time. Thankfully, I had previously started a list of things I knew I wanted to search for the next time I was in Missoula, and I was able to access that list on my iPad. I came up empty-handed on the few specific things I was looking for, but then I found one of the books Roberta Carkeek Cheney had listed in the bibliography of Names on the Face of Montana  that I thought might possibly reference Betters' Station:  Missoula Valley History  by Jo Rainbolt and Dorothy Brumback. The book is 500+ pages, and the index and table of contents weren't much help, so I just started flipping and skimming from the beginning. I didn't make it all the way through the book, but I did find a reference to my ancestors' family members (see below). The Mrs. Dan...

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.