Lucy Coberly is known to have been in the New Chicago area prior to 1872. Dan Meschter wrote a column named Flint Chips in the Philipsburg Mail during 1986 and stated that Lucy Ann Coberly was the valley’s first permanent resident who settled on a ranch on the west bank of Flint creek as early as mid-1865, “..possibly collecting tolls for the Hell Gate and Deer Lodge Wagon Road Company. Her ranch then became a tavern hotel, meal stop on the stage line, and not least a junction where Philipsburg stages connected with the Deer Lodge-Missoula trunk route.”
The first post office was named Coberly, after Lucy and opened in 1872, with Green Kirtley named as Postmaster. Meschter stated that Kirtley apparently had worked for Lucy. He resigned at the end of 1872 and returned to Los Angeles. According to Ivy Hooper Blood Hill (in The Flint Creek Valley: Montana) Lucy and her husband may have lived in the vacated Mormon town of Nauvoo, Illinois for a period of time after the Mormon’s left. They then headed for Montana. It is unknown where Mr. Coberly died but there is no history of him being with Lucy in the New Chicago area. Lucy and her son set up a stage stop on the Mullan Trail. Legend has it that she would leave a gold scale sitting out on the table when she was away from the stop and passerby’s would take the supplies they needed and weigh out the gold they owed for the transaction. At the stop was a warehouse and livery stable, according to Richard Lacey. Colonel George W. Morse built his 24 room mansion off to the west side and in front of Lucy’ s stage stop.
Ivy Hill states that originally Lucy built a four room log house near where Joe Henderson lived (in 1962), where the road crosses the railroad tracks. The irrigation ditch still bears the name Coberly Ditch. At a later date Lucy sold her land rights to Joseph Henderson and then established the freighter’s station on the Old Mullan Road. Her log building still stands across the road from the Richard Lacey home.
August 31, 1872 the New Northwest reported “the Town of West Chicago, on Flint, is growing rapidly, and Huson and Company are doing a thriving business.” The location on the east bank of Flint Creek was where the Philipsburg road was located and because the ‘Burg was showing prosperity this site became more strategic. The name West Chicago was used until November 1872 when the post office was moved from Coberly and named New Chicago with John A. Featherman appointed Post Master.
Apparently Lucy saw the writing on the wall as she sold out on October 31, 1872 to Charley Erick who had just left Beartown, after operating a hotel there for three years. The second week in November, Gilmer and Salisbury moved their stage office and stables and the office of the Wells Fargo Express Company over to New Chicago. John A. Featherman was the “and Company” of the Huson and Company business. “Uncle John” never married and the other Featherman members that settled in New Chicago, Drummond and Philipsburg were children of his older brother Territorial Jacob Featherman.
Lucy then opened up a hotel in American Fork and when that camp closed operated an establishment in Pioneer. She died in 1892 and is buried in Deer Lodge.
Another one of the first articles research revealed about New Chicago was the New Northwest August 27, 1875 with the following descriptor: “It is a delightful 65-mile drive from Deer Lodge to Philipsburg. Down the Deer Lodge and Hell Gate and up Flint creek takes in the nervey, energetic young town of New Chicago and glimpses of broad, arable valleys as yet with only here and there an improved ranch but with opportunities for thousands to have happy homes and productive acres.” That same issue of the newspaper announced that “Travel is increasing so rapidly between New Chicago and Philipsburg that Phil Lynch has had to put on a fine horse coach and will trot it through nicely.”
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