P'Burg Once Had Rodeo's

 

                        Picture from the Tex Crawley Collection of 1932 Rodeo at the school grounds

                                                          Rider believed to be Hank Warren

It is hard for anyone currently looking at the Philipsburg Grade and High school property to visualize that there was a rodeo arena in the southwest corner. I am not certain when the first Rodeo was held there as the earliest newspaper article I have found was in the Philipsburg Mail on June 30, 1929. The article covered three full columns in the paper and discussed both the upcoming rodeo and Fourth of July parade. "The stage is all set for the fourth of July celebration in Granite County. The Rodeo field has been completely fenced and is ready for Hollopeter’s herd of wild steers and Smokey Sutherland’s bucking horses. Bleachers with a seating capacity of 2,000 have been completed and when the riders are doing their stuff Philipsburg people will see some of the best entertainment in the rodeo line that has ever been pulled off on western Montana” 

Hollopeter’s lived on the property immediately north of where the Fred Burr bridge is now and Smokey had a ranch on the West Fork of Rock Creek, west of Beaver Creek. I remember attending rodeos there and my father participating in the saddle bronc and bareback events, in the early forties. I have pictures from the Tex Crawley collection of one of the events where the grade school is visible. It does not have the fire escapes and because I am able to identify participants I believe these pictures are of the 1932 event. 

Edward Bohrnsen detailed to me his attendance at the 1930 Rodeo. He was only four years-old and his mother told him he was too young to attend, but being Edward, begged until she finally agreed to let him go with the sapphire miners off work that day and his older half-brother Raymond Rau. (His mother Ruth was the Cook and Father Hans was the supervisor of the American Gem Sapphire Mines located on the Skalkaho.) 

Fairly early in the rodeo “Whiskey Bill” Terkla began his ride on a bucking horse and was bucked off with the horse kicking him in the head as he fell. The shod hoof caused an open skull fracture as it hit Bills head. With blood gushing and the crowd gasping young Edward covered his face and became very upset. The fright continued after the accident and he sobbed during every ride with his face covered so he had to be taken home to his mother for comfort. 

“Whiskey Bill” was a fifteen year old high school student and I would love to know how he earned that nickname. Sadly, the young man was mortally injured. Mrs. Ralph Williams, Mrs. H.A. Murphy, Mrs. Rosella Glover and Mrs. Wasa Rail gave emergency care to the youth and he was transported to the hospital in Butte. Due to the conditions in a rodeo arena, the open wound contaminated the brain and Bill died of meningitis secondary to the skull fracture, on July 14th. 

Bill’s father Gabriel “Gabo” Terkla had died in 1922 leaving his mother Annie, Bill and his five sisters: Olga, Diane, Doris, Bessie and Mary as survivors. Gabo immigrated to the United States from Bosnia/Herzegovnia in 1893 at the age of 15 but I do not know where the family lived prior to arriving in Philipsburg in October 1914. Ancestry records show a Donna born in 1913 but I have failed to find any history of that name. There is a headstone for Baby Michael July 22,1918 in the Philipsburg Cemetery, I assume was the child of Gabo and Annie. 

All of the daughters lived a large part of their lives around Philipsburg. Olga (Rogan, Carey, Minster) born in 1910 died in 1985. Diane (Rice) born in 1912 died in 2014. Doris (Kempfer) born in 1914 died in 1975. Mary (Davis) born in 1920 died in 2006. Bessie (Munis) born in 1921 died 2002.

Swastika Mine 'Looks Better Everyday"

 Headlines in the Philipsburg Mail on August 22, 1913 were “The Swastika Mine in the eastern part of the city continues to look good and everyone interested is optimistic about the future of the property. Manager W.W. Williams went to Butte this week to purchase a sinking pump, air compressor and an air hammer drill which the management purposes to install as soon as possible. Two shifts are kept at work sinking and they are now down about 110 feet. No trouble has so far been experienced in handling the water with a bucket and good progress is being made. Nevertheless the work seems slow and in view of the splendid showing made so far the installation of better equipment was deemed justified. Last week a short drill east was made at the 100 foot level and at the end of this drift a crosscut to determine the width of the lead. Ten feet and three inches, measured from the hanging wall, is the width of the win at 14 percent copper and good values in silver and gold. Picked samples of the ore run high in this point. The foot wall has not been reached yet. The vein dips to the west and has a strike of northeast and southwest. The character and value of the ore in the bottom of the shaft continues about the same, from 8 to 14 percent silver but of course it is not all like that. Plenty of high grade ore no doubt would be found by drifting along the vein or crosscutting to the foot wall but the management has decided not to do further exploring until the shaft is 200 feet. The electric hoist is proving highly efficient and economical and with the addition of the mining plants now in operation in this part of the state. The Swastika has become almost a household word in the community. Everybody is interested and there is a score of visitors at the new mine everyday inspecting the rock as it comes from the shaft.” 

When I found this article, I was very interested, as the Stuart/Hope Mill and Cordova Mine are located in this area as is the current Granite County Stamp Mill and I had never heard of the name before. Research was absent any information in the Mining Bible Written by Emmons so I tried AI and found the following: “The Swastika Mining Company (which operated the Swastika mine at the east end of Philipsburg) was incorporated in the early 20th century. In 1913, amid pre-World War II, the name reflected the ancient Sanskrit symbol for Good Luck and Prosperity. At that time Philipsburg was transitioning from its historic silver boom. The broader Philipsburg mining district was shifting its focus due to an escalating demand for domestic manganese, a resource that soon turned the area into one of the largest suppliers in the United States. 

The Swastika mine operated primarily as an underground hard-rock operation, extracting complex vein ores common to the Flint Creek Range.” Overtime the property was consolidated and owned by the Philipsburg Mining Company, led by corporate president L.S. Mitchell and superintendent J.C. Yob. Obviously, Manganese became the profit-maker and another silver, gold and copper vein was left for better pastures. 

As we all know the little town sits on many dreams, surrounded by a mountain of Hope.

David Conkling and his Stony Creek Mining Dream

 

The Philipsburg Mail on July 10, 1914 carried a full column article about Stony Creek and David T. Conkling. David had moved his mining equipment and prospecting drill with his crew to Stony Creek. Their plan was to drill holes down to bedrock for the purpose of prospecting for placer gold. Research showed that David had previously been a mining superintendent at Sunrise Mine in 1900. Prior to David taking on this venture, the gulch had been mined for a number of years by Richard Stingle further up the gulch, about 10 years ago, but he never got to bedrock. Herman Kaiser also had organized a company to operate about forty claims along the gulch. Their plan was to make drain tunnels to draw water from the bedrock so that shafts could be sunk and mining carried out by drifting along bedrock. The tunnel was to start at a low point north of the Wyman ranch and pointing south, cut through the hogback to the Wyman house and then into the channel at Stony Creek. This project was abandoned mainly due to a shortage of funds. 

 

Conkling had prospected the creek while at Sunrise and felt it was one of the most promising gulches in Montana. For unknown reasons, he instead went to work managing the forests near Bozeman, Montana as evidenced by the 1910 Federal Census. He also became a married man on August 4,1909 when he took Verena Eleanor (Rena) Hartley as his wife. The 1920 Federal Census showed David in 2 places: At Moose Lake living as a boarder with 18 other men in Mary McDonalds’s Boarding House and in Anaconda with his wife Rena and Nettie age nine and David age five. As the Newspaper cites” Stony Creek is among the longest west side tributaries of Rock creek and its source is in gold district, gold quartz mining being located at the head of the gulch. It was the placer gold found along Stony creek and on West Fork of Rock creek that led to the discovery of basin and Quartz gulches which are due south of Stony Creek and have their source in the same range of mountains (This range is the Sapphire Mountains). These gulches have yielded probably a million dollars in placer gold during the past twenty years and are still producing. It is believed Stony creek is the richest of all, only the gold is not so easy to get at.”

As locals know, this area continues to be of interest and produces with significant labor. But some of the Sapphire foothills are easy to find color. My dad, Harry Bentz, had a claim named ‘Monkey Business” at the head of McKay gulch on the south side of West Fork with a large amount of gold in the tree roots. Enough that he could buy hay for his appaloosa horses every winter from a few weeks of panning and sluicing the black soils in the tree roots. 

Obviously David’s dream of drilling to the bedrock was not that easy. I know my sister and I dug with a spoon in the false bedrock in Maley Gulch, while laying on our stomachs looking for sapphires and often found gold nuggets. Maley Gulch is right over the ridge to the southwest of Stony. 

Apparently neither were his mining dreams at Moose lake, as the 1930 Census shows him and family living in Butte with David working as a laborer and they were living as “domestics” at the Manganese plant where he worked. His mining dreams ended on April 29, 1931 when he died of Myocarditis in Butte at the age of 63. Survivors were his wife and the two children.

The Nations Heraldry on the One Dollar Bill

 

I have believed for a number of years that I am a well-educated individual, then a few days ago realized that I had no idea of what the images on a One Dollar Bill signifies, nor the story behind the composition. Humility is good for all of us so I will accept this significant gap in my knowledge. After much thought I have chalked it up to being of the era of the “Silver Dollar”. I was most unhappy when Montana quit using the Silver Dollar as our only mode of a dollar and my wallet became stuffed with petty one-dollar bills. They were and still are a real nuisance to me. The point of this dialogue is that very possibly I am not the only Montana, Granite County or Philipsburg native that has never been instructed on the story written on our One-Dollar bill, so I am offering up this bit of education. 

 

On July 4, 1776, when the Continental Congress declared that the American people were going ”to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them,” it appointed a committee to design and propose a “seal for the United States of America”. This seal was to be the official expression of sovereign authority we were fighting for in the War of Independence. Due to the matters at hand, specifically a hard-fought war, this action was delayed and the recommendations submitted by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were not acted upon and four years went by before a second committee was formed and they made their own recommendations. It was another two years later, while peace talks were underway that the need for an official seal became pressing and a third committee was appointed. 

Charles Thomson, Secretary of the United States Congress was asked to take the recommendations of the three committees into account and submit a proposal for the Great Seal. The incorporation of these recommendations is signified on the back of our One Dollar Bill. I am sure most of us know George Washington is on the front of the bill, but I have never paid much attention to the engravings on the back. Looking at the back of a dollar bill you will see on the right side a depiction of the front of the Great Seal and on the left the depiction of the back side of our Great Seal. Thomson submitted to Congress what heraldists call a “blazon” accompanied by remarks and explanation on June 20, 1782. Thomson’s words alone, which are part of the law officially approving the Seal, are the final authority for what the Great Seal of the United States is and what it means. On the front we behold an American Bald eagle bearing on its breast a shield with 13 vertical stripes; clutching in its left talon 13 arrows and in its right talon an olive branch; a scroll held in the eagles beak; the eagle’s head is turned right towards the olive branch; a scroll held in the eagle’s beak bears the famous motto in Latin E Plutbis Unum; and a crest above the eagle’s head contains 13 stars which “glory” emanates, breaking through a cloud. This is our Nations Coat of Arms. Thirteen represents our original 13 states; the Latin motto “out of many, one” expresses the joining of those states into a nation; the shield represents born on the breast of an American Eagle without any other supporters to denote that the United States of America ought to rely on their own virtue; the olive branch and arrow denote the power of peace and war; the eagles head is turned to the olive branch rather than the arrows because we fight wars for the sake of peace. On the reverse side of the Great Seal is a Pyramid unfinished. In the Zenith an Eye is a triangle surrounded with glory proper with “Annuit Coeptis” (He approves of what has been started); on the base of the Pyramid the numerical letters MDCCLXXVI (1776) and underneath the motto “Novus Ordo Seclorum” (New Order of the Ages). This Pyramid signifies Strength and Duration with the Eye over it and the Motto alluding to the many signal interpositions of providence in favor of the American cause and the date signifies the Declaration of Independence and the beginning of the new American Era. This Era has now survived 250 years.

The History of Pioneer Brands

Livestock have been an important part of the area now known as Granite County history. The Shoshone Indians brought horses into the area in the late 1700’s. Documents show that Father Peter DeSmet at St. Mary’s Mission in the Bitterroot valley was probably the first person to bring cattle into the area in 1841. Major John Owen bought the Mission and herd turning it into Fort Owen in 1850. Then former fur trappers and people that came to the area with Lieutenant’s Isaac Stevens and John Mullen remained and used the Big Hole, Bitterroot, Deer Lodge and Flint Creek Valley to fatten the worn out cattle from the Emigrant Trails: Fred Burr 1857 in the Bitterroot; Tom Adams 1858 in the Flint Creek Valley and Johnny Grant in the Big Hole in the 1850’s and the Deer Lodge Valley in 1859, becoming the Conrad Kohrs’ Ranch in 1866, 

By 1870 the western inter-mountain valleys were filled with European domesticated cattle herds and brands became a necessity to identify the massive herds grazing freely on the open range. Documents state that at one time Kohrs’ had cattle with over 500 different brands. The selection of a brand and the reason behind it frequently is a story that cannot be verified. One story is Colonel George Morse’s brand was 71 because that is the year he arrived in the Flint Creek Valley. But the brand registered to Colonel Morse is 17. The brand 71 is registered to John Edwards. Another story documented in the 1984 “Brands Across Montana” cites Torrey B. Johnson of Busby. Montana saying his “forbears had cattle in Montana as early as 1849…they were named Spears and ranched at New Chicago.” New Chicago did not happen until after the Mullen Road was completed (1858-1863), not does the 1862 list of persons living in the area contain the name of Spears. 

I have tried numerous times to write an article about the cattle and horse brands of our early pioneer's and the information has always ended up in a file folder labeled Brands. The biggest problem is because brands have a language of their own and if you are not familiar with the lingo nothing in writing makes sense. The best way to describe a brand is to draw it and because the keyboard does not contain these symbols that becomes impossible except with pictures. 

Brands were first registered in the 1860’s through county brand offices. The first brand book was published in 1872 which was a 44  page version with 251 brands. Prior to this publication you had to go to the county brand office, starting in 1864 at the clerk and recorder's office. Then in 1872 the legislature made the recording of brands the duty of the Clerk of the Supreme Court. In 1887 the Board of Stock Growers Association under the leadership of Granville Stuart was given the responsibility. Currently all brands are registered with the Department of Livestock and since 2011, brands must be re-registered every ten years. Because of a donation by Montana author Ivan Doig and his wife Carol in 2002, all the Montana recorded brands have been put on microfilm and are housed at the MHS Research Library and are also available online through the ‘Montana Memory Project” 

One of the first pioneers to register a brand in this area was Henrietta Schnepel (1872) and it was for the horse brand HS on the shoulder. The “Triangle” on the right side cattle brand was not found registered until 1900. This brand has been passed down by inheritance to the John “Pat” and Easter McDonald family. Another pioneer brand is the AJ. Gillis “AG” brand passed down to the Joe Gillies descendants on Upper Rock Creek. Obviously slow to follow the law, in 1900 there were only 41 brands registered in Granite County.