Cascade Legends

Charlie Russell

Charles M. (Marion) Russell

Charlie Russell was a frequent inhabitant of Cascade and Chestnut Valley.  He was a friend to everyone but a close personal friend of Robert (Uncle Bob) Thoroughman who befriended him many times.  Charlie was considered by many people in the old days as being somewhat of a “bum”.  All he wanted to do is “is lay around and paint pictures.”

Charles Russell was born in St. Louis, Missouri, March 19, 1864.  At sixteen years old Charlie came to Helena, Montana in 1880.   He rode the range, painting unforgettable pictures of everyday happenings of cowboys, Indians and Montana scenes which were dear to his heart.

In 1896 he met and married Nancy Cooper in Cascade.  She was living at the Ben Robert’s home at that time.  They were married on September 9, 1896 at Ben Robert’s home.  Their honeymoon was spent in a small house a hundred yards or so from the Robert’s home.

Nancy was a great help to Charlie.  Through her efforts Charlie began to be paid for his paintings. Before Nancy he gave away or received a pittance so that he could have a meal or two.

Soon the Russells moved to Great Falls and built a home with a studio for Charlie to paint in.  He began to paint in earnest and some of his best work was done at that time.

Charlie passed away from a heart conditions on October 24, 1926.  His funeral was one of the largest ever held in Great Falls.  Cascade had the honor of providing the horse drawn hearse which carried his body to its last resting place in Highland Cemetery.

• 1864 Charlie born in St. Louis, Missouri, on March 19, to Charles Silas and Mary Mead Russell. Charlie had four brothers—Silas Bent, Guy, Ed, and Wolfert—and one sister, Susan.
• 1876–77 Wins ribbons at the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Fair for his sculptures.
• 1878 Nancy born in Taylor County, Kentucky, on May 4, to Texas Annie Mann and James Al Cooper. Cooper abandons Annie before Nancy is born. Annie later remarries her first cousin, James Thomas Allen. Annie and Allen have one daughter, Nancy’s half-sister, Ella Carrie Allen.
• 1879–80 Charlie attends Burlington Military Academy in Burlington, New Jersey.
• 1880 At sixteen, Charlie comes to Montana’s Judith Basin. Works initially for Pike Miller herding sheep, but the two soon quarrel and part company. Shortly thereafter, Charlie is taken in by Jake Hoover, a prospector, hunter, and trapper.
• 1881 Acquires Monte, his beloved pinto. Monte remains Russell’s favorite until the horse’s death in 1904.
• 1882 Gets his first job as a cowboy when he begins working as a “night hawk” for the Judith Basin spring roundup.
• 1887 Sketches ‘Waiting for a Chinook’ on a piece of cardboard from a shirt collar box. The image comes to symbolize the devastating effects of the hard winter of 1886–1887 on the open-range cattle industry and, in Nancy’s words, “earns Charlie his fame.”
• 1888 First published illustration, ‘Caught in the Act’, appears in Harper’s Weekly.
• 1890 James Allen moves his wife Annie and her two daughters, Nancy and Ella, to Helena.
• 1893 Exhibits at least one painting at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Decides to forgo the cowboy life so that he can devote his full attention to becoming an artist.
• 1894 Annie dies. James takes Ella but leaves sixteen-year-old Nancy to fend for herself. Concerned about her welfare, an acquaintance of Annie’s finds employment for Nancy as a live-in housekeeper for Ben and Lela Roberts in Cascade, Montana.
• 1895 Charlie and Nancy meet at the home of Ben and Lela Roberts in Cascade. The Roberts were Charlie’s friends and Nancy’s employers.
• 1896 Charlie and Nancy marry at the Roberts’ home in Cascade, on September 9. Move into a small “honeymoon cabin” on the Roberts’s property.
• 1897 Move to Great Falls where Nancy increasingly assumes the role of Charlie’s business manager.
• 1900 Build a home at 1219 4th Avenue North in Great Falls.