Have you ever sat and wondered ‘So what happened today a long time ago?’ Now that October has shed its leaves let’s take a stroll through the ole time machine and see ‘What did happen back in the olden days of October in Montana?’
Well on October 6th, 1952 the first helicopter rescue took place in Montana. The helicopter landed in the middle of West Broadway outside St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula. The Chronicle described the event this way: “A helicopter lands on McCormick Street, at the west end of the hospital at 8 o’clock this morning, bringing a sick fire-fighter for medical treatment. This conveyance arrived about 12 hours faster than any other of less modern means. Officials of the flying company [Johnson Flying Service] said it was probably the first time in local history that an airplane had literally brought a patient to the door of a hospital. Police were alerted to halt traffic on Broadway and McCormick streets as soon as the helicopter was sighted. A stretcher crew was in readiness at the hospital door about 50 feet from where the helicopter landed. The patient survived and was dismissed 12 days later.”
The helicopter landing was considered such a success that two more landed later on that week. By 1979 St. Pats installed a fifteen thousand dollar heliport near the Clark Fork River next to Western Montana Clinic. The heliport was moved to a rooftop perch in 1984 when the Sisters of Providence built a new hospital building. By 2001, St. Pat’s Life Flight helicopter was flying more than 700 missions a year.
On October 16, 1887 the Great Northern Railroad’s track crews lay track into Great Falls. The Utah and Northern lines laid rails to Butte in 1881 and to Garrison the next year. In 1883 James J. Hill’s Union Pacific passed through Helena on its way to the Pacific Ocean. According to MSU historian Michael Malone the completion of the Great Northern made Hill “the single most powerful individual in the northwestern U.S.”
Hill’s railroad was the best constructed, most profitable of the world’s major railroads. Hill worked with two Montana pioneers, Paris Gibson and Charles Broadwater, to build the line into Great Falls and then to Helena and Butte. Gibson, Hill, and Broadwater eventually formed an electrical power company, the Great Falls Power and Townsite Company, bought coal deposits, and started laying tracks through Great Falls to the mines in Butte and Helena. The first trains entered Great Falls on October 31, 1887.
On October 18, 1935 the largest in a series of earthquakes, measuring 6.3, hit Helena and killed four people. Property damage was estimated at $3.5 million. The seismic activity began with a cluster of 1200 quakes on October 3rd and continued for 3 months. During some 24 hour periods small quakes hit every 10 minutes. Joseph Howard recorded “The first serious quake hit at 9:47 pm on October 18. Residents of Helena said it was impossible to stand without holding onto something, and the quake sounded like a roar. For half a minute, you could hear the bricks and timbers in the building groan and plaster fall from the walls. 1100 homes were damaged, as well as the brand new high school. The football field at the high school was newly lined in the gridiron pattern. After the quake the lines were scrambled into a wavy pattern and the goal posts were moved more than two feet. Montana’s sense of humor showed through the tragedy. Bozeman’s newspaper reported that ‘Helena is now called Lena. This was due, they say, not so much to the leaning tendency, but because the quakes have shaken the Hel out of it.’
On October 23, 1933 the Fort Peck Dam construction began. The main dike contains 126 million cubic yards of material. The lake behind the dam stretches 124 miles with a shoreline of 1600 miles. That’s a shoreline longer than the California coast. In late October 1932 a crew of 70 men began clearing brush and cutting timber in the area that the reservoir would flood. They worked for 50 cents an hour. More than 100 farmers in the reservoir site had to sell out for Depression-era prices. Many gave up rich bottomland they had been farming for decades. The Fort Peck Dam project was unprecedented in size. Eventually the work force swelled to more than 10,000. Pile drivers pounded away day and night driving massive steel plates into the ground below the future dam to prevent seepage. 4 gigantic dredges with 7 foot cutter heads were constructed to reach up to 50 feet below the Missouri. They churned up clay which was piped to the dam site. Electric pumps on barges moved the slurry more than twenty miles in 28 inch pipe. Electricity came from Great Falls via a 154 volt power line – one of the longest every strung. 130 million cubic yards of earth traveled to the dam. Beneath the bluffs east of the river, unemployed miners from Butte cut 4 diversion tunnels, each a mile long and 25 feet in diameter. A mile long concrete spillway was erected equipped with 16 electric powered gates. The trough could hold more water that any Missouri River flood on record.
Smooth talking Richard Harlow completed his “Jawbone” Railroad from Lombard to Lewistown on October 30, 1903. The railroad’s name came from Harlow’s ability to sweet-talk creditors, workers, and suppliers. Harlow was a Helena attorney with the original idea/dream of building a railroad to the silver mine town of Castle, near White Sulphur Springs. The price of silver collapsed and created a change of directions. The line was changed to building though Judith Gap to Lewistown. The Milwaukee Road bought the Jawbone in 1909 after years of break-downs and accidents caused by poor construction and obsolete equipment. An announcement could have been stated “the passenger train scheduled to arrive in Lewistown 3 weeks ago last Monday will arrive tomorrow evening.” The town of Harlowton is named after Richard Harlow.
Much of this info is derived from Jeffrey Smith’s book ‘Montana Book of Days’. He tells the tales that have been overlooked. He stops to look around at the past and hopes the stories will show us how to go forward with grace and courage and clarity. See what you miss if you miss the library.