News from the Red Caboose

Winter 2008 News from the Red Caboose
Friends of the Yellowstone Gateway Museum
Livingston, Montana
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Hear ye, hear ye!
You’re invited to listen to
Paul Wiley of Bozeman
as he reads from his new
book, “The Irish General—Thomas Francis
Meagher.”
Thursday, April 10th at
7:00 pm at the museum
Civil War buffs will enjoy
learning about Meagher’s
Civil War battles as well
as the details of the early
workings of Montana
Government. I n s i d e t h i s i s s u e :
MAM Convention
Notes from the Museum
Director
Anton Miller,
Blacksmith
Yellowstone Park Starts
at Depot
Buffalo Bill Try-Outs
Membership & Publications
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Nearly 100 historians will gather in Livingston, Montana March 6, 7 and 8 th , 2008 to share the secrets of a successful museum in our vast state. Yellowstone Gateway Museum will host the affair which will be held at Best Western Yellowstone Inn. Montana Association of Museum Board members will gather at the Museum on March 5 th to launch the annual event. Title this year is “On Track with your Museum; Education, Exhibits & Public Interaction”. The Conference begins with a bus trip that will include Paradise Valley history and the new Yellowstone National Park Heritage Center in Gardiner. The buses leave at 9 a.m. Thursday, March 6 from the Yellowstone Inn. Reservations are neces­ sary. Bag lunch is provided with registra­ tion. The group will return to the Yellow­ stone Inn at 4 p.m. There are a number of workshops being offered. You may find them on the a s s o c i a t i o n ’ s w e b s i t e , www.montanamuseums.org/conference, or by calling the museum. Don Williams, Sen­ ior Furniture Conservator at the Smith­ sonian Museum Conservation Institute is scheduled to participate. A banquet, silent auction, gallery, pub crawl and two recep­ tions are on the agenda. The 2008 MAM Conference is being locally arranged and hosted by Brian Sparks, Director of Yellowstone Gateway Museum, and Park County Board of Mu­ seum Directors and Friends of the Yellow­ stone Gateway Museum. Everyone is welcome to partici­ pate, so please call the museum for registra­ tion information. ­ Patty Miller
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C o n f e r e n c e
From the director's desk..
Astonishing! There is no other word for it. The accomplishments of so many, with so much assistance from faithful members, vol­ unteers, board members and staff. We’ve been lucky to have two volunteers helping with our photo scanning processes: Rob Park and Jim Peaco. We were awarded a $104,000 IMLS Museums for American “Sustaining Cultural Heritage” Whithorn Grant. Jon Watson was hired as its technician. Over 25 volunteers were recruited to support the grant by the very dedicated Donna Armentaro. Ken Burns of Florentine Films used two of the museum’s photos for an upcoming Na­ tional Park documentary. Two more photos from the Whithorn Collection were used in the summer 2007 edition of Montana: The Maga­ zine of Western History in an article on Rockefeller’s visit to the Silver Tip Ranch. Over 400 school children, in grades 1­7 were served by museum’s educational programs. . Bundles of gratitude to all of you for support­ ing us with your dollars and time and please continue! We are always seeking to improve our facility, technology and to preserve and improve our collection. It’s gratifying to see the efforts and support of so many preserving a historic legacy for future generations. With sincere thanks, Brian Sparks MONTANA ASSOCIATION OF MUSEUMS INVITES YOU
TO THE ANNUAL
2008 M.A.M. Conference
AT THE BEST WESTERN INN & CONVENTION CENTER
LIVINGSTON, MONTANA
MARCH 6—8
_______________________________
Visit the association website for details:
Www.montanamuseums.org/conference
Or call Brian Sparks at 406.222.4184
Don’t forget!
YELLOWSTONE GATEWAY MUSEUM
Annual Meeting
February 28, 7:00 PM at the Livingston Public Library Community Room
The Friends of YGM
Annual Meeting, Feb., 28th at 7 PM
At the Livingston Public Library Community
Room
The evening’s activities will include the election of
four board members, review of by-laws, annual report and a presentation on the Whithorn Archiving
Project by YGM Archivist Jon Watson. With the
MAM conference only a week later, a recap of events
will also be highlighted. There will be door prizes,
and light snacks and refreshments will be provided.
If you’re a member, PLEASE ATTEND. If you’re
not a member this is the perfect time to become
involved. As someone once said, “Don’t leave everything up to us —-you might not be happy with the result!“
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BIG THINGS A’HAPPENIN’---AND WE NEED YOU!
Unless you’ve been around your Yellowstone Gateway Museum lately, you might not believe this old
building could ever again be so busy during the “off-season.” Particularly with the coming of the
Whithorn archiving project, volunteers have been joining staff every weekday since November (and
occasionally on weekends) in what most of them could describe as “joyous” review of photographs
and other materials from the Whithorn Collection. And if inspecting old photos and solving minor
mysteries isn’t one’s “cup of tea,” there’s been plenty of less sedentary service---running errands, sorting and testing Christmas decorations, moving equipment and boxes of books---to keep us happily
busy, out of love and appreciation for the YGM and its history.
But we can’t expect that same two-dozen volunteers to maintain that schedule all Winter and Spring,
much less through the museum’s open Summer season---when we all have lots of other things to do,
not the least of which is to volunteer on the front desk and in other capacities at YGM---and certainly
not for the full two-years that the Whithorn project is slated to take! THAT’S WHERE YOU COME
IN!
As we progress toward longer and warmer days, the current volunteer crew will need relief, in the form
of 2 to 4 hours on a given weekday. And as we move into what promises to be a very busy Summer,
we’ll be presented with more and more opportunities to take part in various museum activities, duties
and events. If you’d like to find out how you can help, please contact me (222-5779) or Brian (2224184) or the YGM’s Volunteer Coordinator, Donna Armentaro (222-1274), or e-mail me at
[email protected].
-Rick VanAken
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Clyde Park Blacksmith Advertises in Polk Directory—1910
Anton Miller was born in Elsegaard, Denmark in
1866, married in Copenhagen in 1891, and immigrated to the United States in 1894. As a blacksmith
he found work at the coke ovens in Timberline and
Chestnut, Montana, near today’s Bozeman Pass. The
Millers had four children, moved to Clyde Park in
1903 where Anton owned and operated a saloon. In
addition to building his own blacksmith shop, barn,
and two homes (one of which still stands). He served
the young city as a Constable and Deputy Sheriff.
Anton was a large man, six feet tall and weighed over
two hundred pounds. He had a difficult time adapting
to modern times and refused to convert his forge
from coke to electricity. He locked up his shop during the WWII, a victim of gas and tire shortages.
During the early years he advertised a great deal in
Clyde Park and Livingston newspapers. See the Polk
Directory ad.
Anton died in 1951, leaving behind his very large and
tight knit family. Cliff Miller is a grandson and owns
Anton’s brass knuckles, and has vivid memories of
this very big member of his family.
- Patty Miller
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This Newsletter Sponsor: The Friends of the Gateway Museum acknowledge the extraordinary gift of time
and talent given to us by a very competent and distinguished professional. Terry Profoto of Sage Consulting and The Mortgage Firm shared several hours with the museum staff and friends gently delivering a useful technology program. Ms. Profoto lives and works in Bozeman, however her knowledge base
and contacts of and in the Livingston community are great. Collectively, we are indebted to her.
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YELLOWSTONE PARK STARTS AT THE LIVINGSTON DEPOT
Can the case be made that Yellowstone Park starts at Livingston’s railroad Depot? What better
authority than cover girl “Alice” who wrote in the 1885 “Alice’s Adventures in the New Wonderland”
Northern Pacific brochure:
“When we came to Livingston and had to change trains, leaving the main line for the National Park
Branch, it seemed as though the one grand object of our journey was at last to be attained...we saw a lofty
range of mountains covered with snow, we felt that we were indeed getting into a new world... The fact that
we were approaching the famous Wonderland of the world was, however, of itself, sufficient to put us all on
the qui vive….” (Fr.—exhilaration, ready for action).
Even in pre-railroad days, the primary road to Yellowstone was through the Paradise Valley: “…
the road following up the Yellowstone River being a pleasant and good one. For the following reasons the
natural and most satisfactory way to visit the Park is to enter at Mammoth Hot Springs…(W.W. Wylie’s
1882 Yellowstone National Park Guide). The 1882 Wylie guide noted that the Northern Pacific Railroad
was “rapidly advancing”. It contained only Bozeman business advertisers where travelers could get
“outfitted” for the trip. Bozeman’s population at the time was around 800. There is no mention of Benson
Landing on the river near present day Livingston. Nor is there any mention of the new city of Livingston
that was about to sprout.
The Wylie guide trumpeted that Bozeman was still going to be the proper “outfitting” place. But as
reflected by Alice’s New Wonderland story three years later, tourists had visions of geysers dancing in their
heads upon arriving at Livingston and were already beginning their National Park experience. The displacement of Bozeman as the main departure point was imminent.
George Wakefield, “of Bozeman” in the Wylie guide, and his partner, Hoffman, proceeded to establish their stage company, not in Bozeman but at Livingston in 1883 and at Cinnabar where they could
compete with other stages and outfitters soliciting Park passengers. A subsequent Wakefield Stage and
Camping Co. advertising card promoted a 7 day Park Trip for $30 for 3 to 40 people on Concord stages and
surreys.
The defining role of Livingston in the Park experience was also noted in A.B. Guptill’s “Guide to
Yellowstone Park” published by Haynes brothers in 1890: “Livingston, an enterprising Montana city, is located at the base…three miles from Livingston the road passes through the first canyon of the Yellowstone,
or Gate of the Mountain, forming a natural entrance to the Upper Yellowstone Valley.”
In 1896 it cost $5 for a round trip ticket from Livingston to Mammoth Hot Springs. Livingston
kept improving its depots from ramshackle to wood sided to two storey brick to, as Waite writes, “The
Northern Pacific built a new depot at Livingston, known as the “Gateway to Yellowstone” in 1902, at the
same time the Park Branch was being extended from Cinnabar to Gardiner.” Reed and Stem were the architects and they also worked on Grand Central Station in New York City.
In the late 1900’s and early 1900’s businesses in Livingston catered to the Park connection. A porter
from the Park Hotel met each train (per Livingston’s first Polk Directory in 1904). There were fitting business names such as National Park Bank complete with a Geyser on its billheads. In 1903, National Park
Laundry proudly proclaimed that they were located just opposite the “New Depot.” Schuber Drug on Main
Street Livingston had specially printed sets of Yellowstone postcards printed in Germany in about 1906 with
the finest printing of the day. These “Gateway City” postcards (there are at least 5 different views of this
type) asserted the City’s role.
The Gateway City was to even to become home to the Wylie Way permanent tent camp company,
when it was purchased by Livingston businessman A.W. Miles and a “silent partner” in 1905. Wylie had
begun the business in 1883 in Bozeman. (See Park County’s own Robert Goss’s excellent Making Concessions in Yellowstone” booklet for a detailed corporate history) Each year beginning in 1909 the Wiley Way
published a colorful new tourist brochure. Shaw & Powell Camping Company also operated its tent camping.business from Livingston. Its elaborate 48 page brochure published in about 1912 Its elaborate
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48 page brochure published in about 1912 features a full page photograph of the present Livingston Depot.
Even with the merger of these two permanent camping companies, and the entry of automobiles into the
Park in 1916, the center of operations remained in Livingston as the Yellowstone Park Camping Company.
No other park entrance was competitive nor convenient during this period. Cody, as reflected by a
real photo postcard of about 1900 vintage, was nothing more than a bunch of ramshackle western shacks
and rough houses with only the hotel standing out like a beacon. From Cody, it required traversing a rough
and windy Shoshone Road and then climbing steep Sylvan pass just to reach the Park boundary.
In 1907-1910 the Oregon Short Line Railroad reached West Yellowstone and the town had its own
depot. Prior to that time entry from the West Entrance required a stage trip from Monida’s railroad station
with an overnight stay at the Dwell Hotel. The Gallatin Canyon route to West Yellowstone was only a rough
wagon road beginning in about 1911. Public transportation along this route began to be developed by
Karst. Railroad interest was confined to the Milwaukee Railroad which then built the Gallatin Gateway Inn
in the late 1920’s to promote the Canyon entry point. (A good history of Yellowstone Park entrances is
“Yellowstone by Train” by Thornton Waite (2006).
Early Yellowstone Park travel numbers raise some interesting questions as to the economic impact
of Park tourists. The 1926 Haynes Guide notes that prior to 1893, “travel varied from 1,000 to 5,000 annually.” Other figures were:
1893 ­ 5,438 1904 ­ 13,727 1896 ­ 4,659 1905 ­ 26,188 1900­ 8,928 1910 ­ 19,575
Most of these dedicated and adventurous visitors traveled through Livingston to get to Yellowstone National Park. Whether by tent camp or by the paradoxical luxury hotels built at the very edge of Wonderland’s wonders, the excitement and elation built and began, as it did for Alice, from the Livingston Depots
in Gateway City.
-Bob Jovick 5
WWW.FRIENDSOFYGM.ORG
PRSRT STD
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
f r i e n d s o f t h e y e l l o w s t o n e g a t e w a y m u s e u m LIVINGSTON, MT
P.O. Box 815
118 West Chinook Street
Livingston, MT 59047
Phone: 406-222-4184
Email: [email protected] Don’t forget! Friends annual meeting—February 28 WHITHORNS AT WORK
This photograph represents the process at which
Bill and Doris took to make
reproductions of the original prints they
would borrow from local resident’s personal
collections. Bill became an expert at the process of copying and cropping originals long
before the days of photocopies, scanners, and
computers. Without Doris’s collecting and
Bill’s reproduction techniques these photos
could have been lost forever. Thank you,
Whithorns!
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Whithorn Collection Technician, Jon Watson
has thus far matched 1000 photographs to the
images found in the Whithorn Publications. Of
these, 550 have been scanned into the museum
computer, and will forever be in our archives!
On December 18, thirty friends celebrated
Doris’s 92 birthday at the museum. When you
see her, wish her well!
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This is a photograph of cowboys auditioning for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. The photo has a date written on it of July 4th 1887 with the location unknown. Rumors have circulated around historians of the possibility they could have held “try-outs” around Montana, most notably the Hoppee Ranch, near the Cinnabar
area. This photo could be the first solid evidence of this event!
The names written on the photo are: John Guild, Tom Anson, Tude Hereford, Ben Steaton, H. Criteter, S.
Carter, Will Harvey, C Earley, Charley Ingersoll, Allie Ingersoll, Gavin Barr, George Guild, Rob Hamilton,
Willie Byrne, Dick Jones, G. Butler, Eddie Byrne, Tom Casto, Ruben Ingersoll, Frank Byrne, J. Edmunson,
Will Stoll, Percy Allen, Oscar Quinn George Herford, Albert Byrne, and Bob Caverely. Does anyone recognize a name?
_________________________________________________________________________________ Remembering Our Friend…
Olga J. Fraser, 92, well known and Livingston matron, and widow of Don Fraser died December 16, 2007 at St. Vincent Health Care in Billings, Montana. In early 2007 Olga moved to Billings to be
closer to her family. She was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Livingston following a service at
Holbrook United Methodist Church.
Olga was born in Minot, ND where she received her education. After her 1933 graduation from
high school, she attended Kinman Business College in WA. Her first bookkeeping job was at Livingston
Laundry. In 1942 she married Don Fraser. The couple loved being a part of their community, especially the Yellowstone Gateway Museum. Their loyalty and support leave a lasting legacy.
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