Harmon’s Histories: A century ago, Missoula hoped for civic harmony

By Jim Harmon

As we bid the year 2025 bon voyage, it can be thought-provoking and enlightening to summon up the scene in Missoula one hundred years ago. Citizens recalled 1925 fondly, but viewed the coming year somewhat apprehensively.

Weather-wise, 1925 had been a delightful year, with an especially warm winter. In fact, not a single day recorded a temperature of zero degrees or colder.

The front page of the Missoula Sentinel newspaper on December 31, 1925 declared: “Missoula has had the horse laugh on the rest of the United States during 1925.”

“We’ve had freezing weather – that is, just a little bit below 32 degrees – but Missoula has not suffered with her sister cities of the north temperate zone.”

In fact the entire year passed without the temperature hitting zero or even “within dangerous proximity of that dread mark!”

Of course, on the flip-side, people worried that 1926 surely would be unable to sustain the record.

After all, residents still remembered what happened just one year earlier (the winter of 1924-1925). It “started out with a cold wave which made even the old-timers’ ears buzz under their heavy coverings.”

In fact, December 15th through the 20th of 1924 saw a cold wave with temperatures to as bone-chilling as 19 degrees below zero.

But that was the “last cantankerous grouch that Old Man Weather had shown.” From that point through the end of 1925, the thermometer “came out into the open to say ‘how do you do’ to the wondering natives.”

While the weather may have been delightful, community spirit in 1925 was decidedly not. In fact, judging from the New Year’s comments in the local newspaper, community spirit was a touchy subject.

District Forester Fred Morrell summed it up best, calling on community members to “bury personal prejudice and put personal advantage second to community prosperity and happiness.”

1925 was certainly in the midst of hard economic times, and Prohibition made a lot of folks cranky. A national survey of businessmen revealed a “strong personal prejudice and dissatisfaction with the social and political results of Prohibition.”

In July, Montana Governor J.E. Erickson, addressing a convention of the State Bar association, said: “Too large a percentage of criminals go unpunished because of technicalities and archaic provisions in criminal law.”

Chief Justice L.L. Callaway of the Montana Supreme Court agreed, adding: “The administration of criminal law is in many instances a scandal, and that simplicity in law is wanted by all but the criminals.”

Missoula Mayor W.H. Beacom urged Missoulians to “work for more community harmony.”

Similarly, R.R. Wilbur, the chair of the County Commissioners, resolved to work toward the strengthening of community spirit.”

H.W. Trask, the president of the Missoula Chamber of Commerce, asked residents to “pull together to bring bigger and better things to the city.”

Sidney Howard of the Kiwanis Club urged everyone to cooperate “on all matters of civic concern.”

The president of the Missoula Women’s Club, Mrs. G.A. Ketcham, envisioned 1,000 club women in the city instead of 250, “so that the club might be more representative of the city and exercise a proportionately larger influence for the good of the community.”

Dr. C.H. Clapp, the president of the State University in Missoula, urged more community support for a greater summer school in the new year.

One hundred years later, while much has changed, there is still, all across our country, a “strong personal prejudice and dissatisfaction with social and political matters.”

Here’s hoping we can learn from the past. Let’s resolve to make 2026 a year of cooperation and splendid community spirit.

Happy New Year!