Missoula history

I find it impossible to fathom, but I am quickly approaching my 80th birthday! Strange how those sorts of things sneak up on you. I have loved the 10 years I've spent writing about the news of yesteryear for the Missoula Current.

The pool water was too cold, police confiscated bikes while kids watched the matinee, and the preacher advised to hold your tongue! Those were the headlines in Missoula back in the summer of 1926.

“No Booze for Bugs,” read the headline in newspapers across the country, including the local Daily Missoulian. Read the sad tale of Major League Baseball pitcher Bugs Raymond in this morning's edition of Harmon's Histories.

“Who is the most perfect physical specimen of young womanhood in Missoula or western Montana?" The question was posed 100 years ago by The Daily Missoulian newspaper, in launching its “sequel to Miss America.”

Well, I wouldn’t call them festive, and they ain’t creeping up my picnic pants – but I am disporting myself with “antics queer” these days. That’s right, we have a mini ant invasion. But why?

The original Superior Hotel was constructed by Charlie Jameson in 1891, and finished by A.P. Johnston a year later. A writer for the Missoula Weekly Gazette recommended Jameson’s place as having “as good accommodation as any place between Missoula and Wallace. The expectation of trying his cuisine lightened the inconveniences of the slow and uncomfortable Missoula cut-off.”

Mowing is still familiar to our youth today – but the scythe is no longer in our vocabulary. Until today, when Jim Harmon brings the scythe back just in time for summer!

Advertising from 100 years ago reveals a dapper, dry Missoula, prepping for summer's flies and hungry for ice cream. Enjoy!

Often when we look back in time, we find connections we hadn’t noticed before. Here are a few examples. A mansion is built on Missoula’s north side, overlooking the city. A Helena schoolgirl gets a chance to go to the University of Montana, graduating with a degree in English in 1938. A man born in St. Paul, Minn., moves to Missoula and becomes fascinated by a new invention called radio in 1922.

“They say the first step is admitting you have a problem. So today, right here in this column, I admit it. I am a junkie, an addict. I need help.”