Missoula

Missoulians have always loved music, especially band music. Within a few years of the city’s establishment, the Missoula Coronet Band was formed. The band, wrote the local paper, was “progressing finely, under the instruction of the efficient teacher, Professor A.B. Charpie."

I had never met such a man before. He grew up on a cattle ranch in Montana. He graduated from the Journalism School at the University of Montana (“MSU” at that time) in 1950. He was a hero of the Korean War, awarded the Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for Valor for bravery for “leading his men to rescue soldiers trapped behind enemy lines.”

Missoula’s well-to-do certainly knew how to ring in the New Year a century ago.

It was December 1875. The town of Missoula had just turned 10 years old and residents wanted to celebrate with grand Christmas parties. “The ladies of Missoula met at the parlor of the Kennedy House (Hotel) on the 13th of December to make arrangements for a Christmas tree.”

Jim Harmon writes, "Today’s column seems more like a “Meanwhile” segment on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert than my usual fodder of old newspaper stories."

It was the end of the inaugural year of classes at the University of Montana. The students were about to take their first summer break from college, and one of their professors had some advice.

“DUFFY vs THE CATS” was the headline, describing the warring parties: Anaconda Prosecuting Attorney John H. Duffy versus a neighborhood covey of cats, a flock of felines, owned by Johnny Horn.

Consider this response from a Bitterroot Valley editor to the 1894 presidential election: “I look upon the result of the election as a forerunner of Republican success in the future. I regard it as an endorsement by the people both of the declared policy of the Republican Party and in its ability to do some thing in the line of its policy when in power."

If you’ve been in Missoula for a very long time, you’ll may remember the store on North Higgins, next to Woolworth’s, before it went out of business in the 1950s. Back in 1912, the Barnhill brothers, Garnett and Hyatt, bought Joe Fitzgerald’s menswear store, closed briefly for remodeling, then opened “Barney’s” for business at 222 North Higgins on August 1 with “new stock.”

It’s Monday, November 4, 2024. I find myself sandwiched between a day I do not like and a day of anxiety. Yesterday, Daylight Savings Time ended; tomorrow is Election Day.