Books: Historic Tales of Flathead Lake hits the shelves
Butch Larcombe
On a late-spring evening in 1955, a fisherman alone in a small boat on Flathead Lake hooked into a big fish that he said pulled him around the lake for hours before he was able to subdue the fish and bring it to shore.
The purported catch was a seven-foot, 180-pound white sturgeon was the start of a mystery that has been unresolved for nearly 70 years. Was the white sturgeon really caught in Flathead Lake? Are there other giant sturgeon in the lake and could they be the “monster” that some believe lurks in the lake?
A new book, Historic Tales of Flathead Lake from Bigfork-area author Butch Larcombe dives deep into the sturgeon mystery and other topics, including the story of Missoula native John Eaheart who disappeared in 1960 when a fighter jet he flew plunged into the deepest of Flathead’s waters.
The book, released in late June by The History Press, is a nonfiction work of 24 chapters and nearly 80 photographs and illustrations that attempts to credibly share stories of people, places and events in the colorful history of the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River.
Other topics include some of the lake’s islands, including Wild Horse and Melita, key figures in its history such as University of Montana professor Morton Elrod, eccentric photographer Herman Schnitzmeyer, amateur anthropologist/historian Thain White and of Dr. Jessie Bierman, who had a lifelong love affair with the lake.
There are accounts of the lake’s big-boat era and the company town of Somers and its centerpiece mansion. Readers will learn details about the intriguing pictographs at Painted Rocks and the Depression-era construction of the big dam just below the lake, a project that claimed 15 lives.
Tom Bansak, the associate director of UM’s 125-year-old Flathead Lake Biological Station at Yellow Bay, described Historic Tales as “the best collection of Flathead Lake stories out there.” Jim Strauss, a former Missoulian publisher and award-winning Montana newspaper editor, says Larcombe’s book delivers “the colorful backstories of Flathead Lake, from the people, to the legends, to the politics.”
Larcombe, who grew up Malta on Montana’s Hi-Line and graduated from UM, is former social studies teacher who later worked for 30 years as a newspaper reporter in the Flathead, Great Falls and Helena. He also served as the editor and general manager of Montana Magazine for six years.
The softcover book is available at Fact and Fiction in Missoula, and other area book outlets. Bay Books and Prints in Bigfork has the book, as does The Bookshelf in Kalispell and Bookworks in Whitefish. Signed copies are available by contacting the author at butch.larcombe@gmail.com.