In the early 1880s, a fight erupted in Montana over the location of the state capital. William Andrews Clark and Marcus Daly, the biggest names in the Montana copper industry, each wanted their local city to become the capital. While Daly preferred his beloved Anaconda, Clark fought to make the upstart mining city of Helena the capital. As part of the campaign to persuade voters to select Helena, he created and funded The Colored Citizen. Clark was known as a famous entrepreneur, the “Copper King of Montana,” and as one of the wealthiest men in the United States during the late nineteenth century. He spent over $200,000 supporting the newspaper during its short run from September-November 1894, which was during the campaign season. James Presley Ball Jr. was named editor of the newspaper. Ball Jr. was also a photographer, and he represented a variety of African Americans who migrated to Helena in the 1880s in search of better treatment. He published the newspaper at 137 N. Main St, which is in the downtown area of the city.  The Colored Citizen’s opening issue discussed the purpose of the paper. According to the Library of Congress, “Its reason for being was the intense interest among the city’s 279 ‘Colored’ Citizens in the upcoming election to decide the site of the state capital: Helena or Anaconda.” This issue also stated that Montana should be immensely proud of all of its “Colored Citizens.” During 1884, African Americans represented around 1% of the total state population with about 1,500 citizens. Additionally, the Colored Citizen had stories and articles about news on the local and state level. The newspaper was four pages long, with six columns.  In the final issue of the newspaper on November 5th, 1894, a full-page endorsement filled the front page. It stated, “The Anaconda Mining Company Does Not Employ a solitary Colored man. Dagoes and Foreigners are preferred to Native Colored Americans. Helena has 500 Prosperous Colored Citizens. They own Thousands of Dollars of Real Estate and are Engaged in every kind of Business. Colored Men of Montana stand by your Helena Brethren. Vote for HELENA for the CAPITAL.” Unfortunately, the newspaper was shut down shortly before the vote, which ended up coming down to the wire. With a narrow gap of less than 2,000 votes out of the 50,00 votes cast, Helana won. The Colored Citizen’s influence on the vote is immeasurable, and its work to make Helena the capital has impacted Montana to this day. The newspaper also laid the groundwork and foundation for the African American newspapers that followed.  

For more (including 4 images) view the original article

In the early 1900’s, Helena was the home of Montana’s largest African American population with over 400 individuals, which was about 3% of the city’s population. In the entire state of Montana there were about 2,000 African American residents. Joseph B. Bass, founder and editor of the Montana Plaindealer, was an active member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and a strong believer in the “hard work and self-improvement" doctrine of Booker T. Washington. He was previously employed at the Topeka Plaindealer in Kansas. He worked on the paper with the help of Joseph Tucker, an African American man who had lived in Helena for over a decade and worked as a printer.

Four pages long and printed weekly, The Montana Plaindealer was a trusted news source in the community. The newspaper was strongly Republican and one of their taglines stated, “We unhesitatingly subscribe to the principles of Republicanism.” It preached the goal of “racial uplift” through entrepreneurship and civic work and supported Progressive political reform. The inaugural edition stated, “This enterprise shall at all times strive for a greater Helena, and for mutual progress of all people in the community, and for a greater activity of our people in the business world.” These sentiments were expressed in the stories, editorials, and information conveyed in the newspaper.

Additionally, Bass wrote about community news, such as church information, and other national interest stories. An example of a national story was the 1907 Brownsville Incident. An important column in every edition was the “Race News” column that published stories about racial discrimination, economic opportunities, and Civil Rights news. The newspaper also included results of political battles. An example of these battles is seen in local primaries and elections on the state and national levels. Additionally, the newspaper also protested discriminatory legislative action. This is illustrated in their protest of an anti-miscegenation bill passed in Montana in 1909.

The newspaper’s impact and reach are difficult to explain with statistics, but Bass stated that over 3⁄4 of all African Americans in Helena subscribed to the paper. The paper also had a number of white subscribers as well, a number that tripled the amount of African American subscribers. The paper was partially funded by fundraising social events, like dinners, that were thrown by White Republicans. Unfortunately, these fundraising events were not enough as The Montana Plaindealer underwent financial difficulties and had to suspend publication due to a lack of money in September 1911.

For more (including 6 images) view the original article

Montana’s Jewish community was flourishing by the 1870s. In 1867, Helena directories reported that out of twenty dry goods stores, Jews owned seventeen. By 1877, a quarter of the Board of Trade was Jewish. The Jewish community also helped the city recover from fire damage, a frequent hassle. Many Jewish migrants came to Montana for the gold rushes from places like Germany and Poland. In 1866, they organized the United Hebrew Benevolent Society, the forerunner to Congregation Emanu-El. As the railroad brought more migrants in the 1880s, they hired a rabbi and made plans for a synagogue. In 1890, the governor J.K. Toole laid the cornerstone of Temple Emanu-El, highlighting the already prominent status of the Jewish community.

Helena architects Heinlein and Mathias worked with the congregation to design Temple Emanu-El, which they built close to Christian churches and not far from the state capitol. Moorish Revival is in the distinctive architecture of the building, reflected in the pointed arch entry, keyhole windows, and copper onion-shaped domes studded with golden Stars of David. Romanesque features can also be identified in arched windows and heavy stonework. Both styles were popular in synagogues of late nineteenth century America. The builders used locally quarried granite as well as gray and red sandstone for the base and sides. The interior originally contained a thirty-foot ceiling sanctuary that sat 300 people. Distinguished and founding members held a dedication ceremony in 1891, where the local papers touted it as helping Helena to become “Queen City of the Rockies.”

The building is also notable as an example of adaptive reuse. The Jewish population dwindled by the 1930s, partly due to the Great Depression. Congregation Emanu-El looked to sell, and after unsuccessful attempts, the state of Montana bought it in 1937 for a token price of $1.00. The state promised to use it for a “social purpose” and fulfilled this aim by installing in it the Department of Public Welfare, which distributed relief during the Great Depression. The state renovated the temple by sand-blasting religious inscriptions and symbols off the building, as well as removing the onion-shaped domes. It then repurposed these materials elsewhere. It also added a second floor, but left the keyhole windows and front facade otherwise undisturbed. After the department was abolished in the 1970s, the building again fell into disuse. The small Jewish population feared that it would be demolished until the Catholic Diocese of Helena bought it in 1981.

Jerry Klinger, founding president of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, brought renewed interest to the synagogue when he organized a ceremony recognizing its 110th anniversary in 2001. Historians placed it on the National Register of Historic Places soon after in 2002.

Recently, in August 2022, Temple Emanu-El returned to the Jewish community when the Montana Jewish Project purchased it from the Catholic Diocese. Prior to the reacquisition, Helena was one of only four state capitals without a synagogue. It will now become a statewide center for Jewish life in Montana.

For more (including 5 images) view the original article

In 1864, the year of Helena’s founding, John B. Sanford and Christmas Gift Evans (named after his birth date) arrived in Montana from the East Coast, beginning a friendship on their cross-country journey. In 1865, they formed a business partnership, establishing Helena’s first water-powered sawmill, and they later founded the Sanford and Evans Feed Store, where they sold animal feed, lumber, coal, and heavy-duty farming equipment. When Sanford married in 1877, to celebrate he designed and built a new home, though he later sold it to Evans in 1883. The Christmas Gift Evans House, built at the height of the Second Empire period, embodies the style through its symmetry and ornate exterior. Second Empire architecture emphasizes symmetry because of its necessary mansard roof, which curves downward from a rectangular top, resting evenly above the walls. Mansard roofs, besides standing out visually, also make practical sense, as they allow more living space upstairs, unlike sloping roofs, which form a triangle, providing minimal room. The Christmas Gift Evans House replicates this design: a mansard roof tops the residence with elegant supportive bracketing below, all alongside arched windows, inlaid on each side. The inclusion of cresting on the roof—the ornamental cast-iron fencing—further confirms the home’s Second Empire design. The cresting, with its curves and free-flowing lines, while ornamental, exists to break up the proportional façade below it, providing variation in the symmetrical exterior. Another notable element is the presence of three stone-carved floral friezes on the side tower. Friezes, often found in Second Empire, are decorative horizontal carvings intended to provide more ornamentation and depth to buildings. Like most Second Empire homes, the Christmas Gift Evans House is quite large at 3,500 square feet, containing three bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms within its walls. The whole property rests on 12,600 square feet with spacious front and backyards, including a rear carport, added decades after the original construction. The old landscape did not contain trees, providing an unobstructed street view, unlike now, when trees cover most of the house’s exterior. Requiring little restoration, the Christmas Gift Evans House remains well-preserved, though two notable alterations occurred over time. Originally, a bracketed porch topped with a miniature mansard roof occupied the entrance, lining up with the covered doorway on the side of the house. At some point, the Evans family decided to remove this feature, instead opting for a humbler entrance with minimal decoration. The subsequent owner, Eric Myhre, restored the porch to its initial condition in the 1980s. The domed tower also is not original. Christmas Gift Evans lived in the house until his sudden death in 1915, caused by complications from a leg amputation. The Evans family, however, continued residing there, and his daughter and son-in-law inhabited the home until the late 1970s. The Christmas Gift Evans House, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, continues serving as a private residence and is not open to the public for visitors.

For more (including 6 images) view the original article

The Grand Lodge of Montana, headquarters for Montana Freemasons, was built in Helena in 1868. Freemasonry affected Montana’s history from its earliest beginnings, as Masonic lodges were among the first social organizations in the first Montana mining camps. The Grand Lodge is a home to this history, acting as a library and museum full of historical artifacts, including, most famously, Meriwether Lewis’s masonic apron. Lewis considered his masonic apron one of his most prized possessions, a remarkable feeling for a man who had collected so many valuable artifacts during his legendary expedition with William Clark. When Lewis perished from mysterious gunshot wounds while traveling the Natchez Trace in October 1809, his masonic apron may have been in his pocket. Lewis’s masonic apron is an important artifact, as Lewis was likely the first Freemason to travel through the land that became Montana, and the Montana freemasons went to great lengths to acquire it. Grand Master Joseph Hopper of Billings purchased Lewis’ apron in 1960, and it became the crown jewel of the Grand Lodge’s collection. Another famous masonic artifact housed in the Grand Lodge of Montana is O. C. Seltzer’s painting of the first masonic meeting in Montana at Mullan Pass. The painting depicts three Freemasons camping together high in the Rocky Mountains on September 23, 1862. Those who visit the Grand Lodge of Montana today may view this original freemason meeting painted by Seltzer. From 1868 until the present, Freemasons have actively held meetings in this impressive Art Deco structure.

For more (including 3 images) view the original article

The land that became Montana was originally the territory of Native peoples. Its current Native tribes include the Blackfeet, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Crow, Shoshoni, Sioux, Gros Ventre, Salish, and Kootenai. A limited number of white settlers and missionaries had been in the area in the early nineteenth century, but it was not organized into a territory until May 28, 1864, during the Civil War. As with many western states, a gold rush brought the first significant wave of white settlers. White immigration and encroachment led to escalating violence and the invasion of the United States Army. The period of conflict after the Civil War, notably including the Battle of Little Bighorn, resulted in the forced removal of Native peoples onto reservation land. Mining, fur, ranching, timber, and agriculture continued to draw white settlers to the territory and on November 8, 1889 Montana was admitted to the Union as the forty-first state. Helena became the Territorial Capitol after the Legislature moved it from Virginia City in 1875, but it was not officially ratified as the site by election until 1894. The following year, a Capitol Commission was authorized by the State Legislature and a design by George R. Mann was approved with construction beginning in 1896. The Capitol follows a neoclassical design and is made of sandstone and granite with a copper dome topped by a Columbia figure. State Representative Fred Whiteside exposed a plot by Commission members to use cheap materials and embezzle leftover funds from the project, after which the Commission disbanded and a second one was convened. The second commission chose Charles Bell and John Kent to complete the capitol, and the cornerstone was laid July 4, 1899. The construction of the Capitol happened in two phases with the main section completed in 1902 and the wings constructed in 1911-1912. An outside firm known as F. Pedretti’s Sons decorated and furnished the 1902 section, but when the wings were built the state commissioned Montana artists to adorn them. One of these Montana artists, Charles M. Russell, created the 12-feet by 25-feet painting titled “Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians at Ross’ Hole” which hangs in the chamber of the House of Representatives. Within the rotunda there are four portraits representing early Montana: a prospector, a trapper, and Native chief, and a cowboy. Various busts and statues of important Montanans fill the landings of the grand staircase, and murals adorn the walls of the main hall, notably one donated by the Northern Pacific Railroad to commemorate the completion of a portion of the transcontinental railroad in Gold Creek on September 8, 1883. In front of the Capitol steps stands a bronze statue of Thomas Francis Meagher, a Union general in the Civil War and a representative of the many Irish immigrants who settled in Montana. Earthquakes damaged the capitol in 1935, but Works Progress Administration workers restored or replaced the damaged elements. Updates and upkeep continue at Montana’s State Capitol, securing its place as a modern seat of government and a monument to its past.

For more (including 3 images) view the original article

On the late summer evening of September 6, 1916, Montana’s capital city of Helena formally unveiled and dedicated its newest landmark: a $2,000 fountain gracing the highest hill of a city park. George H. Carsley, known as “the architect of Helena,” designed the fountain and made it from native Montana granite. Even though it was a monument in Montana, it did not memorialize anyone from the Big Sky State. Instead, carved into the side were the words, “A Loving Tribute to Our Confederate Soldiers.” Helena’s local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy—three members strong with Mrs. Aiken, Mrs. Read, and Gertrude “Georgia” C. Young—had fundraised for the fountain since 1903 and donated it to the city. In a dedicatory speech, Young said the fountain was the Daughters’ gift to their new home, and she praised the city’s American spirit of unity in which there were no bad feelings between the American North and South. “On behalf of the Daughters of the Confederacy,” she concluded, “I present this fountain to the city of Helena as a token of our esteem toward our new home.” City attorney Edward Horsky declared, “Helena is pleased and honored to accept this substantial and beautiful donation.” Horsky added that the fountain would “long keep bright the memory” of its donor, the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Although fifty years removed from the Civil War, the nation was in the middle of a decades-long movement to memorialize the Confederacy. Helena’s fountain was one of hundreds of memorials built and dedicated in the first half of the twentieth century (see tour introduction for “Confederate Imagery in the Intermountain West”). At the same time that more and more Confederate monuments dotted the nation, the Ku Klux Klan also resurged in activity and membership nationwide, including in Helena, terrorizing Black Americans. Aiken, Read, and Young fundraised for and built the Confederate Memorial Fountain against this backdrop, reifying White reconciliation and undermining Black experiences under the chattel slavery the Confederacy promoted. And though they gave Helena a memorial for Confederate soldiers, the city built no Civil War monument for Union soldiers thereafter, whether Black or White, even though there were Union veterans who lived in Helena, including the architect Carlsey himself. Nearly one hundred years later, on June 17, 2015, a white supremacist gunman murdered nine Black Americans at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The shock rippled across the United States, reaching Helena and prompting residents to scrutinize their fountain more critically. The Helena City Commission asked the county Heritage Tourism Council to design a sign with contextualizing history to place near the fountain. By August, heritage preservation officer Pam Attardo proposed a text which explained how Confederate memorials were tools in “the South’s quest for vindication after the Civil War.” The proposed sign even mentioned the United Daughters’ influence on school textbooks and curriculum. However, the city discovered that a sign large enough to accommodate Attardo’s text legibly would have to be massive, and the project stalled. For two years, Attardo checked in with city officials every few months to no avail while the Heritage Tourism Council waited for the city to approve the sign. In the wake of violence and death at the August 12, 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Confederate markers returned to the national conversation and to Helena. On August 15, the American Indian Caucus of Montana’s state legislature issued a call to remove the fountain entirely, and other advocates joined the call. On August 16, the City Commission held a hearing to decide the fountain’s fate. About forty Helena residents spoke, both for and against removal. Some Helenites claimed removing the fountain would disgrace history, though Montana blogger Don Pogreba wryly observed that such “passionate regard for history… seemed to be lacking when… the Montana Historical Society’s funding was under debate” several months earlier. In the end, the Commission directed city workers to remove the fountain on August 18. For lack of better storage, the city moved it to an undisclosed field where it remains. In February 2018, local civil rights advocate Ron Waterman began raising money to replace the now-gone fountain with a new monument: an Equity Fountain dedicated to equality and compassion. The grassroots campaign fundraised, called for designs, and met with the Public Arts Committee. In January 2019, the City Commission voted unanimously to accept the Equity Fountain as a donation, and in April 2020 the city installed it. Once again, Helena was “pleased and honored to accept” a “substantial and beautiful donation.”

For more (including 4 images) view the original article