Joshua Spotted Dog ...

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Montana's Native American peoples received a surprising amount of attention from artists and photographers ... people who were presumably enchanted by the romance of the vanishing Indian lifestyle, and who hoped to document it in their own way before it was too late.

An intriguing but lesser-known person in this category was a woman named Olga Ross Hannon, an Midwestern transplant who taught art at the college in Bozeman from 1921 until her death in 1947. Hannon's paintings and other work explored a variety of Montana themes, including explorations of Native Native American art and culture. (Hannon Hall on the MSU campus is named for her.)

The evocative image below is credited to Hannon ... it's a portrait of a man named Joshua Spotted Dog, taken at Poplar on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation.

A Horse Called Music ...

For years now, I've kept an eye out for popular music lyrics that mention Montana. Some of the songs I've found really feel like true reflections of the state, while others (perhaps the majority) could be written about almost anyplace ... but choose to take advantage of the evocative "hook" provided by our state's name.

A song that probably fits the latter category is "A Horse Called Music," recorded by Willie Nelson back in 1989 and used as the title of one of his albums. (A couple of other folks, including Randy Travis, have covered the song, as well.) The song does a good job of capturing the wistful lonesomeness many people associate with the work Montana, but is otherwise straight out of Tennessee, and was written by the prolific Nashville songwriter Wayne Carson.

High on a mountain in western Montana
A silhouette moves 'cross a cinnamon sky
Riding alone on a horse he called Music
With a song on his lips, and a tear in his eye

. . . .

He rode the Music from Boston to Bozeman
For not too much money, but way too much ride
But those were the days when a horse he called Music
Could jump through the moon and sail across the sky

Places known and come to before ...

In 1938, during what would prove to be the last summer of his life, the novelist Thomas Wolfe undertook a great adventure -- a marathon automobile roadtrip across the West, aiming to visit as many National Parks as possible. Crammed into a Ford sedan with two companions, Wolfe managed to put on 4,500 miles in a little under two weeks, and glimpse eleven of the parks.

Wolfe died two and a half months after the vacation ended, and the diary that he kept during the trip was later found in his papers ... and a portion of it was published in The Virginia Quarterly Review the following year. Here's an excerpt from the VQR article, describing one of the three days Wolfe spent in Montana. (The piece misattributes the railroad that runs over Bozeman Pass, but since Wolfe never had the chance to proofread his journal, I guess he can be forgiven for that.)

The town of Gardiner, small and somewhat bleak with a string of Pullman cars that came up in the morning and two Pullman porters coming down the street. Now away along the Valley of the Yellowstone, and at first the bleak denuded hills, the rushing river, the clear fast fish. Then the naked hills enlarging into rolling cliffs and forested (the timber deeper here than Utah—the maternal granite now, no longer limestone—and the valley greening with the widening and clean-watered River of Yellowstone). An enchanted valley now with upslope to the east and right and timbered Rockies going into snow and granite and the cliffs, nude spaciousness. The valley is not so green as Mormon land mayhaps—but thick with grasses yellowed somewhat from the teeth of steers. The nude ranges towards the timbered cliffs, and to the west the miracle of evening light and the celebrated river called the Yellowstone and trees most green and marvelous. It is a scene at once familiar and unknown, with elements like those before in Mormon land but here by some miracle transformed into this Itselfness. There are barns now painted red upon the upland rise of ranges to the east and fading light—and so to Livingston, like places known and come to before.

Supper at the U. P. station and the waitress with the tired face, and yet with charm, reticence, and intelligence. Outside, the walls of rain (the moaning of full rivers lapping at the rear) and the bald hills all about. So out and to the westward, the ripe greenery left behind now and the bald ridges closing in. The rise across the Bozeman Pass, and then the steep descent, the U. P. descending steeply with us, and ascending too, the double-header and then the lights of Bozeman—the broad main street ablaze with power of brightness and abundant light. The hotel, the cafe for hamburgers and milk, and so, bed.

The Crystal ...

One more neon photo for today ... this is the Crystal, a dark, blue-collar bar that's been on Bozeman's Main Street for decades.

This is a great sign, though it's actually a fairly recent creation ... the Crystal's original neon sign is now hanging inside the barroom. I confess that I know this because part of my misspent youth was mis-spent at the Crystal. Anticipatory historical research, I suppose ...

Bozeman neon ...

I love taking photos of old signs, and I've been doing that in Bozeman for years, now. The neon ones are the best, of course, and Bozeman has a few really great ones ... like this one, up on North 7th. Who wouldn't want to stay at a motel that has a sign lit up like that?

Malmborg School ...

I'm definitely intrigued by old Montana schoolhouses, and here's a photo of what might be the coolest one of all. This is the old Malmborg School, constructed 106 years ago in the Jackson Creek area east of Bozeman.

It's a great little schoolhouse, and a great old photo ... but the best part is that the building is still around today. And not only that, it still serves as an operating one-room school! How cool is that?

Siesta Motel ...

For whatever reason, many Americans have long tended to associate modernity with the state of California. The appeal of the Golden State translated itself into American culture in a variety of ways, and one of those was architecture. Beginning in the 1920s or so, building designs that evoked southern California themes became popular across the country, especially for businesses that reflected contemporary trends. Movie theaters and motels, for example, often tried to feature a Southwestern "look" ... even in faraway places like Montana.

Here's a great example from Bozeman -- the Siesta Motel, as it looked in a postcard view from the 1940s or so. Back then, the Siesta was at the edge of town, at a major intersection on the main road heading towards Yellowstone Park. Today, of course, the motel is long gone, and its location is near the center of a fast-growing city. There's still a motel at the site, though ... and happily, the current motel is as quirky as the old Siesta was.

The Northern Airway ...

I did a series of posts last year featuring historic railroad-related advertising and graphic art ... so in the spirit of granting equal time I thought I'd do a few airline posts over the next few days. Not quite as cool as the train stuff, but pretty interesting nonetheless.

Today's graphic is the logo of an airline you've almost certainly never heard of: Mamer Air Transport. The company was founded in the late 1920s by Nick Mamer, one of the Pacific Northwest's most intriguing aviation pioneers ... he's best remembered for piloting a biplane called the Spokane Sun-God on a world-record, nonstop 7,200-mile flight in 1929.

By 1930, Mamer Air Transport had pioneered one of the first long-distance airline routes across Montana. Dubbed "The Northern Airway," the route combined daytime air travel with overnight train journeys to enable faster travel between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest. Passengers took a night train to Minneapolis, boarded a "Buhl Air Sedan" for an all-day flight to Spokane, and then caught a second overnight train the rest of the way to the coast. The plane's Montana stops included Miles City, Billings, Butte, and Missoula, and passengers were treated to lunch at the airport in Miles City.

The Northern Airway route apparently operated only briefly, made obsolete by ever-faster aircraft and advances in nighttime flying. By the early 1930s, Mamer had abandoned his venture and taken a job as a Northwest Airlines pilot, flying nearly the same route across Montana. And in January 1938, Mamer's plane crashed in the Bridger Mountains north of Bozeman, killing all aboard ... the state's first commercial airline disaster.

Buy a Nash ...

One more historic photo from Bozeman this morning. This is an early 1950s shot of Norine Motors, the town's Nash dealership. The old building is still there, up on North 7th Avenue, but of course the great old sign is long gone, and there's not a Nash in sight. Too bad ...

Lost architecture ...

Seeing yesterday's Kalispell photo prompted me to post an image of another great mid-century Montana bank building -- this is a postcard view of the old Security Bank & Trust building in Bozeman, constructed in 1960. It was an outstanding example of an exceptional, but under-appreciated architectural era.

Unfortunately, this building is gone, too ... First Security Bank destroyed it a couple of years ago and replaced it with a facility that can only be described as awful, both architecturally and functionally. I've had my accounts there for nearly thirty years, and every time I interact with the new building I mourn for the old one, and want to withdraw every penny from its replacement.

Story Mill ...

People don't usually think of Bozeman as an industrial city ... but there was actually a fair amount of it back in the day, mostly related to agriculture. The old Story Mill complex north of town is the greatest monument to that era; though it's been empty for years, it's still an impressive and majestic Bozeman landmark.

A few years ago, the Story Mill property was acquired by a developer with lots of ambition but little regard for the community, and a vast redevelopment scheme was proposed. But then the project (and the developer's fortunes) collapsed in dramatic fashion, and everything was abandoned. Now time and vandalism are taking their toll, and the future of the old mill is bleaker than ever.

Old motels ...

There's little doubt that the age of the postcard is pretty much over ... thanks to the Internet, I suppose. And it's too bad, because they're great pieces of Americana.

Half a century ago, motels were among the most popular postcard subjects -- the cards were a great form of advertising, and were left in guest rooms and handed out at the registration desk. You still see a few of them, but they're a lot less interesting since motels are mostly corporate endeavors these days, and look pretty much the same.

Here's a Montana postcard view from the 1950s. This is the Ranch House Motel along US 10 at the eastern edge of Bozeman ... and the cool thing about this card is that the motel (and the sign) still exist today.

Rivals ...

So today is the day of the annual Cat-Griz football game ... the University of Montana versus Montana State. I'm not going to weigh in on the thing, because as I've said I think big-time sports fandom is pretty silly. I think I'll just get the heck out of town for a few hours to escape some of the nonsense.

That said, I suppose I could compare the two schools in some other way ... though for my own safety I won't go so far as to say which of the universities is the better one. Instead, as an historian and an architecture fan I could compare the campuses. Both have a number of extremely handsome old buildings and thoroughly nondescript newer ones, and both have coldly destroyed some of their landmarks ... though overall I think UM has both the best architecture, and some of the worst.

Both of the schools originally had campus plans designed by Cass Gilbert, one of the most noted of twentieth-century architects ... and both schools have thoroughly erased many of those lovely landscapes with really unfortunate new construction. MSU's behavior has been particularly egregious in this regard.

But the most telling thing is a look at the focal points of the two campuses. Montana Hall at MSU barely stands out at all, with the new buildings overshadowing it and the erratic landscaping ... and the fact that the school's awful-looking pedestrian mall runs along the back of the building, so that's all that most people ever see. The UM campus couldn't be more different -- their Main Hall is the keystone of a huge grassy oval, and is backed by a mountain with a giant "M" on it. And at the other end of the oval there's a giant bronze grizzly. It's all gorgeous, and couldn't be more perfect.

Though they'll never admit it, the MSU people have been insanely jealous of the oval and that grizzly for a very long time ... so this year they set up a big metal bobcat on a nondescript plaza at the Bozeman campus. It's a pale and obvious imitation, and actually kinda sad.

So even if you don't care about football, now you know which campus wins.

Bozeman Halloween ...

I confess that I'm not really much of a fan of Halloween, so I devoted yesterday to another of my small-town drives ... but I got back to Bozeman in time to stop by the town's historic Story Mansion. The Friends group that supports the facility had decorated the outside of the place in honor of the day, and were handing out treats on the front porch. It was all quite a success, and the old house looked extremely cool:

Mountain valley ...

Today's photo is a shot of my very favorite part of Gallatin County ... the far north end of the Gallatin Valley, still a land of big farms and one-room schoolhouses and amazing views. The trophy homes have barely encroached up here, though I'm sure it'll happen someday.

Yuppies ...

Today's photo is just a quick shot of some graffiti I found in Bozeman a few years ago. Apparently we have yuppies!

Small-town life ...

I had a discussion with an online friend recently about urban versus rural life ... the friend lives in Washington, D.C. and he told me that he thought life in a smaller town would inevitably be "barren." His statement was something I'd heard many times before, but it still disappointed me. I know I'll never understand people who think that having a few more restaurant choices is more rewarding than being able to see a Montana sunset.

And even discounting the sunsets, there are wonderful experiences out here. I was thinking about that last night, when I volunteered to help with an evening called "Story under the Stars." It's an outdoor film festival being held on the grounds of the Story Mansion, one of Montana's finest historic homes. Our group gave tours of the old mansion, and then folks set up a movie screen on the lawn. There were hundreds of people there, spread out on the grass with bags of popcorn, and the evening was perfect. A real community event, and a fine time ... and another reminder that life out here is far from barren.

Movie palaces ...

I'm a huge fan of old movie theaters ... the new multiplexes just can't compare, and watching a DVD at home is really no fun at all. But there aren't all that many left, especially ones that still show movies.

As far as the big movie palaces go ... well, you can still see a film at the Wilma in Missoula, but the Ellen in Bozeman and the Fox in Billings have been turned into performing arts venues, which in a way is a little sad. You'll have better luck in some of Montana's smaller communities -- there's the Judith up in Lewistown, and the wonderful Roxy out in Forsyth. And there are lots of old theatre buildings that are now closed, but continue to be very evocative places. One of my favorites in that category is the Yucca, in the little town of Hysham.

Without a doubt, though, the most amazing movie theatre in Montana is the Washoe, in downtown Anaconda. Opened in 1936, the Washoe is a 1,000-seat Art Deco masterpiece ... and the best part is that it still shows movies, just as its builders intended. This is a shot of the Washoe's magnificent auditorium, photographed by Jet Lowe in 1979 for the Historic American Buildings Survey:

Summer appreciation ...

Montana's in the midst of a few days of absolutely glorious mid-summer life: temperatures in the 80s, everything green and lovely, shorts and flip-flops abound. And we should appreciate it all the more, since summers in Montana are so maddeningly brief.

I thought I'd remind us all of that fact by posting the photo below this morning -- a late-afternoon shot of Bozeman taken on a ridiculously-frigid day last December. Things will look like this again soon enough ...

Marching ...

The Fourth of July is a time for patriotic reflections, of course, but in Bozeman this year it was also a venue for political expression. There were two marches down the town's Main Street yesterday morning ... one was sponsored by an angry, far-right group, but the other was far more good-natured, designed to poke a bit of fun at the right-wingers.

My dog and I marched with the latter group, a very genial bunch united under the satirical name, "The Green Coalition of Gay Loggers for Jesus." It was a fine time, and the perfect way to celebrate the Fourth. I took this photo a few minutes after the march ended, and it seemed like a good reflection of the holiday.