Remember When?

40 YEARS AGO

NOVEMBER 22, 1979

CLIFF WEARE, NOXON PIONEER PASSES

Graveside services were conducted at the Noxon Cemetery Saturday for Clifford R. Weare, 102, a pioneer of the Noxon area, who died November 14.

Weare was born in North Loop, Nebraska, December 25, 1877. He came to Noxon in June 1903 when the town was comprised of only the Northern Pacific railroad buildings and a couple of shacks. Sanders County had not yet been formed.

In 1904, he established the Post and Poles general merchandise store in Noxon and later had the post office in it until it burned down. He was a lumberman and had several sawmills and floated 80 to 90 foot logs down Bull River to the Clark Fork River.

During 1908 he worked for the Orr brothers survey crew, mapping the area. He homesteaded near Noxon in 1914.

During World War I he helped organize a cooperative effort to build the Peoples Store in Noxon. In 1919 it burned. In 1930, after the highway was built through the area to connect with Idaho, he built a service station, the Hereford, four miles west of Noxon. The Hereford was a popular place, well known for the honeymoon cabin he had constructed in a treetop towering above the service station, store and café.

Always interested in minerals and mining and believing in a future for mining in the area, his best known success in promoting it was by selling claims to what is now ASARCO holdings in the Scotchmans Peak area south of Troy.

Until his strength failed him recently, he was still actively promoting a hydroelectric dam on the Kootenai River between Troy and Libby to help supply the energy needs of the area.

Clifford Richard & Pearl M. Weare #2 Ethel M. (Baxter)

From Pioneers and Settlers of Heron, Montana

(Following taken from A glimpse of Homesteading History – The River Journal, June 8, 1999 by Dennis Nicholls as told by his son Richard F.) At the age of 15 or 16, Clifford boarded a Northern Pacific train bound for Montana. He got off in Hot Springs, took a stage to Plains, then made his way downstream to Noxon where he spent his first night in the town, he would come to call home, in the depot. That was June 1903.

He later noted in an article by the Missoulian Dec. 21, 1977 – That the only people residing there at that time were his parents, Dan Delong and Ed Hampton. The town consisted of a couple of crude shacks, the Northern Pacific depot and a big woodshed in which was stored the enormous amount of wood required to fuel the engines.

Cliff found a place to stay with an old bachelor logger until about a year later, when he started a store. The town of Noxon, still an outpost in the wild west setting, was all the more notorious back then because of Mrs. Bartholomew and her sister, the “Buckskin Twins,” who were bootleggers and operated the town’s first red light district.

From the River Journal, June 8, 1999 – Clifford’s ranch was near the present day Hereford. They had a garden, about a hundred head of cattle and did some logging and haying. When the Depression found the Clark Fork valley, Cliff lost $40,000 in the Plains bank. Hearing there was trouble, Cliff had hopped a train to Plains to get his money, only to find that the bank had closed its doors. The A.C. White mill on the Pend Oreille River owed Cliff $20,000, but the Depression closed that down, and he didn’t get that money either.

Cliff then shipped the cattle to Spokane, but what they got for them didn’t pay the freight. In the end, Cliff had about 80 cents in his pocket. That was in 1929.

It wasn’t the end though; Cliff and his son Mickey went up Bull River to cut hay for Frank Berray. They would also spear Char or Bull trout, which migrated from Lake Pend Oreille to spawn. Apparently, it was not unusual to pull 30-pounders from the river’s flow. Ethel grew a good garden and was a good cook.

In 1931, Cliff built Weare’s Service Station on the site that is now occupied by The Hereford. The main highway through the valley, which was still only a dirt road, was being built at that time. It was a combination restaurant and service station. Mickey said that he and his mom stayed on the ranch raising turkeys while his dad pumped gas at the new station. Cliff also built a garage across the road, from which he operated a towing service. What with the road having hardly any gravel, it was common for someone to get stuck.