Remember When?

Sanders County Independent Ledger

December 16, 1942

80 Years Ago

Our Hobby

Sanders County has an exciting and thrilling history of political, economic and personal strife that would make a melodramatic thriller for a movie – county seat fights, destructive forest fires, native american lore, shootings, political intrigue and struggles for power and domination.

One by one the old timers who lived through those tempestuous days are passing. Except by vague rumor and word of mouth, these stirring chapters in Sanders County are being forgotten. “West of Thompson, there ain’t no law, and west of Tuscor, there ain’t no God.”

So, we have finally decided this winter to indulge in our secret ambition to try and compile some fairly accurate facts on the history of this county. That is, providing business is slow during January and February and we aren’t constantly rushed doing job work, billing, details and filling out government reports.

If business is slow, we hope to get time to sort out our files, hunt through old Ledgers, take clippings and try to interview as many old timers as we can. Johnny Miller, Seymour Hurlburt, A.C. Preston, A. S. Ainsworth, etc. We have already interviewed Seymour Hurlburt and he told us about the vigilante days when about four hangings in a day were in order, and the last victim they gave a break because he was so bad and only robbed a couple saloons and shot up a bartender, so they let him make a run for the river and then took duck shots at him, and he never came up.

We may even get time to go up to Missoula and see Ed Donlin, Dan Arms and others, or up to Plains and interview some of the old timers there,such as C. S. Rittenour or anyone else who requests an interview.

In the meantime, if anyone has any old historical clippings, real old back files, or wants to send us some material, it will be welcome. Don’t tho try to elaborate on Montana or Western history in general, because just to cover Sanders County is a job, let alone the state.

We may never use any of this material, but again we may use it for historical comments in small write ups, or in sunnier days after the war, compile a history in book form, or use it for semi-fiction purposes.

We have tried to get others to take this job but everyone always says, “let George do it,” so we have decided to do it ourselves.

Twenty-One Are Now Out

Twenty-one Montana weekly newspapers have suspended publication since the war started. The latest news of that kind was about the Grass Range Review, published by “Bing” Vrooman. I shall miss that paper with its salty comments.

Maybe there are a few tears shed when a paper suspends publication. Often the editor has hung on for months or years after the paper ceased to enjoy a profit. Printers, as I know them, are a strange lot. They are not the best businessmen in the world. Often, they speak out when silence would be much more golden. The raft of them is ornery and they like to argue. Sometimes they get into needless fights. But they do speak the voice of the people where they live and many printers you find an obscure gift of authorship.

School Census Declines

School census has dropped this year. Last year the total number of young people in the county from 6 to 21 years of age totaled 1,792 and this year 1,635. Last year the census count also receded from previous year’s count. The drop was reflected by decreases in all parts of the county, although the most there were 592 children and infants under six years of age in the county compared with 573 last year, which shows that at least the Stork was on the job.

The school census for the county is as follows with the 1942 count being listed first and opposite of the 1941 count by districts.

Plains 232-232; Thompson 268-285, of these 158 are in the grade school, 168 in high school. In the high school, 119 of the enrollments represents dormitory registration., and of the dormitory registration 69 are from outside the county and other states and 50 are students registered from the county, making a total of 326 in our school system: Heron 84-88; Whitepine 81-68; Lynch Creek 14-15; Trout Creek 119-139; Swamp Creek 20-19; Paradise 98-97; Dixon 152-224; Noxon 98-115; Perma 68-84; Lonepine 126-142; Weeksville 27-26; Hot Springs 237-243; Oliver Gulch 11-15.

Whitepine was the only district which showed any appreciable gain over the preceding year, while most districts showed census declines over the preceding year from a few to a considerable percentage, Plains, Swamp Creek, Paradise and Weeksville tied or had one more student than the preceding year, but the total decrease in the county was around 150.