Remember When?

90 YEARS AGO • JUNE 1, 1932

INAUGURATION SATURDAY, JUNE 4 OF FARMER’S MARKET AT THE MERCANTILE

A committee from the Woman’s Club were instructed to endeavor to promote a Farmer’s Market or Curb Market and this they have succeeded in doing. A number of women from the west end and some from out Eddy way will initiate this market Saturday afternoon from 3 to 5 at the Mercantile store. The management has given them a window, also the women will display their produce outside if the weather permits. Their prices will be in accordance with the market in town with the added value of being perfectly fresh. There will be dressed chickens for sale, cottage cheese, homemade bread and rolls, butter, cream and anything else that the farm can produce at this time.

Any farm woman who has produce to sell is asked to join this movement and to bring or send by one who will take charge of her produce. Cooperation of the town women to buy and the farm women to sell will mean success for this movement.

40 YEARS AGO • JUNE 17, 1982

HANK BENNETT SELLS PLAINS DRUG STORE

Henry C. Bennett, owner of Plains Drug, will no longer be standing in the prescription room with a ready smile and a cheery laugh; nor Mrs. Bennett there to speak a nice word to you and wish you a cheery “good morning.” Mike Larson of Miles City has purchased the Plains Drug.

Hank started in as a pharmacist in 1934 for the Missoula Drug Co. He worked there on and off for the next five years.

In 1939 he and Alta were married. They had two daughters, Carol and Edna. Hank worked at the Deer Lodge and Florence drug stores before he joined the Navy in 1943. He was in the medical corps in charge of wounded men taking them to the hospitals closest to their personal homes.

After his discharge in 1945, he returned to Deer Lodge to work in the drug store.

He bought the Plains Drug in 1973 from William Durham.

The Bennetts are looking forward to their retirement, a chance to be at their cabin and do many things that they always planned to do but didn’t have time.

Mike Larson of Miles City and his wife, who is an RN and will be working at Clark Fork Valley Hospital, and their two boys, Matthew, 5, and Nathan 3, should find Plains a nice “home town,” where people are friendly and caring.

FATHERS, SHERIFFS HONORED AT MUSEUM

Every day is Father’s Day – that is during the month of June – at the Sanders County Historical Museum in Thompson Falls, where a new exhibit shows the many tools which fathers used to create communities in western Montana.

Appropriately, the old jail building will also honor those special fathers, the sheriffs, who guided, protected and gathered up those who got out of line during the growth of this area.

First sheriff was Clyde E. Baker, who was appointed to the position in 1906. Following Baker came John H. Massey, who was elected in 1907. From that time on, 12 sturdy men served, some for multiple terms in sequence, and some in alternating elections, all encountered unique challenges during their terms.

The pictures and service periods of each of these men have been gathered, researched and handsomely mounted on a large plaque of sheriff’s badges by Ann Sloan, Joyce Bybee, Vernette Brauer and Barbara Laws. They are displayed in the museum.

Bank robbers, con artists, cattle rustlers and petty thieves – strangers and locals, men and women – all were county guests through the years.

In addition to Baker, Sanders County sheriffs have been: John Massey, Sam Vanderpool, William Moser, Joseph Hartman, Perry Heater, Phil Johnston, Howard Larson, Wally Britton, A. Ben Cox, Richard Cole, Robert Snider, A.H. Cheney and Harvey Shultz.

Sheriff Says Quit Gambling! No monkey business will be tolerated by the officers of Sanders County.

“It has been reported that there has been gambling going on in Sanders County. Perhaps you have heard about it. But if there is, it must stop. I have given orders and instructed my deputies to arrest any persons caught gambling and I intend that gambling, if there has been any, shall cease and I intend seeing that it does stop, and I want you to publish it and make it strong, so there will be no misunderstanding.”

So quoted Sheriff Baker to the Ledger man on Monday and there you have it in about the words he used. Evidently the lid is to be closed down tight so far as gambling is concerned in Sanders County.