by Allan Tooley
Dog Gulch is a few miles “upstream” from McKinley, and was the site of a minor gold rush in 1869. Things didn’t go particularly well, and there was never a whole lot of gold there anyway. But more than most Montana ghost towns, Dog Gulch’s story warrants a roadside history marker. If you haven’t been through the area lately, here’s a photo:
by Allan Tooley
I came across an interesting find at a small antique show I stopped at while driving through Idaho last week. I like looking for ephemeral antiques –paper items, documents, maps, that sort of thing– and I’m starting to build quite a sub-interest in McKinley-related ephemera. I picked up a little knowledge in the field when I worked for some ephemera collectors about fifteen years ago, and am only now starting to re-discover some of the things I’d forgotten.
This is what’s known as a linen postcard. Linens first came out in the 1930s, when Curt Teich, the largest postcard publisher in the world, was looking for a way to enable more saturated inks to dry quickly enough to preserve brighter colors. Turns out a textured paper did the trick. Then followed two decades of vibrantly, almost decadently colored postcards of nearly every imaginable tourist attraction in the United States. I hadn’t known previously that McKinley had had any issued, but it stands to reason, I suppose. Furthermore, this one was published by the Samuelson Post-Card Company, which I assume is actually an imprint of Samuelson’s Photo, a local shop that dates back to the 1870s. Samuelson’s didn’t necessarily print the postcards; it probably contracted that job out, maybe even to one of the bigger players like Curt Teich.
Now that I know these are out there, I’ll keep my eye open for more.
by Allan Tooley
I went down to Prehistoric Park the other day to take some photos. I wish the light were better, but that’s springtime in Montana.
Prehistoric Park was founded in 1994 by George Mayte. He was hoping, I suppose, to cash in on Jurassic Park fever, since that movie had debuted in the summer of 1993. Fossil hunting and other dinosaur-related industries saw an uptick after the movie came out, so I imagine it seemed like a good idea at the time. Like a lot of folks who’ve come to McKinley over the past 100+ years, he had high hopes and low funding. The park never took off like he wanted, and phases 2 and 3, which included amusement-park-type attractions, stayed looking good on paper. Mayte sold out to a couple of local developers in 2000, and they haven’t done much except keep what’s there in good shape. That’s fine by me; we ended up with a nice place to walk around on a spring day, with fairly impressive paleo-statuary. Here are some photos:
by Allan Tooley
This is an interesting little historical mystery. It’s the first known artistic representation of Macohmet Bluff in present-day McKinley. The notation references a Mr. Berger and the date 1830. In 1830 or 1831, a seasoned trapper by the name of Jacob Berger was dispatched by the American Fur Company to attempt to open trade relations with the Blackfeet. He set out from Fort Union with three companions, and returned some time later with a trade delegation from the Blackfeet nation. Negotiations ensued and a trading post was set up at the mouth of the Marias River. Berger reported that it had taken him some time to find any Blackfeet camps, so this sketch could have been made by one of his men during that time, but it hadn’t previously been thought that his expedition penetrated that far into Blackfeet lands.
Here’s the sketch. Click on it to see a larger version.
by Lance Foster
Here’s the photo that accompanied the WPA interview of Edgar Takes-the-Pipe. Click on it to see a larger version.
