From the Montana Collection

Kootenai Valley Before the Dam

Before the construction of Libby Dam, the Kootenai River valley between Libby and Eureka was home to a string of small communities. Some of these towns were largely abandoned by the time the river began its irreversible rise, while others were inhabited until the last dry days of the valley. The waters of Lake Koocanusa have covered these townsites for over 20 years. The stories of these communities are preserved in the memories of the families that founded and lived in them. They have also been recorded in a few books such as "Early Flathead and Tobacco Plains", by Marie Shea. Chapter 33 of this work describes the small towns that sprung up along the railroad.

"When the Great Northern built the Fernie Branch to Jennings in 1901 to haul coal for its trains, they also needed water tanks, for the steam engines took on water frequently. At most of the water tanks, section crews, homes, and depots were needed. Of course Newgate-Gateway was the main one because of the immigration and import-export requirements. A few miles south was short-lived Hayden, then Rexford, which moved up a mile or two from the old town to be on the railroad; it became an active little trading center.....

And so the town of Rexford (the second) grew as the settlers came, and the Great Northern Railroad had a roundhouse with "helper" engines and a "Beanery" for its railroad workers and the public....Various restaurants, saloons and dance halls opened and closed, a schoolhouse and a Catholic church were built, and eventually water was piped down from Sullivan Creek.

Down the railroad from Rexford was Rondo at the mouth of Pinkham Creek, where Fred Marvel, then his son Jerry Marvel ranched until flooded out. An early day legend was that a man named Alec Watch lived here, then disappeared; the homestead and Watch's new Winchester were in the possession of a man named Keller soon after.

The next section crew was at Stonehill where the Frank, Joe and John Peck families lived.... Stonehill first had a log school, but soon after 1914 hired C.W. Daggett and sons Clarence and Elmer to erect a full basement with stone walls and a furnace....Just above Stonehill was a hairpin curve called Curve 88; one day Engineer Pete Guhtenson had the throttle wide open on the fast No. 2 train. It couldn't hold on the curve and the engine plowed right into the river; fortunately no one was killed.

The next section town downriver was Tweed.....here on the flat meadowland lived the Lawrences; Mr. Lawrence one day kissed his wife goodbye, left on the train and never returned. Young Lewis Schrubbe, who had been working for them, stayed on with Mrs. Lawrence, and eventually owned the place..

Below Tweed was Ural, where Wenzel and Josephine Fritch and their son Jerry came from Czechoslovakia to homestead in May 1904... A number of Russians (who named the area after their Ural Mountains) were employed on the railroad. One night a train killed one of them, and it was Jerry's duty as track walker and railroad inspector to pick up the pieces of the body in a bucket, which he then placed in the carhouse. When morning came and the other Russians learned of the accident, they simply disappeared, being very superstitious in the face of death...

On below Ural were Valcour, Warland, Yarnell and Jennings. Warland, in spite of the intense cold, deep snow, and short growing season, had quite a number of homesteaders, who gradually turned to woods or mill work with the growth of the Baird-Harper Lumber Company. This employed a great many men in its mill, planer and wood operations. There was a ferry across the river, but no road to Libby or Rexford; when Earl Hansberry's father's first car arrived by railroad car, there were few miles of road on which to drive it. The company had offices, a general merchandise store, boarding and rooming houses; there was also a hotel, church, drug store, pool room, board walks and a long street of private houses, as well as the handsome white lumber two-story schoolhouse for the many children of the mill families.

Jennings, founded with the railroad construction in 1892, was a good-sized town also before its major fires of 1904 and 1914. It once had 1500 persons.... At each of these small towns lived hardy pioneers such as those mentioned above, most of them coming after the railroad. They had the stamina and determination to face the deep snow, the isolation and the cold winter to try to carve their homes out of this rugged beautiful canyon."

Shea, Marie. Early Flathead and Tobacco Plains , 1977. pp. 206-211