Celebrating History: Holding a picnic at Assinniboine

Editor’s note: Due to internet problems, this column was not available Friday when it normally runs.

By Emily Mayer

Summer was upon us 100 years ago and the War to End All Wars raged on in Europe. Registered men were warned they must appear before exemption boards; those in the logging business would see the first service in France because of their “first hands practical experience” in order to convert timber into useable railroad ties, bridge timbers, mine props and trench timbers; a selective draft for those in the medical field was being proposed by the Montana State Health Officers’ Association; and those enlisting in the U.S. Army or Navy were going to be fully protected for the time needed to prove up on their homesteads if a bill carried by John Evans was successful in Congress.

Locally, farmers were looking forward to an annual picnic. This article was found on the front page of The Havre Plaindealer’s July 14, 1917 issue:

ASSINNIBOINE PICNIC FOR FARMERS JULY 26

Good Speakers Have Been Engaged For Occasion.

July 26th has been set as the date for a farmer’s picnic at the Assinniboine experiment station, and it is the hope of those in charge of arrangements that every farmer in Hill county who can do be present.

A notice of the picnic sent out by County Agent Banker reads as follows:

’Every resident of Hill County is interested in what is growing on the thousand plots at Fort Assinniboine Experiment Station, eight miles south of Havre. Everybody will be welcome to inspect the work of dryland farming, hear big speakers, and have a good time, as well as receive benefit in dryland farming. Bring a lunch basket and be on hand at the Assinniboine Experiment Station on July 26th.’

With more people coming to live in Hill County brings more goods. This uplifting article was also found on the Plaindealer’s front page:

EXPRESS BUSINESS HERE DOUBLES CAPITAL CITY

According to Figures Compiled for Month of June.

Havre’s increasing importance as a business center is strikingly shown in a perusal of the express business done here during the month of June as compared with the same business over the Great Northern at Helena, the capital city. In the month cited the local express office did a business totaling $11,092.99, while Helena for the same period shows total figures of $5,162.70, or a trifle more than half of the figures shown in Havre.

When is it considered that Havre has only about half the population of Helena, the figures cited can but point out Havre’s importance as one of the leading business centers in the state.

There was one social gathering announced in the Society column:

Slumber Party.

Miss Gertrude Williams entertained a number of girl friends at a slumber party Wednesday night at the home of Mrs. W. C. Gibb.

Those invited to spend the night with the hostess were Miss Viva Pickett, Gertrude Shephard, Lela Campbell, Anna Skylstead, Josephine Saunders, Anna Wilson, Ruth Williams, Margery Giggs and Ruth Shephard.

I’m going to chalk this entry found in the Of Local Interest social pages up in the column “the more things change, the more they stay the same”:

Local attorneys are regaling themselves with an account of a certain Havre lawyer who handles cases of a questionable nature, who made such a miserable showing before the state supreme court recently that the judges of that tribunal administered a rebuke in the form of deliberately leaving the chamber while the Havre attorney was trying to present his case.