Magera tells of homesteading, gangs, KKK in Havre 100 years ago

People heard about an entirely different town from 100 years ago during the final presentation of the H. Earl Clack Summer Speaker Series.

Historian and retired Havre High School history teacher Jim Magera regaled attendees with tales of an enormous military fort, homesteaders flooding into eastern Montana, gangs robbing banks, liquor flowing north and south across the Canadian border during prohibition and the local Klu Klux Klan making contributions to society.

The presentation came after the dedication of Mural Park at Havre Inn and Suites. The park includes a mural of Wahkpa Chu'gn Buffalo Jump crafted by Medicine Hat, Alberta, artist Jim Marshall.

See photos of the park dedication at http://www.havredailynews.com/.

After the dedication, Magera presented "Havre at the Turn of the Century," a description of the history of the area leading up to what was here 100 years ago and a talk about what was happening around 1920.

Magera said he created a local history component for the Havre High students, researching what the stories were in the area. He tied that component into the theme for this year's Festival Days, saying people have to know where they came from.

"When we have our roots, we can spread our branches," Magera said,

He thanked several Havreites, now all deceased, who helped him learn the local history. Magera named Northern Montana College, now Montana State University-Northern professors Harrison Lane and Lou Hagener and Hagener's wife, Antoinette "Toni" Hagener, and local historians Gary Wilson and Robby Lucke, as people who made great contributions to detailing local history.

The railroad, the fort and homesteading

Magera talked about the primary factors leading up to the settlement of the area as the creation of Fort Assinniboine - he talked about different spellings of the word, the U.S. fort, Assinniboine, the name of the tribe for which it is named, Assiniboine, and the name of a Canadian fort, Assinaboine - and James J. Hill bringing the railroad through in 1887.

The fort, which was created at the end of the Indian Wars following the defeat of the Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn and the defeat of the Nez Perce at the Battle of the Bear Paws, was enormous, Magera said.

The fort's reservation was originally 1,000 square miles, 740,000 acres, and ran from the Milk River to where Loma now is and east to Cow Island. The federal government soon reduced its size, but it was still enormous at 240,000 acres, Magera said.

He talked about John "Black Jack" Pershing, who was a lieutenant at the fort and later was the commanding general of Allied Forces in World War I. Pershing was at the fort twice, but kept getting pulled back east even when he wanted to be here, Magera said.

When the fort was decommissioned, people wanted to use it for homesteading - the homesteaders had filled most of the non-reservation land - but the government had been looking for a home for the bands of Chippewa and Cree that had been homeless in the state and President Woodrow Wilson offered a deal - the land would be opened to homestading but part of it would be used to create Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation.

That topic led to a question answered by Magera - why is it Rocky Boy's reservation but Stone Child College?

Magera said that was due to a mistranslation of the Chippewa chief's name - his name, Stone Child, a name of honor and significance, was mistranslated to the similar Rocky Boy.

Magera said the homesteading really took off during the early part of the last century, with more than a million people, attracted by incentives from the railroad and a period of good weather, coming to eastern Montana.

World War I also helped in a way - in 1916, wheat was selling for $3.50 a bushel, he said.

Then the war ended, and the weather turned.

Magera said that, of those million homesteaders, 80 percent failed.

He said that at one point, a man brought in 48 black families to settle in Box Elder. Three years later, their farms had failed and they all left.

Homestead versus cowtown

Magera said at that time, it was easy to distinguish what was a homestead town instead of a cowtown - if it had as many churches as it did bars.

"I think we're still trying to keep that even," he added.

He said the local towns had their own skyscrapers - "We call them grain elevators" - and had schools, banks and newspapers along with their stores.

And the area was full of people. While it included what would later be carved off into Liberty County, in 1914 Hill County had 30,000 residents, Magera said. In 2000, it had 18,000.

Crime and the KKK

Havre had always had a reputation of being a tough town, back when it was just Bullhook Bottoms, the location of the Great Northern Railway station where Bullhook flowed into the Milk River.

Magera said prohibition didn't slow that reputation down. In 1915, Saskatchewan went "dry" - prohibited sale and drinking of alcohol - and a major business started sending alcohol north.

Then, Nov. 19, 1916, Montana passed both women's suffrage and prohibition - and alcohol started flowing south.

Magera told one tale of law enforcement breaking into a bar - but all the patrons had fled under the tunnels beneath the streets, going past a still in the process.

Magera added that local law enforcement officers were not fools - the next time they came up through the tunnels.

A major business and distribution system developed in Canada, with sites set up for liquor runners to camp and even be fed - paying the Canadian farmers and ranchers in part of the booze take.

Magera said 12 percent Canadian beer was sent down in barrels, wholesaling for $20. It sold in the United States for $144.

"That's a pretty good markup," he said.

Magera said a carload of beer and whiskey gave about a $2,500 profit - more if the person bringing it in had their own saloon.

And the area had its own gang, as well.

Magera said The Havre Gang was reputed to have robbed multiple banks - often wrongfully accused, but it did rob banks all over the state.

The only local bank it robbed was in Gildford, he said. That was after the bank owner, a men's Christain temperance political candidate, started campaigning against alcohol.

And Hill County had its own chapter of the Klu Klux Klan, Magera said - primarily evidenced by newspaper stories about the Klan making charitable donations. He said the story is, however, that the Klan used to burn crosses on the hill on the southeast end of town, near where Glo-Ed is now. People all through the town could see the burning crosses, he said.