Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Pictures Of The Old Days

The kinda buildings that stay around for a while.

JeffA;
Good afternoon sir, I hope the day's behaving for you and you're well.

Thanks so much for the photos from the Havre, MT area, I appreciate you doing so.

While Havre is on the south side of the medicine line for sure, my late Mom came from a ranch a couple hours north in eastern Alberta, near 40 Mile Coulee and my late Dad was born in a sod hut a few hours north in western Saskatchewan by Maple Creek.

I believe they both talked about going to Havre from time to time, for sure Mom did.

They're both gone for years now and would have witnessed some scenes similar to what your photos show.

Thanks again and Happy 4th of July.

Dwayne

JeffA;
Afternoon again sir, I still hope you're day's behaving.

Rather than edit this in to my initial reply, I'll put it here since it's likely best I relate tales of brothels in a different reply than one containing my late folks.

When we first moved to BC in the early '80's one of my shooting and handloading mentors was a rather "colorful" fellow who had come out to our part of the Okanagan from Alberta in the spring of '47 - on a surplus Harley and in a blizzard. He's been gone for years as well.

Anyways he was originally from east of Creston and talked about doing survey work south of Grasmere, BC where they'd head into Rexford for supplies. This might have been during the war still as he was too young for the service but not too young to be on a survey crew.

At any rate somehow the subject of Wallace, ID came up one day and he mentioned going down there one payday. That's a fair journey from Rexford but when I hit the post about Wallace, so help me I started laughing and could hear my late buddy's voice and how he'd pronounce both "Wallace" and some of the other words connected with the story.

Thanks yet again for the memories sir, it's very much appreciated.

Dwayne

Brothels and Prostitution had quite the role in our country's history.
Many of the madams were pillars of their communities and made considerable contributions.

Larry McMurtry seemed to paint a more accurate description of the trade in his writings of the Lonesome Dove series.

From Matty aka The Great Western in Dead Mans Walk to the beautiful Lori in Lonesome Dove, they were respected girls.

I think we all know why Gus and Captain Call actually hung Jake Spoon.

The trade went from respectable to dark and corrupt rather quick historically.
Too many would rather roll with the fray than show their support of the industry and it's women.

Just due to interest shown..

There was a single survivor that went off the Skyway that stormy morning. He was across the top of the bridge when it fell.

His little Ford Courier blazed off the end of the bridge and slammed into the side of the ship that had taken the bridge out.

His truck sunk to the bottom of the bay with him inside, but he managed to escape and save his own life.



This is his story...

At 7:34 a.m. Friday, May 9, 1980, Wesley MacIntire was driving his Ford Courier pickup over the southbound span of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, headed for his job at a meat-delivery business. Just after he threw his two quarters into the tollbooth basket, he would later testify, the steady rain turned cyclonic.

As I went way up to the top of the bridge, the center part where the grating work was, the pickup started to bob up and down. And at the time, I thought it was just the wind blowing up through the bridge, or something like that, made it blow around. But then I started to drop over a high part, and at this point I looked and there I seen the ship. And I knew what had happened.



Instead of the familiar downhill slope of the Skyway, and the flat, winding causeway that would carry him to the other side of Tampa Bay, MacIntire saw the black broadside of a massive ship, the words SUMMIT VENTURE painted in white letters along its bow.

I hit my brakes, but I guess the truck wasn’t even on the bridge any more. I was in the air, probably. And the only thing I remember is saying “Oh God!,” and I felt a thud, which I believe, or thought maybe I hit … it bounced off the ship or something. After that, I just remember sinking in the water.

The 56-year-old had been trained as a swimmer in the Navy – before there were things called SEALs – and it all came back to him as he found himself inside a broken vehicle filling quickly with water, on the muddy bottom of the shipping channel.

It was probably no more than two minutes, but it seemed like an eternity, as he bent the buckled frame of the driver’s seat door, squeezed himself out and swam as hard as he could for the weak rays of sunlight at the surface. He exploded from the water, vomited and dogpaddled.

Wes MacIntire understood what had happened to him, even as his brain struggled to make sense of it. He grabbed hold of a section of silver steel protruding from the water, looked up and noticed a large yellow sedan, 150 feet up and stopped awkwardly at the very edge of the jagged bridge.

“I guess,” he thought to himself, “I’m the only fool who went in the water.” Still, he looked around for heads bobbing in the choppy water, someone, anyone he could rescue.

He was fished out by Summit Venture crew members. They threw him a rope ladder, which he wrapped himself in, and they hauled him up the side of the ship like a prize catch. Aside from a nasty gash over his right eye, and salt water in his lungs, Wes MacIntire was undamaged. Physically.

He was not the only person who went in the water. He was the first of 36. And all the others were dead.

From the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office accident report: The final positions of the fallen vehicles. Summit Venture struck Pier 2S, at right. The location of McIntire’s pickup – No. 8 – indicates that he was on the descending slope of the southbound bridge at the time of the collision.

Wesley's survived but he was never the same man.
He was awarded $175,000.00, after his attorney fees and hospital bills were paid he came out of it with $75K.

He suffered 'Survivors Guilt' and it truly changed his life.
If that interests you, the rest of his story can be read here. <<click

Jeff and all, thanks for posting. Really interesting stuff.

actually, being a prostitute, her uterine cancer most likely resulted from Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) or some other STD.

Main Street Bozeman, Montana Territory 1870. Walter Cooper's Shop on the left. He moved across the street in 1872. The second picture is a display with 3 of his rifles...

True but I believe the relationship between the two, the morphine addiction and the uterine cancer, was not that the morphine caused the cancer but rather the cancer caused the addiction. Whatever issues the cancer caused were likely dealt with by using morphine.

PS….cool thread with a lot of cool pictures. 👍

I wonder what they'd have been hauling in those double wagons?

They look to be buttoned up pretty tight and it was a interesting enough sight at the time that someone went to the trouble to get a photograph of the sight and it's been saved.

Miner's and Merchant's Bank. Nome. Alaska. June 10. 1906.
Stack of gold bricks and buckets with gold.
$1,025,000 1906 value.

15 days' clean up by the Gold Run (Klondyke) Mining Co.(Yukon)
1900ish
Two men, one holding a pistol, sit on porch steps with their thirteen sacks of gold between them; handwritten notation identifies man on left as "Chief Willis"

Actual size of Alaska's largest nugget found by Pioneer Mining Co. on No. 5 Bench off Discovery Anvil,
wgt. 182 oz., value $3276.-1903-09-08

Yaney-Maden & Co. Saloon & Lodging; The Red Onion, ca. 1898
Signs advertise various services and amenities: Lunch Counter, Beds, Bunks, Cots, Beer, and "Bread for Sale"; also, "Outfits Bought"; men with pack horses and mules in front of building [in Skagway?]

Dog team hauls a sled filled with ice blocks down middle of street; businesses shown include a laundry, a saloon, a barbershop, Mrs. McDonald Fancy Dress Making and Ladies' Tailoring, Dr. J. L. Benson (Dentist), Dr. Hurdman, and Dr. Good; sign in foreground advertises new tents.

Men cross flooded street on planks; numerous people walk boardwalks in front of businesses, which include Montreal Hotel and Saloon and a bakery.

Trail leads through mining camp with log buildings, tents, and services; one building advertises "Saloon and Lodging"
1900ish, Dyea Trail (Alaska)

Gold miner with white beard holds gold pan next to rocker box; a flume crosses image in background. 1900ish

Cannery ship entering Southwest Alaskas Bristol Bay, 1900(+/-)

Salmon boats off Clarks Cannery, Nushagak, Alaska.
tall-masted ships in distance 1900(+/-)