Neander97 / Historical Trivia: Montana history and biography at its finest. Examine the lives and/or deaths of such famous Montanoids as: the Hollywood stars Gary Cooper and Myrna Loy; the "outlaw stock-killer" known as the Ghost Wolf and the white buffalo called Big Medicine; Plenty Coups, Chief of the Crow Nation; and and peace-activist, Jeanette Rankin.
Neander97's Historical Trivia
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Famous (Dead) Montanoids:
Part 1FAQs:
- What are Montanoids?
--Persons or other critters (objects?) who lived, died, or spent part of their life in Montana or were, in the opinion of the owner of this web site, otherwise associated with Montana.
- What criteria are used to determine who or what is a Montanoid?
--Whatever happens to strike the fancy of the owner of the this web site.
- What criteria are used to determine the "fame" of these Montanoids?
--Whatever happens to strike the fancy of the owner of the this web site.
- Why is this web site limited to "dead" Montanoids?
--Because the owner of this web site doesn’t particularly care to be sued by living Montanoids.
Abe (ca. 1917-1938?)
Post Office. The community of Abe was located in Madison County, south of Cameron, Montana, near Wade Lake. A post office was established at Abe in 1917 to serve the few brave souls who lived the year-round -- a region where winter temperatures often bottomed out in the minus 40 degree F. range. Given the rigors of the climate, school was held in the community’s one-room schoolhouse only during the summer months. Prior to the establishment of the post office, the 25 or so families who inhabited the area, then known as Poverty Flats, received their mail from the post office in Cameron, where it was "forwarded" via a wooden box affixed to rope-pulley which spanned the Madison River. When local leaders gathered to prepare a petition requesting the establishment of a post office of their own, they eschewed the name Poverty Flats, opting instead to re-Christen their community Abe. This attempt at civic-boosterism paid off as the choice of Abe insured the community a first-place listing in the National Directory of Post Offices. The Abe post office closed in 1938.
Gary Cooper (1901-1961)
Actor. Born in Helena, Montans. The son of English parents who had settled in Montana. Copper’s father, an attorney who served on the Montana supreme court, ranched near Helena—it was here that young Cooper master the "cowboy" skills that served him so well in his Hollywood career. After graduating from Grinnell College, Iowa, Cooper worked as cartoonist before getting into movies in 1925 as an extra in a Western. Among his early, defining roles was that as a laconic cowboy in The Virginian. Although intitially better known for his offscreen romantic escapades than his acting, he established a solid family life after his marriage in 1933 to socialite Veronica Balfe. Whether playing roles as a cowboy, a baseball player or a peace-loving soldier, Cooper’s often terse and sincere characterizations personified, to his many fans, the archetypal American male of the 1940s and 50s. Cooper won Academy Awards for his work in Sergeant York (1941) and High Noon (1952), as well as an honorary Oscar in 1960. His other notable fims included the Pride of the Yankees and For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Ghost Wolf (1915?-1930)
According to local lore, the Ghost Wolf was first sighted in the Judith Basin Country in 1915. The Ghost Wolf's home range stretched from Highwood Mountains to the Little Belt Range, an area encompassing some one million acres of prime livestock range. It was in 1920 the Ghost Wolf turned outlaw and began raiding the ranches of the Judith Basin, pulling down cattle, sheep, and horses at will. By the mid-1920s, so feared and famed had this prairie pirate became that the Associated Press began to run stories on the Ghost Wolf of the Judith Basin. When Local ranchers offered a $400 reward for his capture—Wanted Dead or Alive—there ensued a wolf-hunt that rivaled that of any man-hunt in annals of the Old West. Traps were set; poison baits were scattered across the length and breadth of Central Montana; and posses were raised to bring this outlaw wolf to "justice." Men hunted the Ghost Wolf on horse back, foot, and snowshoes; from automobiles and airplanes, all to no avail. For ten years the Ghost Wolf evaded the best that man had to throw against him. Some sources estimate that all told during the "Roaring Twenties" the Ghost Wolf killed nearly two thousand head of livestock. In May 1930 the Ghost Wolf finally met his end. Al Close, a rancher in the Little Belts, with the aid of Mike, a red Irish terrier, and Nick, a black and white sheep dog, tracked down and shot the Ghost Wolf.
Taylor Gordon (1893-1971)
Performer. A native of White Sulphur Springs, Meagher County, Gordon performed in concert halls and vaudeville venues from Montana to Harlem to the capitals of Europe. He gained his entry in show business via his association with circus magnate John Ringling. Gordon achieved considerable success with his musical career during the 1920s, playing a prominent role in the so-called "Harlem Renaissance" of that era. Although limited in the roles he played by the prevailing racism of the day, Gordon managed to land minor parts in several movies during the 1930s. Throughout his career Gordon returned periodically to live in White Sulphur Springs. In the late 1950s, he returned to his hometown for good—remaining in the community until his death in 1971. Gordon’s autobiography, Born to Be (1929), provides a unique perspective of his experiences growing up in Montana as well as an insiders view of life in Harlem during the 1920s.
Myrna Loy (1905-1993)
Actress. Born, Myrna Adele Williamson in Radersburg, Montana. At age seven, Myrna’s family moved to Helena where her father, David Williamson, served in the Montana state legislature. At age 12, Myrna made her stage debut at Helena's old Marlow Theater in a self - choreographed dance performance based on the "The Blue Bird" from the Rose Dream Operetta. Following her father’s death from Spanish influenza in 1918, the family moved to Los Angeles where Myrna finished her schooling and began to work in films—adopting the stage name Loy. Myna Loy was voted the "Queen of Hollywood" in a 1932 poll of some 20 million movie fans. Her film credits include: The Thin Man, The Mask of Fu Manchu, The Great Ziegfeld, Cheaper By The Dozen, and The Best Years of our Lives. In 1991, she received an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement in film. In her private life, Ms. Loy evinced a genuine concern for humankind, lending her support to such groups as the Red Cross and the United Nations—and serving at one point as a spokesperson for UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). She also fought against the Hollywood blacklists and witch hunts of the 1950s, and served on various Civil Rights Commissions.
Big Medicine (1933-1959)
Bison. In May 1933 a white buffalo was born at the National Bison Range at Moiese, Montana. This was the first documented birth of a white buffalo in the twentieth century. Biologists and rangers at the Bison Range, evincing a bureaucrat's keen imagination, named the calf "Whitey." Members of the Blackfoot Nation who came to Moiese to commemorate the birth of this special buffalo named the calf "Big Medicine." The white calf was, except for a brown patch about his crown, an off-white color, as he matured Big Medicine's coat turned pure white. His eyes, lacking normal pigmentation, were bluish-gray. At age four, Big Medicine was mated to his dam, who gave birth to a pure albino calf, subsequently named "Little Medicine." Little Medicine--a true albino with a pure white coat, white hooves, and pink eyes--was born partially blind, and was abandoned by his mother soon after birth. Although the albino calf was transported to the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C. where he received special care, Little Medicine died before the year was out. Big Medicine, however, lived to the ripe old age of twenty-six. Big Medicine's remains were subjected to the taxidermist's art and can be viewed at the museum at the Montana Historical Society in Helena, Montana.
Plenty Coups, "A Lek - Chea – Ahoosh" (c.1848-1932)
Crow Tribal Leader / Statesman. As a young man growing up in the Yellowstone Basin region of eastern Montana, Plenty Coups had a vision in which he saw the destruction of the Buffalo herds and the end of the Crow way of life. The people of the Crow Nation held such respect for the power of his vision and for the wisdom and moral force of his personality that Plenty Coups became tribal chief at the, almost unheralded, age the 25. Confronted by their traditional opponents the Blackfeet, Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho as well as pressure from Euro-American immigrants, the Crow nation under the leadership of Chief Plenty Coups chose to ally themselves with the whites. By the mid-1880s, the Crows had been "relocated" to their reservation along the Yellowstone Valley of Montana, where Plenty Coups became a successful rancher / farmer and proprietor of a general store (near Pryor, Montana). Throughout his life, Chief Plenty Coups, whose name roughly translates as "Bull Who Goes into the Wind", continued his struggle to defend the rights of his People. In the hope of breaking down the barriers between the Crow and their white neighbors, Plenty Coups donated a portion of his land for use a place where all peoples could gather to learn of the Crow way of life (the Chief Plenty Coups State Park, Pryor, Montana).
Jeanette Rankin (1880-1973
Politician/Activist. Born on June 11, 1880, near Missoula, Montana. Ms. Rankin graduated from the University of Montana in 1902 and pursued graduate studies in social work at the School of Philanthropy (New York City) and the University of Washington (Seattle). Beginning in 1909, she actively campaigned on behalf of the womens’ suffrage movement. In 1915, Ms. Rankin toured New Zealand where she gained first-hand knowledge of social conditions by laboring as a seamstress. In 1916, Rankin became the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1917, Ms. Rankin voted against the United States’ entry into World War I (being one of 56 Congresspersons to vote no), thus, embarking on the crusade that would be the focal point of her life until her death. In 1940, she was again elected to the House of Representatives, where, in 1941 she voted against America’s entry into World War II. In casting her vote, Ms. Rankin was the sole member of the House to vote against the war and became the only member of Congress to have voted against America’s entry into both World Wars. In the early post-war years, Ms. Rankin made several trips to India, where she studied the pacifism of Gandhi and other Indian leaders. Ms. Rankin briefly reentered public life in the 1960s, lending support to a women’s anti-war coalition, the Jeanette Rankin Brigade, and participating with the Brigade in a march on Washington in protest of the war in Vietnam.
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