Trego's Mountain Ear

The Depression came early to northwest Montana – including Eureka and Trego. This section of Trego’s history is fragmented – while I met and knew people who had the information, I was young and not inclined to write the histories their stories covered. This section is important – but I am hoping that other people will provide more details.

Again, Trego’s history is a story not of great men, but of social trends. Basically, the Great Depression hit Trego and Eureka early – when the big mill in Eureka shut down. Instead of a major employer driving logs down Fortine Creek, stacks of hewn ties, and ties milled by small mills, began to stack up near the railroad sidings – instead of the single large employer, it was individual entrepreneurs, often owning only a double-bit, a broad axe and a crosscut saw. By 1931, small sawmills had pretty well replaced these low investment entrepreneurs.

Wylie Osler explained the tie shack as housing – the switch ties (longer) went to the back wall, while regular length ties went for the sides and the front, leaving enough space for a door. Stories told of tie hacks who could turn out a hundred ties in a day – a 7 inches per tie, a dozen ties could stack up and make a seven foot wall, so a day’s work would produce a crude cabin that could be disassembled and sold when the tie hack moved out. Unfortunately, I didn’t make notes of what those older neighbors said when I was a kid. I remember mention of the Pinto Swede – but not what his accomplishments were. The name “Wobbly” Johnson tells its own story about membership and believing in the Union – the Industrial Workers of the World.

The sawmill camps had standardized bunk houses and cook shacks – we still have a couple stashed close to the old service station (it was 1966 construction, but the logging camp buildings were of a previous era). The camp numbers and names remain attached to locations that were once remote. Today, the best examples of the buildings associated with logging camps are sold to go with model railroads.

There’s a shift in the population that began in the mid-1930’s. The influx came from the prairies, several families from the area around Great Falls. The post-World War II influx came in from 1945 to the early sixties. Octav Fortin’s family (direct line and collaterals) gradually diminished – I recall two Fortine girls and a boy in Trego school in 1960, but by 1963 (when I graduated 8th grade, the name Fortin(e) was gone.

Those middle years showed School District 53 responding to the needs of the community in an unusual manner. Homes and stump ranches stretched up the creek, and the roads were mostly dirt. During this time, District 53 included a school at Stryker, an Edna Creek School, and a Swamp Creek School, along with Trego School. Before electrification (1948) it was more effective to build a one-room school than run the long bus routes of our modern era.

Stryker was accessible by road, and had a railroad crew working there (still does, but the priorities have changed). The railroad employment, school, and Post Office kept the small town in the loop. (Stryker school closed in the late 1950’s, Edna Creek school after the end of World War II) The record is incomplete here because Trego School burned – and was replaced, complete with electricity, running water, and flush toilets after Lincoln Electric brought power in.

Any information that can fill the missing spaces between 1925 and 1950 will be appreciated.

Next Chapter: Electricity, Modernity, and a Boomtown Again