Distinguished by statesmen and magnates, Helena's history is colored with many other compelling characters and episodes nearly lost to time. Before achieving eminence in Deadwood, Sheriff Seth Bullock oversaw Montana Territory's first two legal hangings. The Seven Mile House was an oasis of vice for the parched, weary travelers entering the valley on the Benton Road, despite a tumultuous succession of ownership. The heritage of the Sieban Ranch and the saga of "King Kong" Clayton, "the Joe Louis of the Mat," faded from public memory. From unraveling the myths of Chinatown to detailing the lives of red-light businesswomen and the Canyon Ferry flying saucer hoax, revered local historians Ellen Baumler and Jon Axline team up to preserve a compendium of Helena's yesteryear.

Distinguished by statesmen and magnates, Helena's history is colored with many other compelling characters and episodes nearly lost to time. Before achieving eminence in Deadwood, Sheriff Seth Bullock oversaw Montana Territory's first two legal hangings. The Seven Mile House was an oasis of vice for the parched, weary travelers entering the valley on the Benton Road, despite a tumultuous succession of ownership. The heritage of the Sieban Ranch and the saga of "King Kong" Clayton, "the Joe Louis of the Mat," faded from public memory. From unraveling the myths of Chinatown to detailing the lives of red-light businesswomen and the Canyon Ferry flying saucer hoax, revered local historians Ellen Baumler and Jon Axline team up to preserve a compendium of Helena's yesteryear.

'A modern society has grown out of what it was yesterday. So understanding history is essential to understanding ourselves. Helena: An Illustrated History is a priceless historical collection of faces and stories about our special state's capital and the lives and events that have shaped it-and us.' --Mark Racicot, Governor, State of Montana

The Life of the Afterlife in the Big Sky State is a groundbreaking history of death in Montana. It offers a unique, reflective, and sensitive perspective on the evolution of customs and burial grounds. Beginning with Montana’s first known burial site, Ellen Baumler considers the archaeological records of early interments in rock ledges, under cairns, in trees, and on open-air scaffolds. Contact with Europeans at trading posts and missions brought new burial practices. Later, crude “boot hills” and pioneer graveyards evolved into orderly cemeteries. Planned cemeteries became the hallmark of civilization and the measure of an educated community. Baumler explores this history, yet untold about Montana. She traces the pathway from primitive beginnings to park-like, architecturally planned burial grounds where people could recreate, educate their children, and honor the dead. The Life of the Afterlife in the Big Sky State is not a comprehensive listing of the many hundreds of cemeteries across Montana. Rather it discusses cultural identity evidenced through burial practices, changing methods of interments and why those came about, and the evolution of cemeteries as the “last great necessity” in organized communities. Through examples and anecdotes, the book examines how we remember those who have passed on.

From its origins as a dusty mining camp, Helena quickly grew into a bustling cosmopolitan city, eventually to become the capital of pioneer Montana. At the heart of this growth and development was the vision of Colonel Charles A. Broadwater. Featured here in over 200 vintage photographs is the history of this pioneer town, its involvement in the settlement of the West, and the towering achievement and mysterious decline of the Colonel's tribute to the Queen City of the Rockies, the Broadwater Hotel and Natatorium. The community of Helena was established in 1864 shortly after gold was discovered in Last Chance Gulch, today's main street area. It quickly grew as a supply center for area mining camps. Colonel Broadwater, a self-made man, announced the construction of a grand resort in honor of Helena's prominence as the Queen City of the Rockies: The Broadwater Hotel and Natatorium. The story of the Broadwater, inextricably linked to the story of the development of Helena, is captured here in vintage photography, including turn-of-the-19th-century Helena, its growth from a mining camp into a financial center, its fires, earthquakes, and magnificent rebuilding.

The Pioneer Mountains of southwest Montana are truly a hidden gem, with more than 80 alpine lakes, great fishing, and excellent opportunities for hiking, mountaineering, and camping. Based on a lifetime spend exploring the East and West Pioneers, this guide describes the region's trails and cross-country routes, beautiful mountain scenery, and the wildlife, birds, and wildflowers that thrive here. Includes more than 33 maps, easy-to-follow directions, 114 full-color photographs, and fishing details for 89 lakes.

An account of one woman's life in the West during the second half of the nineteenth century from growing up on the Montana mining frontier to her ascent to young womanhood on a farm in southern California.

When Mollie stepped off the train in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1890, she knew she had to start a new life. She'd left her husband and his medical practice behind in Iowa, and with only a few hundred dollars in her pocket and a great deal of pride, she set out to find a new position as a physician. She was offered a job as a doctor to the miners in Bannack, Montana, and thus began her epic adventures as a pioneer doctor, a suffragette, and a crusader for public health reform in the Rocky Mountain West. Pioneer Doctor: The Story of a Woman's Work is the true story of Dr. Mary (Mollie) Babcock Atwater, a medicine woman who found freedom and opportunity in the wide-open spaces of America's frontier west. This remarkable tale has been creatively retold here by her granddaughter, award-winning author Mari Grana. Blending information from historical records as well as interviews with family and friends, the author has reconstructed Mollie's steps into a dramatic narrative that brings to life the doctor's struggles, her accomplishments, and the times in which she lived. Beautifully written and thoroughly researched, this is not just the biography of a fascinating woman. It is also the story of an era when daring women ventured forth and changed history for the rest of us.

"Features twenty-seven short profiles of notorious bad guys, perpetrators of mischief, visionary if misunderstood thinkers, and other colorful antiheroes from the history of the Treasure State. It reveals the dark side of some well-known and even revered characters from Montana?s past?both part-time Jerks and others who were Jerks through and through"--from back cover.

"Stuart's edited reminiscences are an account of pioneering, prospecting, and community building in the northern Rockies and Great Plains."--BOOK JACKET.