Helena, Montana

Visited July 29 - August 2, 2021

By Marty

 

Our next stop: Helena, the Montana State Capitol!

After strolling around the Montana State Capitol we walked over to The Montana Historical Society Museum, "Montana's Museum" where they had this interesting piece outside depicting prehistoric mammals that you would have seen in this area if you were a million years old.

There was an extensive gallery of work by Montana's "Cowboy Artist" Charles M. Russell. Russell was raised in Missouri but lived in Montana from age 16 on, primarily in Great Falls, creating over 2,000 paintings of cowboys, Native Americans, and landscapes set in the western U.S. and Alberta, Canada.

This Russell piece depicts a "buffalo jump", a method used by the Native Americans to kill buffalo before the introduction of horses in North America by the Spaniards. My gut tells me you'll learn more about the buffalo jump when we issue the Missoula post.

We toured the Original Governor's Mansion, built in 1888 by a prominent citizen for his family. After being owned and occupied by three different families over 25 years the home was acquired in 1913 by the state of Montana to serve as its first official governor's residence. Beginning in 1913 nine first families occupied the home (not all at once mind you) until 1959 when a new executive residence was built.

The Cathedral of St. Helena

Helena was founded in 1864 by four gold miners who struck it rich at the appropriately named "Last Chance Gulch". 

From History.com:

In 1864, four prospectors spotted signs of gold in the Helena area while on their way to the Kootenai country, but they were eager to reach the reportedly rich gold regions farther to the north and did not stop. But after striking out on the Kootenai, they decided to take “one last chance” on finding gold and returned. When the signs turned out to mark a rich deposit of placer gold, they staked their claims and named the new mining district Last Chance Gulch.

Eventually, Last Chance Gulch would prove to be the second biggest placer gold deposit in Montana, producing some $19 million worth of gold in just four years. Overnight, thousands of miners began to flood into the region, and the four original discoverers added to their fortunes by establishing the town of Helena to provide them with food, lodging, and supplies. But unlike many of the early Montana mining towns, Helena did not disappear once the gold gave out, which it inevitably did. Located on several major transportation routes, well supplied with agricultural products from an adjacent valley, and near to several other important mining towns, Helena was able to survive and grow by serving the wider Montana mining industry. In 1875, the city became the capital of Montana Territory, and in 1894, the capital of the new state of Montana.

I should have had this sign on The Beast on May 5, 2018 when I drove it off the lot at Happy Daze RV in Livermore! It was a white knuckle three mile drive home as I hadn't driven a motorhome in ten years and the one I drove then was quite a bit smaller.

We enjoyed seeing Ward Davis (no relation...) outdoors at the Lewis & Clark Brewing Company.  It's great to be able to enjoy live music again! 

 Here is a sample of Ward's music:

 15 years in a 10 year town

One reason we chose to visit Helena was to visit the nearby "Gates of the Mountains" on the Missouri River. We are now in Lewis & Clark expedition country. As we all know the boys in the Corps of Discovery pushed, pulled, and paddled their watercraft UPSTREAM over 2,300 miles on the Missouri River. At this point of their westward journey they are only about 80 miles from the headwaters of the Missouri River (not that they knew this precisely).

For those of you who are into rivers, of which Montana has a number of prominent ones, I can tell you that the Missouri begins at "Three Forks" Montana where the Madison, Gallatin, and Jefferson rivers meet. The first two rivers flow out of Yellowstone NP and the Jefferson from west of the park. These three rivers were named by Meriwether Lewis after President Jefferson, Secretary of State James Madison, and Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin.

Why Gates of the Mountains? 

We took a boat tour of this section of the Missouri. The photo above shows you what Lewis would have seen as they paddled upstream through a steep canyon. The river appears to come to end.  This is what Captain Lewis wrote on July 19,1805:

“this evening we entered much the most remarkable clifts that we have yet seen. these clifts rise from the waters edge on either side perpendicularly to the hight of 1200 feet. every object here wears a dark and gloomy aspect. the tow[er]ing and projecting rocks in many places seem ready to tumble on us. the river appears to have forced it’s way through this immence body of solid rock for the distance of 5¾ miles and where it makes it’s exit below has thrown on either side vast collumns of rocks mountains high. the river appears to have woarn a passage just the width of it’s channel or 150 yds. it is deep from side to side nor is ther in the 1st 3 miles of this distance a spot except one of a few yards in extent on which a man could rest the soal of his foot. several fine springs burst out at the waters edge from the interstices of the rocks. it happens fortunately that altho’ the current is strong it is not so much so but what it may be overcome with the oars for there is hear no possibility of using either the cord or Setting pole. it was late in the evening before I entered this place and was obliged to continue my rout untill sometime after dark before I found a place sufficiently large to encamp my small party; at length such an one occurred on the lard. […] from the singular appeaerance of this place I called it the gates of the rocky mountains.”

The "gates" appear to open as our tour boat continues upstream.

There are a half dozen Bighorn sheep foraging in the lower center of this picture. If you click on the photo the resolution will improve.

We hiked on the 1906 Trail to the top of Mt. Helena which overlooks the city from the west. I tried, I really did, to find out why it is called "1906 Trail".  I was not successful.

The hike is only about 3 miles round trip with about 1,000' of elevation gain. Despite the smoky skies we still had nice views and it was a fair bit less smoky than the day before when we did the river tour.

A cave along the trail

How we feel about graffiti in caves, or most any place for that matter.