Various accounts tell the story of how Glendale came to be known as Glendale. Two names were chosen, "Glendale" and "Clinton" or "Clifton" being written on opposite sides of a wood chip. It was then thrown over the Hecla Mining Company Assay wall with Glendale landing face up. There is yet to be discovered, any written evidence of who decided and why these particular names were chosen, however, we do know the end result. The town of Glendale quickly grew, drawing in miners from all comers of the world. There were people from every ethnic background including the Chinese. 

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On June 25, 1879, a fire broke out that burned the main building of the smelter. A new smelter was quickly built to replace the old one. Within a month, the reduction facility would also catch fire and would burn leaving only the roaster and the sheds that covered them. Legend states that it started with an explosion and the smelter building went up in flames which they brought under control the following day. At first, it was unclear as to the source of the fire but some smelter men coming off shift noticed two men in the area. They reported it to the sheriff who apprehended the men and gained a confession of arson from them. They stated that they had soaked a pile of wood with Kerosene and then lit a stick of dynamite. The two men had been fired for missing work. Before the sheriff could act, the local Vigilante community brought the two men down the road and placed them both up on the bed of a wagon which was positioned below a big tree next to the road. The men begged for leniency but their pleas fell to deaf ears. The foreman informed them that they would hang for their deeds and that they had put other men out of work. The foreman slapped the horse’s rear and the wagon came out from below the men, sealing their fate. Attendance was not an issue for quite some time after that. There would be lots of discussion around town as to whether or not the hangings were justified, and most everyone had concluded that they were. Noah Armstrong, who was not present during the hangings, wrote a memo letting people know that there would be no more hangings on the company property and that law and order were to prevail. I have never found a newspaper article to support this theory of how the smelter burned. If untrue, it lends to telling a great story. 

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The plant was rebuilt and enlarged at a cost of about 20,000 and 400,000 feet of lumber was required for it’s rebuilding. By 1885, the facility had expanded to three blast furnaces, two crushers, a large roaster, a blacksmith shop, a sack house, warehouses, an iron house, a stable, two powder houses, three coal sheds, an office, an assay office, a flume ditch, a sawmill, a tramway with cars, and five private homes. 

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By 1879, Glendale had a weekly newspaper, 'The Atlantis". Glendale's merchants and business houses included a brewery, several saloons, general merchandise stores, hotels, livery stable, opera house, two dentists, a hospital, and eventually a two story schoolhouse, and the largest skating rink in the northwest.

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The Helena Independent dated (1877) ran a story of the new Smelter town and it’s rapid development; To a stranger visiting Glendale for the first time, the reduction works of the Hecla Consolidated Mining company are the center of interest.  Upon these works, the business of the entire camp directly or indirectly depends, not only of Glendale indeed, but of Trapper to almost an equal degree for although some of the ores of Trapper are sent to Argenta for reduction, their amount, and the employment furnished in their shipment, is but little when we consider the steady stream of ore demanded by the Glendale works, and the great number of persons who find employment in supplying it.

The foundation of the reduction works was laid a little over two years ago.  Ever since then, improvements have been going on until the present time, when the works look as complete as anything can be, although we hear there are still additions to be made to them.  The works as they stand consist of two water-jacket cupola furnaces, one reverberatory furnace already finished, and another, to be used in smelting copper, now in course of construction.  The power furnished by a 28 inch leffel turbine wheel.  By this wheel are worked a blake crusher, a set of cornish rollers, a rotary force blast of immense force, and the different lathes, etc that are occasionally used. 

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By the crusher and the rollers, the iron ore used as a flux for the copper, is pulverized.  When sufficiently fine it is mixed with the copper ore which is so soft as not to require crushing, and the mixture is then ready for the furnace.  From the furnace there are three spouts, one for metal and two for slag, and by some improvement in the interior construction of Glendale furnaces stream of metal is constant, while others are tapped for slag.  By this improvement the slag is kept from reaching the bottom of the furnace, and, consequently from chilling.  The smoke stack through which the smoke and fumes from both furnaces escape, stands off at some distance from the works.  If the blast were to ascend through the furnace and escape through a stack directly over it, a quantity of valuable metallic dust would be lost every day.  Instead of ascending vertically, the smoke from the furnaces passes off through a horizontal flue leading from the dust chamber to the stack, through which it finally escapes.  In the chamber some hundreds of dollars worth of dust are saved every day that would be lost.  This fine dust is placed in a reverberatory furnace together with other ores which it will combine, so as to assume a massive form, in place of being an almost impalable powder, and is then returned to the smelter.

The small furnace only has as yet been used. The large one has been finished and ready for work for some time, but the 50 or 60 tons of ore necessary to keep it running could not be delivered with the teams engaged in transportation.  The contract of supplying the needed amount of ore has been taken, and the work of delivering it will begin this week, when the large furnace will likely be started.  In working the small furnace 600 bushels of charcoal per day are used; but the large one will consume somewhere between 1200 and 2000 bushels of charcoal every twenty-four hours a day.

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The smelters and the village that has sprung up around them are on Trapper Creek, about 8 miles from the Big Hole river into which the creek empties.  The village is built in the creek bed, and as the banks are quite steep, it not being very high, there has been no room for the ambitious town to spread itself but instead lies along the creek- a town of one street, about a quarter mile long and approaching pretty near the mathematician’s description of a line i.e. length and width But it’s citizens were not attracted to Glendale by the beauty of the town site, and the many improvements going on prove them to be confident that their village has a prosperous future before it.  Among these improvements we noticed a fine brick store now being erected by Messrs. Thomas and Co., with a very large stone fire proof warehouse adjoining it. Several new dwelling houses are going up.  One owned by our friend Frank Luton, who was probably lead to believe by a little occurrence mentioned in another column under the head of married that more roomy quarters are needed-or may be by and by.

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The town boasts of several saloons.  The “pony” owned by Fairfield and Peck.- The “Bit Saloon” by Dillabaugh, whose Kentucky whiskey we can vouch for as being better than some in Butte and at half the price- Luton's Saloon in Front of the Glendale House- and a large billiard hall kept by J.C. Metlin. There are one or two more, but we could not “smile” enough to go round, but will make a heroic effort to make the round trip on our next visit. John Mannheim is proprietor of the only brewery, which is quite a large affair. Chester and Mahan own the meat market and a livery stable of 22 stalls, and John Cannovan is landlord of the Glendale House, at which you can put up with confidence, for it is a well conducted hotel, and it’s landlord makes a point to treat his guests with politeness and to see that their wants are attended to.
 

The population of Glendale is about 125 and in this number are included but very few idlers, as almost every one about the village is busy.  As the reduction works increase in size and in working capacity a greater number of employees will be kept at work, and occupation given to a large number of citizens engaged in trade, etc.  in the neighborhood.  Upon the whole, Glendale is a very substantial little town about whose prosperity there is nothing speculative; nothing transitory. Being essentially a mining town, and it’s citizens engaged in the same industry as those of Butte, a constant intercourse is kept up between the two towns by this identity of occupation.  But this intercourse is limited and compared with what it should be, as Butte is much nearer Glendale, I interest as well as in position, than any other town in Montana.

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(November 13, 1877): Quite a sensation was caused here today by a fight between two boys, the mothers finally taking it up, one of the said mothers flourishing her little revolver and threatening to put a bullet in the other’s cranium, but concluded not to do so until she had practiced sufficiently to be able to hit a barn at ten paces.

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(October 1, 1877) You need not be deterred from a fear of not finding good accommodations there, for at the Glendale house you will find a good table, while good clean beds are always in readiness for travelers, and all at Butte prices. 
Glendale and Trapper are served with only a weekly mail delivery.

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(1879) Payday at Glendale and Lion City comes on the twenty-fifth of each month. By October there are 350 names on the payroll of the Hecla Mining Company at Glendale. Four years after the first smelter was built in Glendale, on June 25, a fire broke out that burned the main building of the smelter. A new smelter was quickly built to replace the old one. Within a month, the reduction facility would also catch fire and would burn leaving only the roaster and the sheds that covered them.
 
(August 5, 1879) Two four horse express lines are now in operation between Glendale and Butte, each prepared to carry either passengers or freight.  In addition to Reynolds’ express, which has been running for some time.  Mr. J.C. Beard put on a line a few days ago, making two round trips per week.

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(August 21, 1879) Parfet-White wedding at Glendale.Mr. James Parfet of Lion City and Mrs. A.J. White of Glendale. Martin and Page, Merchants of Glendale are building a new brick store, which is two stories and measures 22x42.  They will open with a stock of new goods as soon as the building is read for their reception.

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(August 22, 1879) Wife Legh Freeman died in Butte.  Freeman started The Atlantis Newspaper which was short lived in Glendale.

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(August 1879) The contract for the transportation of ore, 50 tons per day, from Lion Mountain to the Hecla smelters in Glendale has been awarded to Hugh Kirkendall of Helena at $3.75 per ton.

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(September 1879) Mahan, until lately connected with the house of Kinna and Jack is about to open a hardware store in Glendale. W. Vinsor, who has been for one or two years learning the dental profession with our able dentist, Dr. Blake, proposes to establish himself at Glendale in a short time. Trade Business between Butte and Glendale is going well and Mr. Beard, of the Butte and Glendale express is having to use an extra horse team in order to fill the large orders for Glendale. Fifty carpenters are at work upon the main building being erected to replace that destroyed by fire some time ago. The smelter was temporarily shut down to admit of a new water jacket hearth being put in. The improvements going on are so extensive a scale that 400,000 feet of lumber will be used within the next three or four weeks, says the managing superintendent. H.H. Avery serving as Justice of the peace at Glendale.

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(September 18, 1879) Martin & Page are erecting a new store.

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(September 23, 1879) Mr. George Perkins and Miss Mary Fischer of Glendale married at St. Nicholas Hotel in Butte.  They were accompanied by Miss Olesen and Alfred Urlin also of Glendale

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(October 1879) Visitors from Glendale say the new water works of the Hecla Mining Company have water enough to flood the town at a minute’s warning in case of fire. Hecla Company’s coal shed 100 feet long is built. 7000 pounds of groceries and supplies are shipped from a Butte supplier to George Tarbell of Lion City who is about to open a hotel. The folks at Lion may be snowed in occasionally or covered up now and then in the coasting excercises  of an avalanche. Mr. Tarbell is determined that they need take no chances on starving to death. Glendale is receiving mail daily as of October 1, 1879. C.W.turner and wife of Glendale stay at St. Nicholas Hotel in Butte to attend the Masonic Grand Lodge.

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(October 23,1879) Pioneer Meat Market, Rote and Germansen proprietors. Orders shipped anywhere about town free of charge. Mr. William Thompson has bought of A. J. Davis, a 16 horse power engine for his saw mill at Glendale.  From Lion City, an unusually brisk demand for lumber is reported, owing to the market created by the building of the tram road. This road will be shedded for about 3 miles, most of which will be done this fall if lumber can be procured. A meeting was held to organize the building the building of a mason hall above the Martin and Page store in Glendale.  The hall will be 24x45 feet by 12 feet high.

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(October 26, 1879) Considerable anxiety is expressed by the residents of Glendale as to the possible fate of A.M. Madison, whose trial for the killing of John Hannifin was to have taken place at Bannack some time during the past week. Mr. French left Glendale yesterday morning, up to which time the case had not been brought up. Mr. Madison has long been a resident of Beaverhead County where his kind disposition and many sterling business qualities have won him a host of friends, upon whom his late calamity has cast a heavy gloom.

(1880) Nov.10th  an advertisement in the Atlantis paper of Glendale reads, "The Avery House formerly known as the Burnett House will be opened in a few days, thoroughly renovated, remodeled, painted and plastered. The rooms are nicely carpeted and well furnished. And the largest of them are provided with stoves and air matresses and springs."

Nov. 17th (Atlantis paper): Former Burnett House is now operating as the Avery House, with D. H. Simmons in charge of culinary affairs, an attached saloon, and H.H. Avery is the proprietor. "The city water works were completed and the water turned into the pipes on Monday. Fire plugs at convenient intervals look mighty good to those who have been burned out." Burnett House of Glendale, a well suitable, nicely furnished rooms, No Bar or Saloon about the premises. J.J. Burnett, Proprietor. Centennial Saloon (opposite Glendale House) Ed Thomas, Proprietor, Kiefer and Malissa A. White married at Glendale 3-9-80.

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In 1878, Elias. C. Atkins, founder of Indianapolis Saw Works, was appointed General Manager of the Mining properties and after two years in this position, led the concern into a debt of $77,000. The forty- ton smelter built by Armtrong and Dahler in 1875 and the ten- stamp mill and leaching works which was added in 1878, ran irregularly on Hecla ore until fire destroyed all the buildings except the roaster, in 1879. This calamity, coupled with poor management, prompted a call from the stockholders to appoint a new General Manager. 

Henry Knippenberg formally accepted the position on March 01, 1881 but only after an on-the-spot tour of company property the month before. Following the inspection Knippenberg's report to the Board of Directors was not an optimistic one. Despite this report and his initial reservations, Knippenberg believed he could make the Hecla properties turn a profit so he accepted the position. 

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He based his decision on fifteen years experience in the manufacturing business and his five years as a Pennsylvania coal mine manager. Knippenberg immediately obtained financing to correct the company's unstable condition. After getting $95,000 from New York backers he wasted no time in getting to Glendale in April, 1881. Within three months the firm's debt had been repaid and a ten percent monthly dividend was returned to the stockholders.

Alva Noyes in his,"Story of the Ajax" tells of a conversation he once had with Henry Knippenberg which Mr. Knippenberg spoke as follows,”When I came to the United States from Germany, I happened to get acquainted with a countryman of mine, this old gentleman was quite wealthy, He took a liking to me and gave me much wholesome advice, when I found out the exact financial condition of our company and after having satisfied myself that a certain amount of money would place the mines on a paying basis, I went to this gentleman explaining just what was needed and asked for a loan, he let me have the money on my personal note and I went ahead and made a success.

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It was a mighty good thing that the ore was there in paying quantities or I would have  been placed in a very disagreeable position”, To quote Mr. Noyes "These mines were in large pockets and required an immense amount of dead work to find them, I am told that one of these pockets contained two million dollars.  The impression that this young German made on the old financier proved to be the one thing needed to place a mine on a paying basis that was about to go under after thousands had been spent in its development. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henry Knippenberg quickly went to work reorganizing the new company into three divisions, appointing a superintendent for each. James Parfet was in charge of Mining, headquartered at Hecla, George G. Earle in charge of reduction at Glendale and John M. Parfet, in charge of the iron mines at Norwood in Soap Gulch. By December 31 of 1881, the company's reorganization paid off with a profit of 237,729.76 

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The year 1881 saw the arrival of the Utah & Northern Railroad at Melrose, allowing for a smooth transition in the Hecla Mining Company's reorganization. The railroad made it possible to ship bullion out to the refinery at Omaha and also allowed supplies and coke needed for the company's workings, shipped in. At the Glendale furnaces, the bullion was molded into bars weighing about ninety pounds each. At times, a great many bars were piled up in the smelter yards, awaiting transportation. 

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Supplying charcoal to the smelting furnaces at Glendale developed as a major satellite industry since the company used up to 100,000 bushels of charcoal a month. The smelting furnaces at Glendale used large amounts of charcoal and coke for fuel. Coke was shipped in from Pennsylvania at 19.00 a ton. At peak production, ten tons were consumed in a single day. Charcoal, which the company used in amounts up to 100,000 bushels a month, was prepared in the canyons adjacent to Glendale. There was an ethnic division to the enterprise with most of the logging being done by Canadian and French woodcutters while Italian laborers burned in pits to produce the finished charcoal which sold to the furnaces for 11 cents a bushel. These workmen lived in cabins scattered throughout the mountains. The company ran 38 kilns on Canyon Creek in order to supply the more than one million bushels of charcoal the smelters used each year. The ruins of kilns and pits may still be seen north of Glendale in Canyon Creek. Flux for the smelters came from the Norwood Iron Mines in Soap Gulch, northeast of Melrose.

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The Dillon Tribune described Glendale as a "shoe-string like town of one street, a mile long on the right bank of a small creek, pure as crystal in winter but muddy and yellow in summer from concentration of the concentrator at Greenwood, six miles above town." Its lower end was called Ragtown, and its upper portion, opposite the smelter where the officials and their families lived, was known as Toney Hill The company hospital, opened in 1881 with Dr. Schmalhausen in charge, was "kept scrupulously clean and patients received kind attention and considerate treatment." Employees paid $1.00 a month from their wages toward its support. 

It has been said that Trapper City and Lion City were towns of pine shanties and tents, and that when it rained or when it was time of melting  snows, both men and mules floundered around in mud up to their knees. But Hecla and Glendale had substance. Glendale even had class. The first social centers there, as in most western mining camps, were the saloons. 

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Glendale’s first saloons were tents with rough boards laid across whiskey barrels for bars. Tents soon gave way to sturdy buildings when the ore wagons, returning from Corinne, Utah brought in handsomely carved back barss and highly polished mahogany serving counters. The first miners were young, unattached men, but families with children soon followed, giving the camps an air of permanence. A two-room school was built and A.F. Rice, who later established a business college at Butte, was one of the teachers.
 
The Glendale kids and the smelter men enjoyed a perpetual feud, the men constructed a bath house, warm water from the smelter was carried to the building by a trough, The lads of the smelter town, like young jungle monkeys, had the knack of perpetrating their mischief where it would cause the most annoyance, They would choose an opportune moment and dam the water in the bath house where they never tired of attempting to swim. (Ordinary bathing was "sissified" and to be avoided as long as possible) The smelter men kept a supply of charcoal, tar and oil handy which they sometimes poured into the bath house during a swimming party. This was found to be a positive method of routing the bathhouse parasites pro tempore, of course the boys retaliated by throwing trash into the pool, with great foresight, just when the men wished to bathe there

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The furnace's at Glendale wasted much of the valuable ore through flue dust. Consequently, a reverberatory was installed. The fumes from the latter, however,  were unpleasant and sometimes noxious. It was said that when one of the smelter foreman became displeased with an employee, the offender was put on the furnace to atone for his transgression, fancied or real. Road and Poll taxes and hospital dues were deducted from the wages of those on the Hecla Company's payroll. A number of serious altercations ensued from this practice. The paymaster frequently received word that" so and so" was on his way up to collect his wages minus the taxes and intended to shoot the works if the words "poll", "road", or "hospital" were so much as mentioned. But threats failed to prevent the company from imposing its levies upon the earnings of the laborers.

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The Hecla Company built a tramway extending from the base of Lion Mountain all the way down to Greenwood which was about four miles in length. The ore was loaded into the cars and men were positioned in “Brake” cars which kept the speed down so as to avoid accidents or “runaway” cars. This happened on more than one occasion and lives were lost as a result. Occasionally, the men would use the cars to transport liquor which was frowned upon by company officials. Mules would pull the cars back up again to Lion Mountain where the process repeated itself. The track was also covered with a snow shed most of the way. The mountain was steep to the Cleopatra mine, and a rope was strung along the trail to enable the miners to pull themselves up hand over hand. At one time, there was a flight of stairs at the steepest part, so nearly perpendicular that it resembled a ladder. It eventually burned and was not replaced. 

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The workings of the Cleopatra mine were intensely cold. The miners who worked there wore heave gloves, clothing and overshoes. That made it uncomfortable for the miners but advantageous to the owners, in those hammer and drill days, for the boys had to keep hitting the steel in order to keep warm. The production from the double hand teams was particularly heavy, for the man who twisted a drill for 15 minutes was anxious to get his circulation started again when it came his time to swing the double jack, and thus operations were well nigh continuous during a shift. 

At the Lion mine in Hecla, a bay mule called Jack dragged eight tramcars in and out of the tunnel. On one occasion, the loaders were late and just as Jack emerged from the tunnel followed by a train of loaded cars, the noon whistle blew.  Now Jack knew that a blast of the whistle meant eating time, so down and away galloped the mule, the cars tumbling behind him, and their contents cascading over the dump. The company also had a mouse colored mule named Susie, Susie not only pulled the tramcars, but learned to push them as well.
 
When Susie was brought out of Hecla in the winter, she wore her webs or snow shoes, these were made for her individual use, and she walked on them as nonchalantly as though she was on bare ground. Another equine favorite was Fatty, The Glendale smelter horse, Everybody agreed that he was as smart as a whip and as foxy as they made em, Fatty with his cart did the light hauling around the smelter. He knew by the feel of the load exactly where it was to go and hauled it without guidance, If the driver happened to be weighing ore, he simply loaded it into Fatty's cart and the horse backed around and headed for the scales. 

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The driver sometimes took a short-cut, knowing that Fatty would appear at the proper place, But the wise horse was very stubborn, he rested at certain spots while pulling up the hills, Fatty did this whether the cart was empty or otherwise and no amount of urging could interfere with his rest periods, He certainly had no intention of becoming wind broken, When the melodious smelter bell rang at noon or the end of the shift, its deep toned voice said to Fatty as plain as anything "Go to the barn!" He had the proclivities of a road hog too. Business was business with Fatty, and when he took to the road with his cart, pedestrians stepped aside or were trampled. Company officials, women and children were merely a part of the road to Fatty. After the smelter closed, the old smelter horse was turned out on the range, Once about 15 cowboys who were staging a round up at Browns Gulch tried to corral Fatty but Fatty by then had slimed down to the proportions of a race horse outdistanced his pursuers, It was for this that Fatty preserved his "wind" while on the smelter job. 

Glendale reached the peak of productiveness in the early 1880's.  In those days it was generally thought that the town was destined to flourish permanently, Glendal-ites were confident that the smelter camp was an embryonic city. Some of the old timers insist that Glendale was once in line for the state capitalship. In 1881 when the bitter county seat fight was being waged in Beaverhead County, Bannock slyly nominated Glendale, a clipping from an old issue of the Dillon Tribune quotes a spokesman for the Bannock tribe."Why not Glendale? Why not Glendale? Its mines will make it permanent, Glendale will be growing when the train goes through Dillon without whistling. Glendale was then larger than Dillon but the rough country in which the smelter town lay made it unsuitable for a county seat. The 'Bannock constituency was suspected of trying, by adroit flattery, to secure the solid vote of Glendale for Bannock, However, the strategy of the Bannock tribe failed, Dillon is on the map, but Glendale and Bannock thrives only on memory.

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The skating rink which occupied a prominent position on a hill, was the largest hall in the state and was constantly enlivened by dances and skating parties. Former residents of Glendale still recall the thrill of the big rally held at the rink when J,K. Toole was campaigning for governor of Montana. Toole was the democratic entrant in the gubernatorial race and Gannon was a candidate for superintendent of education on the Republican ticket, both were elected. The people organized a great torchlight procession. The column wound through the streets of the town and up the hill to the rink, and the flickering light of the torches made a brave showing against the somber darkness of the barren, encircling hills. Dances held in the big hall were attended by people from Bannock, Argenta and many other points. The rink was large enough for twenty sets (four people to the set) to dance quadrilles at one time.

At that time Glendale had a Bank, two drug stores. several dry goods stores, barber shops. A harness and wagon shop, seven of eight groceries, a justice of the peace. several doctors a company hospital, a number of restaurants, a tailor shop, a fine jewelry store, an opera house, several lodge halls, a meat market, a couple of confectionaries, two shoe stores,  a photograph gallery, and a school house which could accommodate 200 students. Glendale did not lack for recreation. There was Bannock Lodge of the LO.O.F. and for the Masons, Glendale Lodge No. 23. A race-track was laid out on the flat behind the two-story schoolhouse, and a roller-skating rink stood two blocks east of Henry Knippenberg's residence on a hillside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Socials were held in the church hall or in private homes, and by the middle 1880's, theatrical companies performed in Glendale's Opera House. Frequently, troupes from Maguire's Opera House in Butte gave "Fanchon the Cricket" and other popular melodramas to the play-hungry miners. The Rosedale Dramatic Players, and other troupes staged performances and drew capacity crowds. On show nights, people from Hecla and Lion City flocked to Glendale to enjoy a type of entertainment usually found only in the larger cities. Such productions brought whole families down from Hecla and Lion City despite storm and bad roads, especially in the winter when entertainment was scarce. Once, when a traveling company was caught in a blizzard between Melrose and Glendale, the audience waited four hours for the curtain to go up. The performance ended long after midnight, to the complete satisfaction of the audience. Sometimes, after a play, there was a free dance that went on until dawn. Dances were held at Hecla too. Mrs. Chinn said that she and other young folks would ride horseback the ten miles over steep mountain roads to Hecla, dance all night and ride back to Glendale in the morning. She remembered that although there were plenty of saloons there, drinking at dances was frowned upon and there was very little of it. 

Glendale had the usual homegrown entertainment, church socials, Sunday school picnics, school programs, card parties, and those featuring charades. Glendale’s younger crowd, and some not so young, could boast also that they went roller skating on the biggest skating rink in the northwest.An article in the Dillon Tribune dated to September 26,1885, talks of one of Glendale’s favorite past times “A stranger entering Glendale last Sunday might have believed it to be a legal holiday, judging by the large crowd of people who turned out to witness the horse race.  The race was between E.R. Alward’s black horse and a gray horse belonging to A.L. Pickett.  Alward’s horse won.  It is said that about $1300 changed hands that day.”

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The Post Office at Glendale was formerly established on July 23, 1875, when Ulysses S. Grant appointed Louis Schmalhausen as the first postmaster.  The Busniness became very lucrative.  When J.C. Keppler became the postmaster, his reports disclosed that the receipts for money orders reached $2000 per month, and the sale of postage stamps were $200 monthly.

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The Hecla Company also built a waterworks and fire protection system. Water from Trapper Creek was diverted through a ditch from where it was conveyed downhill at a drop of 130 feet above the smelter. The twelve inch wrought iron pipe brought the water into a turbine and then transferred it throughout the city.  According to a map drawn by the Sanborn-Perris Map Company, of New York, in October of 1891, nearly a mile of three inch pipe carried the water to several two inch hydrants, located at strategic points in Glendale.  A force of 100 to 135 pound per square inch was the estimated pressure at each outlet, where hoses of 50, 100 and 150 foot lengths were found. Many fires in Glendale resulted in considerable loss. One such fire broke out at the blacksmith shop and the Hiram Stuart Furniture store and Brown photo gallery were destroyed. 

The company built large flue dust chambers at the smelter reducing the number of lead poisoning cases at Glendale. At the insistence of the town's people, the furnace stacks were built higher so as more effectively to dissipate the fumes. 

The Hecla Company officials and their families lived in spacious and elegant residences built opposite Smelter Hill. Some of the houses were fronted by terraced lawns and were the secret envy of the citizens who lived on the "other" side of the tracks, Most of the company families employed Chinese houseboys. The people dwelling on the Glendale Acropolis were considered high toned by the inhabitant of Rag town or lower Glendale, and so the hill where the former resided was dubbed "Toney Hill" which it is called to this day. Toney hillites, however, did not have the hill entirely to themselves, a number of Rag town Squatters lived there in not so elegant abodes. 

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The rag town kids did not allow the Toney Hill kids past a certain line of demarcation near Pond's store. A fight ensued if Toney boys were caught in Rag town territory. The boys from lower Glendale were noted battlers, What if the feet of some of the Rag town lads were not as well shod they might have been? And what if their stomach were not too well filled? They still could put Toney Hill to flight and nothing else mattered. If Glendale enjoyed good times, it also felt the depression brought on by the panics of the period. People with large families sometimes had a hard struggle for existence. But they were too busy to be gloomy and they often danced on the pine knotted floors of their cabins to the strains of, “Pop Goes the Weasel” and other tunes, Dave Terry was usually the fiddler on these occasions.

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Two of the most disastrous Hecla snow slides occurred in the 1880s, During the winter and early spring, giant combs of snow hung menacingly on the rims of the mountains around the Galena Camp. Bert Rusks and Billy Sparks, two miners whose cabins lay in the path of a snow slide which roared down between Sheriff and Cleve mountains, were killed and their shack demolished, The bodies of the men were removed from the avalanche and taken to Glendale. The next evening, immediately after the men had returned from taking the bodies of Rusk and Sparks to the smelter town, a second slide descended, in which Nick Bergstrom and his two small daughters met their death. 

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The Bergstrom's had been unable to move out of the danger zone because of the illness of their two little girls who had contracted scarlet fever. George Collins, one of the rescue party, stepped on something that twitched under his foot. Digging in that spot, he uncovered Mrs. Bergstrom and her tiny Collins, the mother and child were nursed back to health, Nick Bergstrom and his little girls occupy one grave in the Glendale cemetery. Three days later, another avalanche trapped fourteen people in their cabins in Lion City. The Company came up with an idea to set charges off causing the remaining snow to come down and come down it die, causing considerable damage to the tramway and mining equipment.  

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The Nixholm family was also buried in the slide that took the lives of the three Bergstrom's but were saved by quick work on the part of the rescuers.  The same avalanche covered the cabin of two miners, Antone Rosini and an Irishman named Gilvary. A superstitious digger heard a peremptory tapping beneath the snow. He cast his shovel away and ran down the hill, vowing that he drew the line at digging for ghosts. Some of the men went up the hill and soon discovered that the tapping was a signal in the miner's telegraphy sent out by Gilvary. The partners were found at either end of a log, which preserved an air space and saved the men from suffocation. 

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Rosini was unconscious but the cool headed Gilvary kept tapping on the log to attract attention. Spectators say they will never forget the sight of the tall, one eyed Gilvary, who came down the trail yelling like a madman and clad in underwear, overshoes, a topcoat and a plug hat. Nobody ever knew where the Irishman unearthed the hat, The snow slide scene that night was one of terror and desolation. Cabins had been literally hurled through one another. One woman was temporarily crazed by the catastrophe. On the day following the second slide, the remainder of the overhanging comb was blasted from the mountain, A few years later, Jack Hassett and Frank Weber were killed in a Hecla snow slide.

 

The autumn of 1893 brought excessive snowfall at Lion City. Forty to sixty feet accumulated during October and November. The east slope of Lion Mountain was devoid of trees and provided a skidway with a 45 degree pitch. Yet the miners continued to climb daily and descend 3500 feet into the Cleopatra Mine. In the dark of night on November 29, 1893, the mountain gave up it’s burden. Millions of tons of snow skidded down and buried most of the cabins. The first victims were five miners and a Chinese cook, Ah Wing, sleeping in the Mining Company boarding house. Later, rescue operations saved three of the miners, but two miners were smothered to death. Ah Wing was pushed out of his bed and his body was later recovered. 

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At the annual meeting of the company in January of 1882, not satisfied with the great work he had accomplished in his first year, he asked the board for the go ahead to build a concentrator needed to process second class ore which was stock piling. On June 10th of 1882, work had begun erecting the large concentrator at Greenwood. This 100- ton concentrator had a telephone line that connected Glendale, Greenwood and Hecla. The concentrator ran off water power supplied by a water flume from Trapper Creek about one half mile with a vertical drop of two hundred feet processing low grade ore. A tramway was built to move ore between Hecla and Greenwood which measured about four miles in length. There were three cars, each with a brakeman which constituted a train and the empties were pulled back to the ore house at the base of Lion Mountain by Mules. The Grade was steep and when the heavily loaded cars were in motion, they occasionally jumped the track causing injury and sometimes killing the brakemen.

The concentrator, which was a marvel of efficiency, treated about 100 tons every twenty four hours and treated 177,092 tons of second class ore between 1882 to 1898. The machinery was supplied by Fort Scott Machine Company, of Fort Scott, Kansas. Besides the concentrator, the Hecla Mining Company owned a boarding house, four dwellings, office, stable, and blacksmith shop, and the installation of a telephone line. Henry Knippenberg was responsible for the naming of Greenwood.

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 In a newspaper article dated (September 1,1882),“The Management of Greenwood, the Hecla Company’s new town, will prevent the erection of any saloon buildings within the sacred precincts of that village. The principal office of the company is to be erected in greenwood. On November 2nd, 1882, his daughter, Miss Mamie opened the water wheel and set the machinery in motion. Knippenberg would also build himself a beautiful mansion that was above and beyond anything that would seem appropriate of a mining community of the day. It boasted of six fireplaces, silver doorknobs, Brussels carpeting, closets lined with cedar, and a very large retaining, rock wall surrounding the home which sat atop the hill overlooking the Smelter and town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(March 1884), Jack Reynolds is the new proprietor of the Glendale house in Glendale

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(March 07,1886) The Avery House of Glendale is destroyed by fire.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henry appointed George B. Conway to serve as cashier and book keeper for the company. Conway arrived from Indianapolis with his new wife and would serve as Knippenberg's right hand man.  By 1886 the Hecla Mercantile and Banking Company, a separate subsidiary of the mining company, was organized with capital stock of $100,000. The company was a consolidation of Gaffney and Purdam of Melrose; Armstrong & Losee, Noah Armstrong & Company of Glendale, and Wilson, Rote & Co. of Hecla. These represented three mercantile firms and one bank. Henry Knippenberg also served as the concern's president. He also involved himself in local politics, serving for a time as a Beaverhead County Commissioner, a state representative, and a member of Montana's 1889 Constitutional Convention. 
The production of bouillon increased drastically that in 1885, the Hecla Consolidated Mining Company built at the Glendale Plant 3 blast furnaces, 2 crushers, and a large roaster. A four mile long tramway was built between Hecla and the mill at Greenwood to improve transporting of the ore from the mines. 

(August of 1900), Glendale closes it's post office. Closest mail would be Melrose. That same year, the smelters at Glendale were finally closed and torn down. In January 1903 the Atlantis mine closed down, followed a short time later by the Cleve. In 1904, all the company's operations ceased. As early as 1893, production began to slow down, so that only two furnaces were kept in operation in Glendale. Eventually the smelters were shut down on August 29, 1900. Ore was then shipped to the American Smelting & Refining Company at Omaha, Nebraska. That fall, Knippenberg ordered the furnaces dismantled. The Hecla Consolidated Mining Company ceased operations in 1904. 

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Knippenberg acquired ownership of the properties in 1904 at a sheriff's sale for $28,011.26, the amount that the company owed him. Perhaps he could have pulled it out of the red again if he had not been hampered by litigation.. The Penobscot Mining Company then mined the Atlantus, True Fissure, Trapper, Cleve, and Franklin lodes from 1913 to 1915, under an agreement with Knippenberg. A 20-stamp concentrator was constructed at Lion City and ore valued at $243,427 was mined by the company. When the mines closed in 1915, the district continued to prosper from the ore and slag piles at the old smelter at Glendale with nearly $903,000 worth of ore being shipped from 1916 to 1922 (Geach 1972). Finally, around 1924, a settlement was reached and the mines were sold to a Philadelphia syndicate.

This new company did little with the mines, and in 1927, George B. Conway, Knippenberg's former cashier, acquired the property and shipped slag from the smelter and ore from the mine dumps for more than a year. In 1928 he sold his holdings for about $500,000. For the next few years, various people leased and worked the mines.

The Hecla company stands out as one of the more successful mining companies in Montana. During its long productive history, the company paid dividends every year for 21 years (with the single exception of 1898) (Winchell 1914; Sassman 1941; Geach 1972). During the 20-year period of operations under Knippenberg, one of Montana's most successful mining entrepreneurs, the mines produced over $22 million worth of silver and other metals; paid out $7,765,245 for labor, supplies and taxes; and paid dividends to stockholders totaling $2,057,500 (Winchell 1914; Davis 1962; Wolle 1963; Geach 1972).  Geologists sav that the largest single body of ore in the world was found in the Cleopatra mine on Lion's Mountain.

The Hecla properties then went through a series of convoluted ownership changes starting in 1923, when the properties were sold for $230,000 to the Hecla Development Syndicate which continued development work and processed the ore, slag and mill tailings from previous mining operations.

The district was then open to leasers in 1926 under the supervision of G. B. Conway. The following year the properties were acquired by the United States Smelting, Refining, and Exploration Company who did development work on the Cleve-Avon. Later, in 1928, Conway acquired ownership of the properties and sold them on option to the Foundation Company of Utah. The company spent $80,000 on development and exploration work but did not quite break even after shipping $78,376 worth of ore and slag. In 1930, the claims and mines reverted to Conway who again turned the district into a leasers' camp. During the later 1930s, the district produced small amounts of ore, which yielded $175,452 in metals. L. D. Foreman of Dillon acquired the option for the properties following Conway's death in 1945. Some years later, Leonard Lively of Melrose picked up the option and in 1965 held title to most of the old Hecla Company assets (Gilbert 1935; Sassman 1941; Trauerman 1940, 1942 & 1950; Crowley 1960 & 1962; Geach 1964, 1966 & 1972; Lawson 1976 & 1977).

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