Andrew B. Hammond (1848-1934)Andrew B. Hammond (1848-1934), son a of a lumberman, was born in St. Leonards, New Brunswick.  Like many other young men of the time, he eventually moved west.  About 1870 Hammond found himself in Missoula, where he obtained a job in a general store, and by 1871 he was working as a salesman for Bonner and Company’s store.  By 1877, he became a partner with Richard Eddy and Edward Bonner, in the business which was now called Eddy, Hammond and Company.  This eventually became the Missoula Mercantile with Hammond as general manager.

Dale Johnson, retired archivist for the University of Montana, wrote his dissertation on Hammond. According to Johnson, by the 1880s, Hammond owned or otherwise controlled the following:

• Missoula Mercantile (Montana's largest wholesale and retail store)
• Big Blackfoot Milling Co. (the largest mill between Wisconsin and the West Coast)
• Flour mill at Bonner
• Grain elevators in western Montana
• Missoula Real Estate Association (including Florence Hotel, the Hammond Block, and many other downtown blocks)
• First National Bank (western Montana's largest bank)
• South Missoula Land Company (owned residential areas south of the Clark Fork River)
• Missoula Water Works and Milling Company (all water and electricity)
• Missoula Street Railway Company (horse drawn)
• Missoula Publishing Company (Missoulian)
• Missoula Valley Improvement Company (owned the cemetery)

In addition, the partnership created by the formation of the Montana Improvement Company in 1882 took advantage of the huge profits to be made in timber.  After obtaining an initial contract from the railroad in 1881, the company built several sawmills around Missoula to supply lumber for ties and timbers for the trestles (Marent Trestle) and tunnels.  The three original partners, Eddy, Hammond, and Bonner now joined with M. J. Connell, Marcus Daly, and Washington Dunn of Northern Pacific.  With capital of $2 million, over half of which came from Northern Pacific, the corporation was authorized to do business in Montana, Idaho, and Washington.  Hammond, became the force behind the group, and took charge of building of the new Blackfoot Mill at Bonner.

Hammond is perhaps better remembered today on the west coast, where he moved in the 1890s after divesting himself of his Missoula holdings.  On the coast he amassed huge lumber holdings and created the Hammond Lumber Company as well as several railroad lines.  He died in California in 1934.

According to Missoula historian Lenora Koelbel, after Hammond left Missoula Hammond Avenue was renamed as Gerald Avenue (after one of C.P. Higgins children) because of the rift between C. P. Higgins and Hammond.  However, the Hammond Arcade, a one-story rebuilding of Hammond’s huge, four-story office building that burned in 1932, still retains his name.

Industrialization came to the farming communities around the Confluence beginning in the late 1800s.  All of the major players of early Montana industrial history – Andrew B. Hammond, Marcus Daly and his Anaconda Company, two major railroads, the  Northern Pacific Railroad and the Milwaukee Railroad, and Senator William Andrews Clark, and later Montana Power  –  all came to have a role in the area at the Confluence.

As part of the nation’s industrialization, these men dammed the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers to produce electricity  for a mill,  and for Milltown, Missoula and the Bitterroot Valley.  They built two huge lumber mills within a half mile of each other – providing mine timbers and wood products to Marcus Daly’s and William Clark’s mining operations in Butte, and turning huge quantities of trees from adjacent forests into lumber for the railroads and the settlers moving west. Lumber was shipped to both coasts. Two railroads were built through the Confluence, facilitating the rapid change.  A lumber railroad was constructed to enable the logs to be brought out of the woods all year.  A flour mill existed for a few years.

Andrew Hammond was the first to influence the area.  It was his energy in the partnership of the Montana Improvement Company that was the driving force behind the  building of the Bonner Mill.  He crossed paths with Daly but had left the area before the turn of the century.

The history of Bonner and Milltown was molded by the activities of Montana’s ambitious and often ruthless “Copper Kings,” Marcus Daly and William Andrews Clark.  Daly and Clark concentrated their efforts on controlling Montana politics and the mining towns of Butte ("the richest hill on earth") and Anaconda; smaller communities downstream were simply useful tools for their fortune-building ambitions.

The well-documented rivalry between the two men played out in Bonner and Milltown, albeit on a smaller scale than elsewhere.  Here they competed for the same timber resources, they had sawmills within a half mile of each other, and their nearby flour mills competed for the same Bitterroot wheat.  For a brief time Clark had the greater stronghold, but ultimately the legacy of Daly and his Anaconda Company "won" and held control of Bonner and Milltown for many years.

The major industrialists at the Confluence are described in this section.

W.A. ClarkTimber brought copper king William Andrew Clark to the Bonner area. In few short years at the turn of the last century, he secured a monopoly on area electricity, and his influence extended from the dam, to the electric company, to the streetcar, to a large saw mill and a flour mill.  Despite his stronghold, within seven years of his death in 1925, all these assets had been sold or demolished.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1839, William Andrews Clark was raised in Iowa, where his family homesteaded.   After graduating law school, and serving as a Confederate in the Civil War, he worked in the quartz mines in Colorado. 

Lured to Montana’s burgeoning mining  opportunities in 1863, he first worked in the placer mines before realizing that there was more to be made supplying the miners than in actually mining.  He sold supplies ( especially desired items like eggs and tobacco)  to Virginia City, transported mail  from Helena and undertook banking in Deer Lodge before  moving to Butte where in 1872 he bought up a quartz claim and then a foreclosed mill where he began amassing a fortune milling other people’s ore. 

Clark’s crafty business sense caused him to anticipate Marcus Daly’s need for water for his new smelter and Daly found that Clark had meantime bought up these rights.  Thus began the battle of the copper kings.  By 1884 he pushed his way into politics although he did meet resistance when he tried to buy a senate seat in 1899. He was actually elected in 1901-1907.

His checkered career in Montana politics as well as the extent of his copper, banking and railroad empire which made him one of the wealthiest men in America is beyond the scope of the Bonner-Milltown story but makes for lively reading.  Clark died in 1925 leaving an estate of $200 million and an impressive art collection now at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC.  His mansion in Butte is now a bed and breakfast.

In Bonner, Clark created the Western Lumber Company and secured a monopoly on area electricity, and his influence extended from the dam, to the electric company, to the streetcar, to a large saw mill and a flour mill.  Clark also created Riverside Park -- a small version of Butte's Columbia Gardens – that opened with great fanfare in 1911. The park was located just west of the dam site and included the dam's reservoir as a recreational lake.  On Sundays the street car from Missoula made a special stop at Riverside Park.
Despite his stronghold, within seven years of his death in 1925, all these assets had been sold or demolished.

Anaconda bought the mill from Clark’s heirs in 1928 and continued to operate both mills for several years. The Depression and the difficulty of running two adjacent mills caused Anaconda to close the Western in 1931.  It took a couple of years for the mill to be dismantled and the inventory used up. Fifty men were still employed at the Western in 1932, but none in 1933.   

2008 saw the removal of Clark’s Milltown Dam.  In addition, millions of tons of contaminants--washed downstream from Clark's and Daly's Butte and Anaconda mining operations and collecting behind the dam for over 100 years—continue to be dug out of the Clark Fork River bed.  Each night, contaminants are shipped upstream to a repository by train. 

All that remains of Clark's Milltown legacy are a couple of dam worker’s garages and the Western Lumber Company office, which is now a restaurant where the safe, still intact, holds pies instead of payroll checks.

Marcus Daly

Born in Ireland, Marcus Daly, the youngest of 11 children, came to America in 1856 at the age of 15 to escape the poverty of home. Working his way across the country he eventually landed in Virginia City, Nevada, where he gained valuable mining experience in the silver mine. There he met George Hearst (father of William Randolph Hearst) who would later become one of his financial backers.  By 1871 he had moved to Utah and became involved with the Walker Brothers who were investing in mining and involved in banking.  As their foreman, he was sent to Butte in 1876 to assess the Alice mine for the Walkers.  When they bought it, he acquired a 1/5 interest. 

He moved to Butte to manage the Alice and also sought out mining opportunities for himself.  He acquired the Anaconda mine, which was initially worked as a silver mine, from Michael Hickey. After the discovery of one of the largest deposits of copper in the world some 300 feet down, Daly’s and Butte’s fortunes were forever changed due to the insatiable demand for electricity and, therefore, copper. 

Daly needed money for a smelter, and he sought and obtained the financial backing of George Hearst, who by then was in partnership with James Ben Alli Haggin and Lloyd Tevis, a hugely successful mining and banking syndicate.

The site he chose for the smelter was 28 miles west of Butte, and there the town of Anaconda was born. The Washoe smelter opened in 1884 and soon produced about $17 million annually. Daly's influence was widespread; he owned coal mines and vast timberlands to power the mills and smelter as well as several banks and the Anaconda Standard newspaper. He carried ore on his own Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railroad, and he owned the Butte City Water Company. He also had a 22,000 acre ranch in the Bitterroot with an accompanying stock farm and race horses including the famous “Tammany.”

His infamous rivalry with another copper king, William Andrews Clark, ran on for years.  His political activities were aimed not at getting elected, but at manipulating those who would be, keeping Clark out of the political sphere, and supporting those candidates at the federal level who would give him free rein in cutting timber.  He also tried unsuccessfully to get Anaconda named as the capital of Montana.  

In 1882 he joined forces with A.B. Hammond and others to form the Montana Improvement Company to exploit the timber resources of western Montana. Out of this association, the Bonner Mill was built, under the leadership of Hammond. Initially the mill had large contracts to supply the mines in Butte with timbers that propped up the mine shafts.  However by 1889, when Hammond refused to support Daly politically, Daly cancelled the contract. Within nine years Daly was trying to buy Hammond’s mill- which he finally succeeded in doing for  $1.5 in August of 1898. It became part of the Anaconda Mining Company, initially known as its Lumber Division.  Daly died in  1900, but The Anaconda Company and its influence lived on.

When he Daly died in 1900, the Butte Miner newspaper summed up his life:

Marcus Daly was a man to remember. He fought his way from dire poverty to fabulous riches.  A true empire builder, he was a man of extreme. A friend to his friends, to his enemies remorseless and unforgiving. Daly, a father figure watched over his family, his friends and his employees with a heartfelt benevolence.  lt must be noted that when he ran the Anaconda Mining Company, he treated his employees better than most corporations of the time.  More than any other man he built the Montana mining industry, he was a true son of Ireland, which he never forgot and helped."

Clark’s electrically-powered mill, built in 1904, produced 100 barrels per day. The mill was located at located at West 3rd Street in Missoula.  A large storage elevator for 100,000 bushels of wheat was built alongside.  Wheat came from the Bitterroot and Drummond areas.  C. H. Richardson was appointed manager, in addition to his duties as manager of Western Lumber Company.  He paid the farmers an average of $0.75 a bushel for their wheat.  Once milled, the flour was sold under the brand names of “Missoula,” "Excelsior” and “Magnolia,” and salesmen sold the product from Deer Lodge to Sandpoint, Idaho. 

The Missoulian had nothing but praise for Clark’s mill, stating, "It has oft been remarked that if W.A. Clark has one pet institution it is the Western Montana Flouring Mill.  Mr. Clark appears to take a more keen delight in this institution, perhaps  because the product is white against a white output of most of his products…The management of the mill has been eulogized by many experts in the flour milling business and the eastern manufactures have been forced to admit that the Western Montana Flouring Mill is  putting out as good as the best flour in the world."

By 1921 flour was being produced under the name of Ravalli Flour and Cereal.  The 80-foot structure burned in 1949 but was rebuilt by 1951.  The facility was called the Montana Flour Mills Company and Feed Mill on the 1958 Sanborn Map of Missoula.

Clark, who owned the railway system in Butte, envisioned the Missoula system as extending to Hamilton and Great Falls.  Though it never accomplished that, these electric cars created more demand for electricity at his new dam.  These street cars were the first in the country to use one-man crews on double-track street cars.

Residents of Bonner-Milltown repeatedly noted that the cars were dependable.  They ran every hour from 7:30 AM.  The last streetcar left Missoula at midnight and arrived at 12:30 AM, making it possible to go to the movies in Missoula and catch the street car home.  More than one old-time resident noted that the conductor sometimes would delay the midnight start from Missoula so that everyone could get home. 

The fare from Bonner to Missoula was $0.15.  Since the Bonner School only went through 8th grade, in 1911 school trustees agreed to pick up the tab for high school students so they could ride the street car for free.  Men from Missoula could work at the mill by taking the street car and it was said that many Milltown women would start their husband’s dinner when the 4:30 PM street car went by.  Supplies were also transported by the streetcar.  Once Clark’s Riverside Park opened, a special open car went to the Park several times on a summer Sunday afternoon.

The availability of personal cars (especially Model Ts) spelled the end of the streetcar.  It discontinued service January 24, 1932.  Many still believe life in Milltown was somewhat better during the streetcar days because of the convenience of public transportation.  The Bonner street car has been restored by the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula and will be permanently housed at the Museum when a protective structure for it is completed.

Rise of the Industrialists

    Andrew B. Hammond
    Marcus Daly
    William A. Clark

The Sawmills

    Big Blackfoot Milling Co.
    Early Logging Camps
    Western Lumber Mill
    The Anaconda Company
    The Mill at Work
    The Company and Everyday Life
    After the Company

The Railroads

    Northern Pacific Railroad
    Big Blackfoot Railroad
    Milwaukee Railroad

The Dams

    The Bonner Dam
    The Milltown Dam
    The Powerhouse
    Flood of 1908

Rivers & Restoration