History of
Great Falls, Montana
Founded in 1883 by
Paris Gibson and railroad
magnate
James J. Hill,
Great Falls
began as a planned power city,
situated to take advantage of
the hydroelectric power of the
waterfalls of the Missouri
River. Historian William J. Furdell described it as "a
businessman's town" and it was
said that the city "couldn't
point to a boot hill or a hangin'
tree."
In 1884, the
Great Falls post
office was recognized by the
United States Postal Service. In
1889, construction on the Black
Eagle Dam began, which would
provide the city with
hydroelectric power by the
following year.
Great Falls quickly became a
thriving industrial and supply
center and, by the early 1900s,
was en route to becoming one of
Montana's largest cities. The
rustic studio of famed Western
artist
Charles Marion Russell was a
popular attraction, as were the
famed "great falls," after which
the city was named. A structure
billed as the "world's tallest
smokestack" was completed in
1908 by the city's largest
employer, the
Anaconda Copper Mining
Company's smelter, measuring 508
feet tall. The Big Stack
immediately became a landmark
for the community.
Great Falls prospered further
with the opening of a nearby
military base in the 1940s, but
as rail transportation and
freight slowed in the later part
of the century, outlying farming
areas lost population, and with
the closure of the smelter and
cutbacks at the airbase, its
population has plateaued.
Paris Gibson
(July 1, 1830 –December 16, 1920), was a
Minneapolis entrepreneur and
Montana politician.
Gibson was born in Brownfield, Oxford County,
Maine. He served as a member of the
Montana
State Senate and as a Democratic member of the
United States Senate between 1901 and 1905. He
abandoned his failed business interests in
Minnesota to try his luck out West and, in 1880,
paid a visit to the waterfalls of the
Missouri River and quickly recognized their
potential for producing hydroelectric power.
Gibson convinced his friend, railroad magnate
James J. Hill, to invest in a town site at the
falls and urged that Hill extend his railroad
through the new city. In 1883 the city of
Great
Falls, Montana had been founded.
By 1887 Hill rail lines linked
Great Falls to
Butte, Montana and Helena,
Montana. However, the
main line of Hill's Great Northern Railway
bypassed
Great Falls to the north. Despite this
setback,
Great Falls became a major center of
trade for area farmers and ranchers, and its
dams on the Missouri River contributed power for
ore processing and grain milling industries.
When William A. Clark resigned from the
United States Senate, Gibson, was
elected to fill the seat, and he served from
March 7, 1901 until March 3, 1905. He did not
seek re-election. He died in
Great Falls,
Montana and is buried in Highland Cemetery,
Great Falls.
Charles
Marion Russell (1864, Oak Hill, Missouri
– 1926,
Great Falls,
Montana), also known as
C.
M. Russell, was one of the great artists of the
American West.
Russell created more than 2,000
paintings of cowboys, Indians, and landscapes
set in the Western United States, in addition to
bronze sculptures. The
C. M. Russell Museum in
hometown of
Great Falls, Montana houses more
than 2,000
Russell artworks, personal objects,
and artifacts. His mural entitled Lewis and
Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians hangs in
the state capitol building in Helena,
Montana.
His 1918 painting Piegans sold for $5.6
million dollars at a 2005 auction
In 1896, he married his wife
Nancy. In 1897, they moved from
the small community of Cascade,
Montana to neighboring
Great
Falls, where
Russell spent the
majority of his life from that
point on. There, he continued
with his art, becoming a local
celebrity and gaining the
acclaim of critics worldwide. As
he kept primarily to himself,
Nancy is generally given credit
in making
Russell an
internationally known artist.
She set up many shows for him
throughout the United States and
in London creating many
followers of
Russell's.
Russell the artist arrived on
the cultural scene at a time
when the "wild west" was being
chronicled and sold back to the
public in many forms, ranging
from the dime novel to the wild
west show and soon evolving into
motion picture shorts and
features of the silent era, the
so-called [westerns] that have
become a movie staple.
Russell
was fond of these popular art
forms, and made many friends
among the well-off collectors of
his works, including actors and
film makers such as William S.
Hart, Harry Carey, Will Rogers
and Douglas Fairbanks. He also
kept up with other artists of
his ilk, including painter
Edward "Ed" Borein and Will
Crawford the illustrator.
On the day of
Russell's
funeral in 1926, all the
children in
Great Falls were
released from school to watch
the funeral procession.
Russell's coffin was displayed
in a glass sided coach, pulled
by four black horses.
The Mariana
UFO Incident occurred in
August
1950 in
Great Falls,
Montana. Nicholas "Nick" Mariana, the
general manager of the
Great Falls "Electrics"
minor-league baseball team, and his secretary
observed two "bright, silvery spheres" move
rapidly over the city's empty baseball stadium.
Mariana used his camera to film the objects; the
film was one of the first ever taken of a
UFO.
The incident received widespread national
publicity and is regarded as one of the first
great UFO incidents in the United States.
Over fifty years after it was
filmed, what remains of the
Mariana
UFO film has become a
popular piece of study amongst
UFO buffs. It is still featured
in documentaries, television
programs, and shared online.
Although often-disputed, it
remains one of the strongest
cases supporting the existence
of
UFOs ever captured on film.
Since the "Incident", over 100
other
UFO sightings have been made
in
Great Falls, Montana, making
it one of the most active
locations for
UFO sightings in
North America.
|
