Somers Reunion recaptures forgotten historyBy Jacob Doran / West Shore News

The highly anticipated Somers Reunion, which took place last Saturday in the Somers fire hall, drew a sizable crowd of current and former Somers residents from all over the United States, as well as those from more distant shores.

With a registered attendance of 110, former Somers resident Patsy Monroe took the prize for the greatest distance traveled-7,680 miles as the crow flies. These days, she hails from the "Land Down Under," Queensland, Australia. Others hailed from Cajun country (Louisiana), the New England states, the Bread Basket of America (the Midwest), and points to the south and west.

However, not all of the old-timers left the area when Somers' heyday faded into history and was relegated to black-and-white pictures in old family scrapbooks. A few, like members of the DeLong family, found a good life for themselves and Somers and never ventured far from home.

Pat and Joe DeLong were among the oldest of those who attended the reunion and, consequently, were able to share their long history of the company town with others who may not remember so far back. Pat (a long-time Hot Springs resident) and Joe (a lifetime Somers resident) were joined by their younger brother Donald of Spokane-the baby in a family of six boys and one girl.

Though born in Wisconsin, Pat recalled his father, Milton DeLong, moving the family to Somers in 1926 and gaining employment with the lumber mill. Pat moved to Hot Springs in 1948, after the mill closed down, but his father remained in Somers until the day he died. When the mill closed, Milton worked at the tie plant for the Great Northern Railroad.

Pat has lived in Hot Springs for more than 50 years and even served as a Sanders County commissioner for 18 years. However, he never forgot Somers, which he says he will always remember fondly.

"Nobody realized what a good town this was until after they left," he said, recalling countless childhood memories that still bring a smile to his face. "If you worked for the mill, you had cheap rent and free electricity. We lived in a brand new four-bedroom house, and we paid $15 a month for rent. Every three years, the company would completely clean and paint your house.

"You'd charge things all winter at the company store, and then you'd work all the following spring to pay off your bill. People would sometimes go into the store and charge $10 in cash, and then go into Kalispell and spend it. Where else could you do that? I mean it was really a good town-a company town."

Milton, Pat said, made a very good life for himself, punctuated with a nice retirement that he enjoyed until his death, in the very town that had taken such good care of him for so many years.

It may be difficult for some to imagine today, but Pat recalled when Somers had all the conveniences that most people could want in their home town. The town once supported three churches, two mercantile/grocery stores, two garages, a bank, a drug store, a barber shop, a dance hall that eventually showed movies-it stood in the very spot where the post office now sits-a pool hall, a ball field and official baseball team, and even a Somers band that performed every Sunday afternoon from the town bandstand.

"Everybody went to every ball ball game, because that was the main entertainment for the town," Pat said. "Of course, back then, you made your own entertainment. As Kalispell grew, everybody started going to Kalispell for entertainment."

Believe it or not, until 1943, Somers had both a grade school and a two-year high school that operated a four-year program for one year before returning to the two-year system due to a lack of support as well as a lack of accreditation.

As a side not, the Somers School District was created in 1895, when it was called the McGovern School District after the 500-acre homestead owned by Tom McGovern, which encompassed most of the area around Somers Bay. Fully 350 acres of the McGovern ranch was later sold for a sum of $10,000 to John O'Brien as a millsite that would eventually support a 400 men and their families. Thus, by 1901, the town of Somers was born, initially as a boom town.

O'Brien's 20-room house still sits on top of a hill, overlooking the town. Over the years, the house has functioned as a hotel, office building and private residence. The town's first hotel and eating house were actually part of the McGovern ranch house, and the Somers Hotel was built in 1901 to house many of the early workers.

However, Pat recalled another hotel, the Great Northern Hotel, which served as a boarding house for seasonal workers and visitors in his youth. And, to stress the fact that Somers was a truly modern town with modern amenities, he added that the town even boasted one telephone, in a convenient location where everyone could use it, and the Great Northern Hotel served as a boarding house for both seasonal workers and visitors.

But the town also had gained notoriety through less glorious moments like the payroll robbery of 1906, that occurred just one mile north of Somers, when masked men held up the stagecoach carrying the O'Brien Lumber Company's $8,000 payroll; or the runaway locamotive that left Kalispell without an engineer and plunged off the dock in Somers into Flathead Lake in the fall of 1908; or the great fire of 1911 that destroyed the sawmill and caused $220,000 in damages.

However, those who attended the Somers Reunion recalled one of Somers' other claims to notoriety, which proved to be a commonly kept secret for more than a few Somers families. As it turned out, the absence of a tavern didn't mean that Somers was a dry town-far from it. With a significant population of wine-loving Italians and half of the Scandinavian population from Stillwater, Minn., it seems that Somers also supported it's share of private stills, which were safely hidden away in the attics and basements-and occasionally behind a secret wall-in the homes and sheds of Somers residents.

The community and its past tenants shared numerous laughs about some of those well-guarded family secrets that were very much a part of Somers' colorful past, telling stories and pouring over old pictures of the once great company town and the people who made so many of its days memorable ones.

"We thought it was just wonderful," reunion organizer Fran Ruby said. "We were very pleased with the turnout and thought it went fantastic. We enjoyed having everyone, and I think everyone enjoyed being there. It was just a wonderful get-together of Somers people, old and new."