Memories of Silver Hills

G. GEORGE OSTROM / For the Hungry Horse News

Lest we forget! Our State motto is "Oro y Plata," gold and silver. The price of precious metals always climbs during financial lows. No one knows how many billions in gold and silver have been mined in Montana … and maybe someday there will be millions more taken from the site of the old Flathead Mine where I was raised. The geologists know it is there but the price was low when they did the last testing in the 1960s and '70s; nor was the science of extraction clean enough to pass muster with the EPA. Many know of the vast wealth deep in the Hog Heaven Hills north of Niarada; however there is more up there than ore. There is history too.

My 1936 third-grade teacher in the first one room school was Jean O'Connell, who before her marriage to rancher, Chuck O'Connell, had the pioneering Hollensteiner family name. I loved Jean O'Connell as my teacher and dear friend. Kept in touch until her death a few years back. Will always remember 1959 when I was on radio and made a glaring error of grammar. "Mrs. O'Connell" was on the phone in three minutes, "George! You know I learned you better than that!"

Jean was busy during the 1960s compiling local oral histories with many others helping. Later, Jean's son, Larry, gave me those fascinating pioneer stories. Here's one:

Fred Flagg

By Sophie Vergin and Jan Kienas — Smith Valley Homemakers

Fred Flagg was 84 years old March 20, 1968.

He came to the valley in 1905 and farmed near Nirada on homestead land. He like to hunt and got 105 mountain lions the first year. He grub staked 20 prospectors. One of them, a Mr. Jenson, brought him a sample of ore and he had it assayed. It was worth $200 a ton. There were holes all over and they had a hard time finding the place where the sample came from, near the surface.

He built the first Brown's Meadow road to the Flathead mines. Said they took out a carload per day. It was shipped to Butte. Mr. Ordish built the first two cabins at Flathead mines. He recalled Mr. Snoderly was the assayer. They took out $92,000 worth of ore and Snoderly got $105,000 for his work as assayer. (Ed note: Mr. Flagg had unflattering words here for Mr. Snoderly.)

Fred could remember when Kila Lake (Smith Lake) was backed up 20 miles to the foot of Marion Hill. They thought it was started by a beaver dam. He recalled the post office at Kila was called Sudan. Mr. and Mrs. Flagg told us of huckleberry trips up Fisher River. The price was up to 20 cents a gallon in 1920. They are also rock hounds and she showed us a sample of silver ore taken from the Flathead Mines.

When I asked Mr. Flagg how old he was, he said 16.

Now — from my own memory and notes, let me add to Fred's story. Flagg, Snoderly and partners sold their rights to the Flathead Mine but there has always been disagreement about price and who got what. The Anaconda Mining Company paid them quite well because of their work and assaying records showed the ACM it was getting a claim with great potential. Anaconda already owned the mineral rights and had let Flagg's group mine on a lease. The ACM took over in 1929 and my dad was brought from Butte to start the first five tunnels below the "Glory Hole," where others had excavated.

My dad, Logan, would be 105 years old if still alive. He might have lived that long but too many years underground gave him silicosis, "the miner's con" and he died at 76. Dad recalled "The Company" was paying "the boys' $5 a day before the depression hit and the smelter strike of 1934. Silver was bringing 24 cents an ounce. After the strike, the mine reopened and the boys got $2.25 a day. Dad said, "That's the way the company worked."

He was a "contract miner," paid for how many tons of rock he could drill and blast from the tunnel face each shift and averaged about $11 per day. Our family was not living like royalty but eleven dollars was a lot of money during the 1932 Hoover Administration and we had a touring car with side curtains that pulled down with tassels. Two men from a bank came and took it when the depression reached Montana. My little four-year-old brother, Ritchey, tried to kick one of them in the shins. He really liked that car.

There are a lot of memories up there … in the silver hills of Hog Heaven.