Glacier Park's cowboy ranger

Horace Brewster, one of Glacier National Park’s first rangers, was inducted into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame last year. His iconic life stands shoulder to shoulder with other pioneers who helped shape Montana’s history.

Neil Brewster, Horace’s grandson, who retired as the Park’s contracting officer last fall, said he heard the Hall of Fame was looking for inductees and decided to nominate his grandfather. He wrote up a two-page biography based on family memories, Walt Coburn’s book on the Circle C Ranch and an article about Horace in the January 1978 “Tombstone Epitaph.”

Now in its seventh year and based in Wolf Point, the Hall of Fame plans to build a museum in Big Timber to recognize Montana’s pioneers. Thirty-eight places or people were inducted last year as current or legacy members.

Horace was born in Ohio in 1855 and came to Montana in 1864. His stepfather, a doctor, was interested in chasing gold discoveries, and the family moved to Virginia City and Bannack in the Vigilante days, then Last Chance Gulch in Helena and finally Washington.

When Horace was 15, he declared his independence and worked his way back to Montana. He started as a bullwhacker delivering freight between Carroll Bottom and Helena before finding work on a number of big cattle ranches.

Horace worked for Robert Coburn’s Flatwillow Creek Ranch near the Snowy Mountains before landing the foreman job for Coburn at the 30,000-acre Circle C Ranch in the Little Rockies of north-central Montana.

Those were epic times in the annals of cowboy history. Kid Curry, a member of the Hole In The Wall Gang, operated a nearby ranch. Horace was a good friend of Charlie Russell and hired the famous artist as a nighthawk to watch over the Circle C’s horses at night. He also ran cattle for Kalispell founder Charles Conrad, delivering herds to Indians in Canada.

“Conrad called Horace one of the most honest people he’d ever met,” Neil said.

Horace was witness to history several times. He participated in the last big cattle roundup, with five large ranches moving their herds at one time, and he was at Flatwillow Creek in 1877 when Chief Joseph’s band of Nez Perce stopped for the night on their failed run to Canada.

“Coburn went out to meet with the Indians, and his instruction to Brewster was that if the Indians killed him, then Brewster was to shoot Coburn’s wife and children rather than let her be captured and tortured,” Neil wrote, noting that the Indians left before morning.

Brewster also knew Major William Logan, the Indian agent at the Fork Belknap Reservation. After Logan was selected to be Glacier Park’s first superintendent, he asked Brewster to come along and work as a Park ranger.

“As a foreman at the Circle C Ranch, Horace was probably familiar with handling crews and getting things done,” Neil said.

Horace arrived in August 1910 with his wife Clemence, a Metis Indian, his three-year-old son Eddie and four horses, Neil said. The Park provided him with one more horse. Neil said Horace likely met Clemence through her brother, Joseph Dossome, who might have worked at the Circle C Ranch.

Park headquarters in 1910-1911 was housed in rented cabins in Apgar. Over the years, Horace was assigned to the Fish Creek, Logging Creek, Indian Creek, Flathead River and Kishenehn ranger stations.

Horace, Clemence and Eddie wintered over at the remote Kishenehn Ranger Station, about three miles northeast of Kintla Lake near the Canada border. Horace, who wasn’t a hunter, patrolled the North Fork on snowshoes, Neil said. The family’s photographs and personal history were destroyed when the Kishenehn cabin burned down.

Horace retired from the Park when he was 74 after a wood pile collapsed on him and his health deteriorated. He moved to Hot Springs for his health and died four years later in 1932.

Eddie, who had attended school in a tent at Polebridge and boarded upstairs at the Mercantile, followed in his father’s footsteps, working for the Park as a seasonal ranger and lookout. He was at the University of Montana when Horace died and returned to the Park to support his mother.

In 1946, Eddie and his wife Dorothy purchased a building in Apgar and turned it into Eddie’s Cafe, which still operates. Clemence lived in Apgar, Lake Five and Columbia Falls. She died in 1960.

Horace had a basic education and could oversee big cattle ranches, but he never owned any land, Neil said. He lived on the open range as a cowboy and in Park ranger stations after that. Neil credits Walt Coburn for best summing up his grandfather’s legacy.

“Brewster, more than my father or older half-brothers or any other man, had taught me whatever I knew about punching cows,” Coburn wrote. “The day he said good-bye, I felt that no man would ever be able to take his place, and I have never had any reason to change my mind about him in any way.”