'A good place to stay' - Syttende Mai, Everit L. Sliter and the founding of Bigfork

While we have explored several different facets of the early days of Bigfork, as I was recently scanning the compendium of articles, I realized that I’ve never highlighted Bigfork’s founder, the tenacious and forward thinking Everit L. Sliter.

Now, you are probably wondering what Syttende Mai is, and it is Norwegian for May 17th , which also happens to be Constitution Day in Norway.

Syttende Mai 1901, or May 17th , 1901, is when Mr. Sliter filed the plats for the community of Bigfork. As there was a large Scandinavian population throughout the Bigfork area in those early decades, I often like to envision the community holding a combination of Platting Day and Constitution Day. But, before the real or imagined celebrations, or the new residents from Europe arriving, we have to venture back to a little town in 1880’s southern Michigan.

That’s where, at age 14, Everit L. Sliter packed up and set out from his home in Vicksburg, Michigan determined to chart his own course.

By 1883, Mr. Sliter found himself in the then still rowdy town of Helena owning and operating the Palace Cigar Store.

In 1889, after 6 years of hard work, Mr. Sliter decided that he needed to explore some more of Montana and so with two friends, ventured, by foot, and steamship, to the Flathead Valley. Grandson Everit A. Sliter recalls that according to his father, the elder Everit decided to borrow a canoe and “went out and caught enough flat trout in the river to cover the bottom of the canoe and decided this would be a good place to stay.” To that end, Mr. Sliter immediately purchased, for the sum of $320, 160 acres, on the north side of the bay, from local trapper George Lakin.

Mr. Lakin had been in the Flathead for some time, operating the first ferry across the Swan as well as an orchard, near the current Old Steel Bridge.

Owing to the fact that he had used all his capital to purchase the land, Mr. Sliter spent a cold few months that first winter in a root cellar, trading deerskins for ammunition, coffee and sugar, and eating a combined 26 deer, along with his dog.

By 1892, after making continued improvements Mr. Sliter traveled back to Michigan to marry his school sweetheart Lizzie Osborn.

Upon their return, they immediately began planting hundreds of apple, plum, cherry and pear trees.

Over the next almost decade the Sliter’s ramped up their community building and entrepreneurial efforts purchasing a store and land at Egan, along the Flathead River, then using the proceeds from that sale to purchase a store in Holt. All the while increasing their land holding to over 500 acres around the bay and planting 4,000 fruit trees.

At the dawn of the new century, having constructed a 14-bedroom home, overlooking the bay, and renting those rooms out, the secret was getting around and others were starting to show up at this little village by the bay.

It was then, on that fateful day in May 1901, Mr. Sliter laid out his vision for a community composed of 11 blocks with a combined 94 lots, several streets, and plenty of superb scenery. All this for someone that was only 35 years old.

But while there was plenty of vision, the land was another matter.

At that time, Bigfork was nothing more than “cut over land” so at Sliter’s own expense, he procured a stump-pulling machine and removed all the stumps from the streets and main building lots, leaving the ground clear and free from obstructions. To do so, he used almost all of his money from the sale of his lots to make improvements for the fledgling community.

Bigfork continued to grow, as we well know, as did the Sliter family and their ventures.

Eventually, Mr. Sliter moved to Kalispell with his family, after essentially swapping homes with Harry Horn, who took over Mr. Sliter’s house, but his general store in Bigfork as well.

At some point in the 1930s, Mr. Sliter and Lizzie moved to southern California, slowly divesting himself of land holdings, until his passing in the mid-1940s.

During the process of selling his holdings, one of his greatest donations included donating to the school district the land for the schools. And while Mr. Sliter moved away, some of the Sliter children continued living in the valley and, over time, started the businesses we know today, including Sliter’s Hardware store in Bigfork in 1978.

But even more important, the Sliter family has remained involved in the valley, and especially Bigfork, supporting many aspects of the communities’ efforts with the arts, businesses, and other civic undertakings, all of which is something I think would make Mr. Sliter proud of what he started on that May day in 1901.