Dusting Off the Old Ones (155)
From birchyHistory
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While browsing through the files of the Montana Historical Society in Helena a few weeks ago, Shade Tree Bill ran onto a booklet put out by the Miles City Chamber of Commerce in 1915 to advertise the resources of this section of the Treasure State. This piece of literature was titled "Seeing Miles City" and was written by our old friend "Buck" Buchanan in the form of letters to an eastern friend called "Bill", and contained photographs of many local scenes, and in which "Buck" portrayed, as only he could, the advantages to be found in this fair city of ours. "Buck" further describes these letters as "The Johnny Wise Letters after Three Years in Montana." In the first one of these letters, after friendly greetings and salutations, Buck went on--and we quote: | While browsing through the files of the Montana Historical Society in Helena a few weeks ago, Shade Tree Bill ran onto a booklet put out by the Miles City Chamber of Commerce in 1915 to advertise the resources of this section of the Treasure State. This piece of literature was titled "Seeing Miles City" and was written by our old friend "Buck" Buchanan in the form of letters to an eastern friend called "Bill", and contained photographs of many local scenes, and in which "Buck" portrayed, as only he could, the advantages to be found in this fair city of ours. "Buck" further describes these letters as "The Johnny Wise Letters after Three Years in Montana." In the first one of these letters, after friendly greetings and salutations, Buck went on--and we quote: | ||
| − | "Who was it said something about letting the dead past bury its dead? Anyway, this always strikes me as good fatherly advice when applied to the western town that boasts of a more or less picturesque past. I wasted several pages in my previous letters over the glories of the old days, but that was because I was a tenderfoot and fell a ready victim of the glamour and witchery of the past. You are a stranger in Miles City, my dear Bill, and I take it that the story of how the noble Cheyenne once lit his smoke signal on Signal Butte, or how Big Nose George and other distinguished exponents of high finance held high revel in the lobster palaces of Park Street in early days would not arouse your enthusiasm nearly as much as the cold statement of our monthly bank clearings expressed in dollars and cents. It is not that I lack in sentiment for the stirring days of the seventies and eighties but that I consider Miles City too progressive and virile a town to bother much about the slouch-hatted, bespurred and gauntleted past. The present and future hold too much in store for us, so with these apologies we'll consign the days of '83 to the novelists, the space writers and the movie men. They can coin it into great money." | + | "Who was it said something about letting the dead past bury its dead? Anyway, this always strikes me as good fatherly advice when applied to the western town that boasts of a more or less picturesque past. I wasted several pages in my previous letters over the glories of the old days, but that was because I was a tenderfoot and fell a ready victim of the glamour and witchery of the past. You are a stranger in Miles City, my dear Bill, and I take it that the story of how the noble Cheyenne once lit his smoke signal on [[Signal Butte]], or how [[Big Nose George]] and other distinguished exponents of high finance held high revel in the lobster palaces of Park Street in early days would not arouse your enthusiasm nearly as much as the cold statement of our monthly bank clearings expressed in dollars and cents. It is not that I lack in sentiment for the stirring days of the seventies and eighties but that I consider Miles City too progressive and virile a town to bother much about the slouch-hatted, bespurred and gauntleted past. The present and future hold too much in store for us, so with these apologies we'll consign the days of '83 to the novelists, the space writers and the movie men. They can coin it into great money." |
In another letter, Buck describes some of the agricultural accomplishments of Montana under the heading "Four Great Expositions" as follows: | In another letter, Buck describes some of the agricultural accomplishments of Montana under the heading "Four Great Expositions" as follows: | ||
