Letter from the editor

Living history

I'm not that old, but I've been in the Flathead Valley long enough to know that this place is undergoing rapid and dramatic change.

When I grew up in Creston, fields flowed as far as I could see. Now, houses are crammed into more and more subdivisions.

But my history is too short to know much of the area's real history. So this week, instead of my usual column, I'm going to run two letters I received from Mr. John Edgerton, who has much, much more "historical experience" than I do.

Most letters to the editor come by e-mail - anything actually handwritten immediately stands out. I tend to cringe as I open those envelopes. Anyone who actually took the time to write something out is either very mad or very happy, and happy people - or so I've found - don't own paper or writing utensils.

But when I opened Mr. Edgerton's letters, they were a real treat.

So without further adieou, here are his letters, the first about the Mt. Aeneas microwave tower (Page B1, Aug. 17 issue) and the second is about the Ferndale Community Hall (Page A5, Aug. 24 issue).

Mr. Richeson:

I liked your article on Mt. Aeneas and all the photos of the area are real good.

I have never been up on Mt. Aeneas, but I can see it from my home. At one time, lights could be seen at night. I presume they were on the building.

At one time, a person named Bob Wallace wanted to put in equipment so he could receive T.V. signals from Spokane, Wash., and Lethbridge, Can., and then send these out on cable to people in Echo Lake, Bigfork and Ferndale.

As there was no road up to where he wanted his building, he hired my neighbor, Carl E. Tykeson to build the road. After the road was built, Bob asked Carl how much he owed him. Carl said, "Just run the cable to my house and we'll call it square." Carl got his cable, and seeing how it ran by my house, I hooked on to it in 1959, paying a monthly fee of about $6 per month. And I'm still on it.

So I think Carl built the road sometime in 1958. He used a Cat D-7, 3T, cable-operated dozer blade. I have a picture of the Cat pushing out a stump in my yard.

Thanks for the story and pictures on Mt. Aeneas.

John M. Edgerton

Editor:

A little bit of history on the Ferndale Community Hall.

I worked on the Hall in 1954, helping to pour the footings, center piers and then the walls. The basement had been dug years before.

We had to nail the forms together, put spacer blocks in and then the wire ties. Lumber was donated by Edward Tykeson, Carl Tykeson and Earl Ferguson.

A large platform was built where the steps are now, upon which three cement mixers were placed. These mixers were the smal type with an electric motor.

Carl Tykeson had a 1931 Model AA 1.5 ton with a hydratic pump box. I used the truck to haul sand and gravel from a pit owned by Harry Hoyt, about where the Ferndale Market is now. Montana 209 was known as Broadway in the old days.

It was a long day the day we mixed cement and poured the walls. Lunch was served by the ladies in the basement of the school. We ate in two shifts so the pouring would not stop. The last wheelbarrow load was dumped about 7 p.m.

Martin Paulson was hired to oversee the construction of the building. The rest of the help was all volunteer.

We used the form lumber for the subfloor, siding or for the sheeting on the roof.

After getting the building enclosed, most of the men returned to their regular jobs. I was still unemployed so the ladies asked me to stay and help Mr. Paulson with some interior work. I was not paid but later in the fall the ladies presented me with a set of dishes as most of my mine were broken when my kitchen cabinets fell off the wall.

I knew everyone who worked on the Hall, and now I know of only three men who still live in Ferndale now, and they are R. L. (Andy) Anderson, Clarence Gembala and myself.

That was the extent of the work I had done on the Club House as I was living in a logging camp most of the time.

John M. Edgerton