Ceremony honors well-known Flathead collector

Not often, but every once in a while, an individual comes along who not only captures the heart but also personifies the soul of a community.

Don Baughman — “Redlodge,” to those who knew him best — was such a man.

Yet, the man himself had captured more than just the heart of Bigfork or even the Flathead. He had captured the heart of the art community at large, not merely as a collector or appraiser — for which he was known throughout the state and country — but as one of the most unique individuals, warmest personas, brilliant minds and authentic spirits to breath life into the world of Montana's art and history in the last 50 years.

Known to travel the state in search of seemingly worthless papers, relics and curiosities, which instantly transformed into big money when they met his discerning eye and keen intellect, it’s not surprising to learn that Buaghman inherited his passion for such pursuits. His mother could scarcely resist a rummage sale, and his father had an appetite for books and a curiosity about the world and its history.

In fact, according to one of Baughman's friends and colleagues, John Morris, the man who would eventually win over the art and antique community with his charismatic personality learned to read in the classified section of the newspaper, when his mother instructed him to find the most promising rummage sales for them to investigate. Perhaps it was inevitable that he was to develop the consuming interest in collecting artifacts and works of art for which he will always be remembered as “a legend in his own time.”

Thus, it came as a shock to the local art community, as well as collectors and friends in the Flathead and throughout the state, when Donald “Redlodge” Baughman passed away at his home due to what was determined to be natural causes, on Dec. 23.

Moved by his impact on and generosity toward the local art culture, the Hockaday Museum of Art hosted a memorial in his honor, last Saturday, where friends, colleagues and admirers from all walks of life gathered to pay him tribute, including representatives from the Blackfeet Nation, a people he dearly loved and accumulated a wealth of knowledge about.

In addition to tributes by those who knew and worked with him, friends recalled the early years of Baughman's life and work.

Raised in Missoula, he began his pursuit of knowledge in Native American history, books, art and antiquities while he was young, often trying to make a few bucks around town when he was supposed to be in school. During his teens and early twenty's he traveled throughout the northwest working various jobs, most notably with the timber industry, Plum Creek Timber Company and the U.S. Forest Service. A summer of working in the pea canneries at Red Lodge earned him a moniker that was to follow him for the rest of his life.

In his thirties, he forsook his work in timber and forestry to pursue what he really loved, making a name for himself in the profession that would occupy the remainder of his life, buying and selling art and antiquities, which he became an expert appraiser of. He eventually opened the Legend and Lore Books and Antiques store in Alberton, which he owned and operated with his former wife, Lucinda Hodge.

“I met Redlodge nearly twenty five years ago,” Hodge said in her tribute to Baughman. “In those days, I was on my own, a starving student at the University of Montana and Redlodge was already a legend in his own time. Though the passing years have dimmed many of my memories, time has not dimmed my memory of the day I met Redlodge. He was a striking man wearing a flat brimmed Stetson, wire rimmed glasses with a long, thick braid of dark hair down his back. Standing tall in his heeled boots, denim striped work shirt, and of course, those red sussies, he was a sight to see.

“Redlodge has always embodied something the whole world seeks: Authenticity,” Hodges said.

In the 1990's Baughman worked in Santa Fe, N.M. art galleries and became involved with tribal art show on both coasts, finally settling in Bigfork,  on the shores of Flathead Lake, in 1999. There, he wrote his weekly column, The Appraiser's Corner, for Discovery.com and expanded the network of resources that he would draw on in his local appraisal work.

Before moving across the lake to Somers, Baughman operated Donald James Baughman Antiques in Bigfork.

It was at the Bigfork gallery that Travelhost of Montana Glacier Country magazine publishers Mike Berman and Maureen Hathaway first met Baughman, shortly after building their home in Somers. It didn't take long for a friendship to develop between them, and Baughman offered to write a regular feature for the magazine, which Hathaway initially believed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement. She quickly learned, however, that Baughman just wanted to pass on the knowledge that he had acquired, through whatever means he could, whether through quarterly articles or daily visits with those who happened upon his gallery.

“He was a bottomless pit of knowledge,” Hathaway said. “It was always fun putting articles together because he would do an outline of the articles and send me an eight-inch stack of documents with notes in it on an individual artist, just in case I wanted to add anything to the article.”

“Everything was alive to Donald, especially works of art, because they were created, Hathaway said. “It wasn't just the art or the object. It was the history behind it that was important to him.”

In fact, fellow antiquities dealer Denny Kellogg of Bigfork stressed, in his own tribute, that Baughman wasn't a collector in the sense that most people think of collectors, because he didn't seek out art or artifacts for the sake of possessing them but for the opportunity to learn about them and then preserve that history for the enjoyment of others, often passing on the item itself to a museum such as the Hockaday where it would be properly valued.

In 2004, Baughman opened the Flathead Gallery in Somers for the purpose of expanding the art community that already existed in the Flathead and paving the way for it to grow on both sides of the lake. Instantly, he became a fixture in the Somers community.

On one thing all agreed. The legacy of the man they called Redlodge will continue to live on in the hearts of all who knew him and through his contributions to art and antiquity in Montana, will continue to inspire future generations with the passion that fueled his own pursuit.