Depression-era mayor found career in the Park

Editor's note: Current Columbia Falls Mayor Don Barnhart and his father, former mayor Ray Barnhart, are not the only father-son mayoral team. An earlier pair were James and Dwight Grist. All four mayors played important roles in the city's fire department. Here's the story of Dwight Grist.

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James Dwight Grist was born in Columbia Falls in 1906. Soon after graduating from high school in 1924, he went to work at his father's service station on Highway 40, where Laurie's Deli is now on U.S. 2. Three years later, he acquired The Show House movie theater on Nucleus Avenue and changed its name to The Park Theatre. He sold the theater in 1946.

Movies proved to be a good investment during the coming Depression. In March 1935, the theater showed "Where Rivers Rise," which was filmed in Columbia Falls and in James Talbott's mansion near the Red Bridge.

Grist served as mayor of Columbia Falls during the height of the Depression, 1935-1937. Conventional wisdom is that Montanans survived the Depression better than other areas of the country because residents were able to hunker down, hunt and fish, chop firewood and grow some vegetables in the summer.

Residents of the Flathead fit that pattern, according to a report by geographer George Sundborg. He traveled to the Flathead soon after World War II ended to help the Bonneville Power Administration determine the benefits of building a hydroelectric project there.

The population of Columbia Falls remained steady at exactly 637 residents from 1930 to 1940, while the population in the Flathead declined from about 25,000 in 1938 to about 22,000 in 1944, as residents departed for war-related work or to join the military.

Sundborg reported that the average income in the Flathead was lower than elsewhere in Montana and the U.S., mostly because of the seasonal nature of the timber industry. In 1946, the Plum Creek mill employed 24 workers. By 1949, before construction kicked off for the Hungry Horse Dam, one in three adults in the Flathead were unemployed.

Grist married Margaret Kramer on July 10, 1937. Originally from Harlem, she had graduated from Flathead High School and had found work at the county welfare office. She later served as Columbia Falls City Clerk in 1946-1947. They had a daughter, Margaret Ann, and a son, James.

Like his father before him, Grist took an active interest in protecting the city from fires. Columbia Falls residents had formed volunteer fire departments in 1891 and again in 1893, but an "organized" fire department didn't exist until 1928. Grist, like his father before him, was appointed treasurer for the firefighters when they reorganized in 1928. Meeting records of the Columbia Falls Volunteer Fire Association kept in the current fire hall show Grist was an active member through 1948, with a brief absence in 1939 and again during World War II.

In January 1929, following the destruction of the Gaylord Hotel in a 10-below-zero fire, Grist urged the firefighter association to pressure the city council for money to buy better equipment and to pay firefighters who stayed behind to ensure structure fires didn't come back to life. He even suggested bringing a grievance to the council when it didn't act, and he recommended writing the state fire marshal to condemn and lock up "fire trap" buildings around town.

Grist also volunteered his theater for fundraising events for the fire department. These events went under the name "Theatorium" and later minstrel or vaudeville, and they joined other fundraising activities, such as basketball games and dances at the Cozy Corner. Money was short in supply during the Depression, and it took several years to raise enough money to purchase sirens for the city. In 1933, Grist helped organize entertainment for Civilian Conservation Corps personnel stationed at Red Meadows, north of Whitefish.

Grist was elected president of the firemen's association in 1940 and again in 1945. At a fire association meeting in October 1944, Grist called for keeping older members as long as possible before replacing them with younger firemen. His daughter, Margaret Wright, recalled that it was her father's passion to establish a pension fund for firemen and their widows.

In April 1945, Grist urged the Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the fire department to purchase "high pressure fog" equipment. The equipment should be available at the end of the war, he said, and would be "the answer to the prayers of small-town fire departments."

Serving on the fire association's planning committee, Grist began campaigning for a new fire truck in February 1946, with support from outside fire districts. Six months later, the city council agreed to pay $1,535 for a 1 1/2 ton Chevrolet pumper with a 500-gallon tank. The firemen's association came up with $1,000 of the needed money. The Bigfork Fire Department was invited to Columbia Falls to see the new truck in December 1946 with hopes they might buy the city's older truck.

Looking for a change in scenery, Grist turned to Glacier National Park. He initially found work as an assistant fire guard in the Park in June 1942, but three months later he joined the Army. Grist served in the Medical Corps during World War II. On his return from the war, Grist returned to the Park, where he worked as a seasonal ranger, laborer lead man, truck driver, carpenter, maintenance man and electrician - a career that lasted eight years.

Grist remained active in the Columbia Falls community, at one time serving as secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. He was a School District 6 board member in 1946-1947 and sat on a three-man Chamber of Commerce committee tasked with finding a lawyer for Columbia Falls. In February 1947, Moncure Cockrell, of Lewistown, announced he would establish a law office in town.

In 1947, the Grist family moved to a new home in Glacier Park, near the end of Fish Creek Road. Margaret Wright, who supplied the Hungry Horse News with photos and information for this story, recalled living in the Apgar area from 1947-1956 and attending grade school a short walk from her house. The small rural school never had more than 15 students, she said, and it closed in 1960.

The new career and life in the Park, however, ended July 23, 1959, when Grist died in a horrific car accident on U.S. 2 about 1 1/2 miles east of Nyack. A westbound rental car driven by an aluminum-siding salesman from Iowa drifted across the centerline at high speed and hit Grist's eastbound vehicle.

Grist, 52, and the other driver died at the scene. Grist's wife suffered knee lacerations, cuts and bruises but was able to crawl up a 20-foot high rocky embankment to wave down help. His daughter, Margaret Ann, was badly cut and had a fractured skull and a broken wrist. Grist's son was not in the car at the time. The passenger in the rental car also survived but was soon arrested and spent 15 days in jail on a drunken-pedestrian charge.

Pallbearers at Grist's service were Barton Pettit, Dick Walsh, Joe Opalka, Howard Greene, Boots Schoenberg and Marian Lacey. The names of the 37 honorary pallbearers also read like a Who's Who of the Flathead and included Ambrose Measure, Ace Powell, Dr. W.F. Bennett, Leon Lenon, E.J. Marantette, T.O. Elsethagen, Clarence Bengston, Bob Hafferman and Bill Mackin.

Two weeks after Dwight Grist died, the Columbia Falls Volunteer Fire Association voted to pay Margaret Grist a widow's pension.