The Cascade County Album

Judy Ellinghausen

In January of 1997 the Cascade County Historical Society (CCHS) was just embarking on a year-long celebration of its 25th anniversary. The museum was still located at Paris Gibson Square, the Archives was located on the third floor of the Great Falls Public Library, and I was the newly hired Archives Administrator. Although officially incorporated in 1976, the first meetings of what would become the CCHS were held in 1972, and in their eagerness to celebrate the organization at that time, that’s the year they considered the founding date.

As part of the Silver Anniversary celebrations, spearheaded by Norma Ashby and Jeff Cunniff, a monthly program series entitled “Conversations with Our Communities” was begun that featured the richly diverse heritage of the individual communities that make up Cascade County. Over the next several months we met in town halls and school gymnasiums in the communities of Ulm, Centerville, Sun River, Belt, Monarch, Cascade, Black Eagle and Great Falls. CCHS staff and volunteers helped community leaders organize and present a program that introduced their area history to a broad audience as large as 250 people. Part of these events featured small displays which included historic photographs from personal collections. In an effort to preserve at least some of those photographs in a history format, the idea of publishing a county pictorial history was born.

In the early 1980s CCHS published a county history book called Stone Age to Space Age that laid a great foundation for a broad county history but it was felt a pictorial history that focused on individual communities was needed.

During the year that we were visiting county communities to celebrate their heritage a committee was actively searching for a new home for the Cascade County Historical Society. On December 6, 1997 at the official 25th CCHS Birthday Party at the Civic Center the announcement was made that a new home had been found for the museum in the former International Harvester/ Northern School Supply building.

It was most fortunate that in early 1998, Donna Dugas, who had coordinated the Ulm history book and was a member of the CCHS Visionaries, a committee charged with raising funds for the new CCHS home, also promoted the idea of a book as a good fund raising vehicle for remodeling the historic building. CCHS Director Cindy Kittredge recruited Donna to coordinate the numerous challenges that go into publishing a pictorial book. Donna began the work of contacting community members, some of whom she was already acquainted with, and presenting the idea to them. This was a collaborative effort with a representative from the various communities tasked with collecting an array of photographs and writing a brief history of the diverse heritage of their area.

The title of the book was to be The Cascade County Album: Our History in Images. It would consist of 250 pages, contain over 350 images, and feature the heritage of twenty-nine Cascade County communities. The book was published by Advanced Litho Printing here in Great Falls.

My job was to collect and organize the loaned photographs, get them copied and return them to the donors as soon as possible. In 1998 the digitization of documents was in its infancy and was still a technology CCHS did not possess. To make copies of these precious loaned photographs we called upon professional photographer Ray Ozman to take photos of the photos on film, and then process the film and make copy enlargements from the negatives in his home darkroom. We used the old fashioned cut and paste method to lay out page formats. My role also included utilizing the extensive CCHS photograph collections to expand and fill in the gaps to best tell the stories of each region, seeking permission to publish for use of other organizations photographs and staying in touch with donors from out of state. Since I have been a photography enthusiast since childhood I was in heaven working with historic images. Donna and I also wrote many captions and some local histories.

What is now Cascade County has many unique features that set it apart from other areas of Montana yet links it to state, national and international events. Geological events from eons ago, such as volcanic activity and swampy compressions, later provided the right conditions for the mining of precious metals and coal seams. Retreating glaciers laid down rich glacial silt and gouged waterfalls that eons later provided food for vast herds of bison, fertile land for agriculture and sites for hydroelectric power. All of these factors shaped the landscape and fueled industries that grew communities around these resources. Long before the arrival of these ‘settlers’ diverse indigenous peoples considered this area their ancestral home. They utilized the waterways, lush native grass and vegetation that attracted game especially bison. Their presence is documented at the buffalo jump near present day Ulm and in the conflicted legacy of two Indian boarding schools at Fort Shaw and St. Peter’s Mission. Military and aviation history also featured prominently in county history. The early military fort at Fort Shaw and later the lend-lease program with the Soviets during WWI which led to Malmstrom Air Force Base and the Air National Guard and numerous missile silos dotting the plains. The book contains an excellent historical overview of what is now Cascade County written by Kyle Larsen. He fills in the details of the brief synopsis outlined above that have made this area’s unique natural features, historic sites and communities what they are today

Kyle Larsen, Cindy Kittredge, Donna Dugas at the Cascade County Album book signing in 2001 at the High Plains Heritage Center (The History Museum & Research Center at 422 2nd Street South in Great Falls).

More than a year of work went into compiling the stories and images that resulted in The Cascade County Album, and on June 16, 1999 a book-signing party was held at the Civic Center. Pre-orders could be picked up at the event and many of the authors were on hand to autograph copies. The first 1,000 books had been numbered and # 1 was auctioned off for over $1,000. This was also the formal kickoff for the “Campaign to Celebrate Time” in order to raise funds to renovate the newly acquired building, which was to be called the High Plains Heritage Center that was to house the museum and archives.

As for myself, I am several years into “retirement” but still work a few hours a week in the archives at the now named “The History Museum”. I am proud to still be a part of this fine organization and am still in heaven any chance I get to work with historic photographs.

In honor of the current celebration of our 50th anniversary, this one to 1976 when CCHS was incorporated, copies of The Cascade County Album: Our History in Images are available in our Gift Shop & Bookstore for $10. While researching the CCHS archival records on the publication of the book I was reminded that videos were made of each “Conversations with our Communities” and they are available for viewing at the Research Center if anyone is interested in reliving magical evenings from 29 years ago in celebration of the many diverse communities in Cascade County.

Three women search through their album copies at the 1999 Cascade County Album presentation party at the Civic Center in Great Falls, June 1999.