New Books
- Beyond Spirit Tailings AUDIOBOOK
- Beyond Spirit Tailings
- Bound for Montana
- Christmastime in Montana
- Conveniences Sorely Needed
- Cowboy Trout
- Searching for Yellowstone
- A Tenderfoot in Montana
Cowboy Trout: Western Fly Fishing As If It Mattersby Paul Schullery"The whole messy business of angling society--its debates, its value systems, and its unceasing change--is ripe for our historical consideration, our introspection, and our enrichment. For a variety of reasons, I think that ripeness is especially attractive and promising here in the West." Paul Schullery "No one has been a more zealous gadfly to the sacred cows of fly fishing than Paul Schullery. No easy or self-serving theory, no fatted calf or swollen ego has escaped his scrutiny. Cowboy Trout continues his "willful resistance" to the fashionable. He nips at Norman Maclean and Edward Hewitt, offers memorable glimpses of important fly fishers, and uniquely, amply, explores fly-fishing's western tradition. The book is not to be missed." Nick Lyons, author of Full Creel and many other influential books on fly fishing In Cowboy Trout, historian-angler Paul Schullery chronicles many great moments in western fly fishing, from pioneer anglers casting the first flies on wilderness streams to the unexpected modern emergence of fly fishing as a political, commercial, and even spiritual presence in the lives of many westerners. 288 pages, 30 illus., bibliography, index Books of related interest available in the Environmental History section. |
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Conveniences Sorely Needed: Montana's Historic Highway Bridges, 1860-1956By Jon AxlineOld bridges do more than just span rivers. They provide an important historical connection between the hopes and dreams of the people who built them and those who continue to benefit from their use today. Montana's historic highway bridges are symbols of the cooperative spirit that led to the economic and social stability of communities throughout the Big Sky Country for over a century. Other bridges, such as those built during the Great Depression, are physical reminders of significant periods in American history and tell stories about the breadth of Montana's transportation past. Nonetheless all are representatives of the best in engineering practices and are testaments to the science of practical bridge design. From the aesthetically delightful Fort Benton Bridge to the more mundane Fred Robinson Bridge in the Missouri Breaks Country, Montana's bridges signify the best in American bridge engineering. Today, Montana's bridges are a visible, often overlooked, and fast disappearing part of the state's historic landscape. Yet the story they tell is significant to understanding the dynamics of Montana's development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the optimism many had in its future. 174 pages, 80 illus., maps, index Books of related interest available in the Guidebooks and Pictorial History section. |
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AUDIOBOOKBeyond Spirit Tailings: Montana's Mysteries, Ghosts, & Haunted PlacesBy Ellen Baumler and Philip AabergIn a new and exciting twist, Ellen Baumler's ever-popular historical ghost stories found an enthusiastic reader in world-famous composer Philip Aaberg. Inspired by the stories, he encouraged Ellen to produce and audio version of Beyond Spirit Tailings to which he could add his music. Ellen and Philip's spooky collaboration will evoke those places and images that make our imagination such a wonderful (and sometimes unearthly) destination. For more information about ordering your copy of this five-disc set, visit the MHS Museum Store online, or call 1-800-243-9900. Five-disc set |
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Beyond Spirit Tailings: Montana's Mysteries, Ghosts, and Haunted PlacesBy Ellen BaumlerMontana is alive with things that go bump in the Big Sky night. A World War II serviceman who lingers in a Billings business, a dearly departed priest who still hitchhikes around Helena, and a Hamilton socialite who adorns her mansion with the scent of roses-these are a few of the creepy tales from across the state collected in Beyond Spirit Tailings. Passed down through generations, these "spirit tailings" illustrate the subtle presence of the past in the everyday lives of modern Montanans. Ellen Baumler has again traversed the state, interviewing and researching to present history with a ghostly twist. Her first book, Spirit Tailings, introduced Montanans to their haunted past. Beyond Spirit Tailings again offers ghostly encounters from Montana's heritage places, but Baumler also branches out to explore such historical mysteries as the monster said to lurk in the deep waters of Flathead Lake, the power of an ancient object revered by native peoples, and a possible explanation for the suspicious death of Thomas Francis Meagher.Richly embroidered with Montana's unique historical legacy, these eerie and mysterious tales will leave you looking over your shoulder, sleeping with the lights on, and always craving more. 200 pages, 20 illus., index Books of related interest available in the Guidebooks section. |
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Bound for Montana: Diaries from the Bozeman TrailEdited by Susan Badger DoyleOn May 14, 1866, Perry Burgess summed up the expectations and hopes of countless westering Americans when he wrote in his diary: "packed up and started on our journey toward the land of gold." Here are stories of the prospectors, freighters, wives, and merchants who, like Burgess, traveled the Bozeman Trail in search of fortune, adventure, or a new life. A shortcut from the Platte River Road to the Montana goldfields, the Bozeman Trail was relatively short in length - less than five hundred miles - yet it has the enduring distinction of being the last great overland emigrant trail in the American West. Encounter the trail as it was experienced by seven travelers: the leader of a company of Michigan men who traveled with one of the first groups to cross it; a new bride traveling with her husband; two young men a store clerk and a typesetter for whom the trip was a thoroughly enjoyable adventure; a prospector out to make his fortune in the West; a sober Civil War veteran concerned about the possibility of Indian attack; and the supervisor of a freight train who found time to write despite his heavy responsibilities. Join their journey through these annotated diaries, and discover the dangers and pleasures, frustrations and joys of travel on the Bozeman Trail. 372 pages, illus., maps Books of related interest available in the Biography/Memoir and Mining sections. |
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Christmastime in MontanaCompiled by Dave WalterAn entertaining assortment of Christmas memoirs, newspaper accounts and editorials, poems, and menus collected from the vast archives of the Montana Historical Society, Christmastime in Montana connects readers to the state's rich and varied history through celebrations of Christmas day. From shoot-outs and dances in Virginia City to the finery of a Billings hotel, from dinner with friends to visits from Santa, from lonely nights away from home to joyful family celebrations Christmastime in Montana examines nearly two centuries of Montana history through observances of this sacred day. Spend Christmas with Montana's early prospectors, ranchers, and homesteaders, and learn how Montanans came together to make Christmas bright. Including handsome historic photographs and illustrations, Christmastime in Montana is a great way to preserve your family's attachment to Montana's past. It is the book of Christmas for all Montanans and Montanans at heart. Dave Walter is a historian at the Montana Historical Society and the author of several books on Montana history. 264 pages, illus. |
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Searching for Yellowstone: Ecology and Wonder in the Last Wildernessby Paul Schullery"In Searching for Yellowstone [Schullery] has given us a refreshingly unhyperbolic look at the place he loves, and has thus notably honored its beauty, its mystery, its people, its past "and its future." Searching for Yellowstone: Ecology and Wonder in the Last Wilderness traces Yellowstone's social and ecological history from the Pleistocene to the present in a seminal work that the press is pleased to bring back into print. Paul Schullery, the former director of the American Museum of Fly Fishing, is the author of Lewis and Clark among the Grizzlies (2002) and coauthor with Lee Whittlesey of Yellowstone's Creation Myth (2003). 360 pages, illus., maps Books of related interest available in the Environmental History section. |
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A Tenderfoot in Montana: Reminiscences of the Gold Rush, the Vigilantes, and the Birth of Montana TerritoryBy Francis M. ThompsonEdited by Kenneth N. OwensFrank Thompson's lively memoir details his experiences in the upper Missouri country at the beginning of the Montana gold rush. A young man at the outset of the Civil War, Thompson supported the Union cause but realized that military life was not for him. Turning to the frontier, he headed west from St. Louis in 1862, arriving aboard the first steamboat ever to reach Fort Benton, in what would later become Montana Territory. Thompson's sojourn was relatively brief-he returned east after only two and a half years. But in that time he hunted for gold, ran a Bannack City mercantile business, traveled to the Pacific Coast and back, served in Montana's first territorial legislature, and became a speculator in mining properties. Thompson also formed a relationship with controversial sheriff Henry Plummer. Drawing from his intimate knowledge of the circumstances and players involved, Thompson vividly describes one of the deadliest incidents of vigilante justice in U.S. history. A self-styled tenderfoot, Frank Thompson recalls his days on the mining frontier with clarity and insight, making him an unmatched eyewitness for Montana's formative era. 192 pages, illus., maps Books of related interest available in the Biography/Memoir section. |
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