Montana: Stories of the Land
Companion Website and Online Teacher's Guide
Chapter 16 - Montana and World War I, 1914-1918
Chapter 1 - Montana: Where the Land Writes History
Chapter 2 - People of the Dog Days
Chapter 3 - From Dog Days to Horse Warriors
Chapter 4 - Newcomers Explore the Region
Chapter 5 - Beaver, Bison, and Black Robes
Chapter 6 - Montana's Gold and Silver Boom
Chapter 7 - Two Worlds Collide
Chapter 8 - Livestock and the Open Range
Chapter 9 - Railroads Link Montana to the Nation
Chapter 10 - Politics and the Copper Kings
Chapter 11 - The Early Reservation Years
Chapter 12 - Logging in the "High Lonesome"
Chapter 13 - Homesteading This Dry Land
Chapter 14 - Towns Have Lives, Too
Chapter 15 - Progressive Montana
Chapter 16 - Montana and World War I
Chapter 17 - Montanans on the Move
Chapter 18 - The Great Depression Transforms Montana
Chapter 19 - World War II in Montana
Chapter 20 - Building a New Montana
Chapter 21 - A People's Constitution
Chapter 22 - Living in a New Montana
Learning From Historical Documents
All telegrams are from MC 290:6-29, Montana Historical Society Archives.
Context for Granite Mountain-Speculator Mine Correspondence:
The Granite Mountain-Speculator Mine fire on June 8, 1917, resulted in the death of an estimated 168 miners. News of the Granite Mountain-Speculator Mine fire spread nationally. Family members wrote to find out if their loved ones were in the mines that day.
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Telegram, Mrs. W. J. Wilsey to Superintendent of Speculator Mine Butte Montana, June 14, 1917
Letter, North Butte Mining Company to Mrs. W. J. Wilsey, June 14, 1917.
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Telegram, H.L. Wheeler to North Butte Mining Company, June 11, 1917
Letter, North Butte Mining Company, to H.L. Wheeler, June 11, 1917.
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Letter, from North Butte Mining Company, to Antone Majesky. June 15, 1917.
Telegram, Antone Maesky to North Butte Mining Company, June 14, 1917.
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Complete a Written Document Analysis Worksheet.
About Primary Sources:
Letters, diary entries, census records, newspapers, and photographs are all examples of "primary sources," material created at a particular moment in the past that has survived into the present. Primary sources can provide clues to the past. They are our windows into an earlier time. The Montana Historical Society contains thousands of primary sources, including these telegrams.
