APRIL 13, 2011

MONTANA'S LEGACY No battles were fought in Montana during the Civil War.  But the bloodiest war ever fought on American soil shaped the history of Montana and of the West. In some respects the West was the geographical prize of the Civil War. The South seceded from the Union, not because Lincoln said he would free the slaves, but because he said he would block slavery's expansion into the Western territories.

Montana's Masonic Lodges got their start at Bannack, Montana's first territorial capital.

In the 1860s animosities between Republican Northerners and and Southern Democrats ran high enough in Bannack for Northerners to set up camp in "Yankee Flats" while Southerners lived across the creek in what is now the ghost town of Bannack.

METHODIST CHURCH IN BANNACK

The first jail at Bannack was built by Henry Plummer, the sheriff who was hanged as an outlaw by the Montana Vigilantes in 1864. Vigilantism in Montana arose as a way to impose law and order on a lawless situation.  Some speculate that there was an element of North versus South in the Vigilante movement. Many of the men hung by the Vigilantes were Southern sympathizers.

In 1864 a small group of Confederate soldiers who were part of a disintegrating Confederate Army in Missouri, discovered a minor gold vein west of Townsend.  When other Southern sympathizers joined them, the spot became known as Confederate Gulch. In the same year, the "Four Georgians" struck gold at Helena's Last Chance Gulch, although thee's dispute over whether they were all from Georgia.

	The war led to some seemingly weird incongruities, such as the statue to a radical Irish nationalist on the state Capitol's lawn, a fountain in Helena that is the nation's northernmost monument to the Confederacy and the existence of two Masonic lodges in Bozeman.

The town of Virginia City sprang up after gold was discovered in Alder Gulch in 1863.  Virginia City was a Confederate stronghold in Union territory.  Enough Southerners lived in early-day Virginia City to propose naming the settlement Varina in honor of Varina Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy's president.  The request was shot down by a judge (Dr. G.G. Bissell) who was a Connecticut Yankee.  Bissell did say he would allow the company to name the town after the state of Virginia, and they did so, incorporating the town of Virginia City.  Charles Dickens even mentioned it in his book All the Year Round.  The town would remain sympathetic to the South, even after being named the capital of Montana.  When boats sailed down the Yellowstone River from the town, the local newspaper said they were sailing to "America."

YESTERDAY

Janolus cristatus

ONE HUNDRED FAMOUS VIEWS OF EDO (TOKYO) NUMBER FORTY

BASHO'S HERMITAGE AND CAMELLIA HILL ON THE KANDA AQUEDUCT AT SEKIGUCHI

The view here looks west along the Kanda Aqueduct, the oldest of Edo's water-supply canals. On the hillside to the right was located Suijinsha, a shrine to the water god, protector of the Kanda Aqueduct.  The shrine is located in the thick grove of trees seen to the far upper right, although the shrine building itself is not visible. Below, midway up the slope, is the Ryugean, a detached hermitage of a nearby Zen Buddhist temple.  The Ryugean was known for its beautiful natural setting, which looked out over the view we see here, with rice fields below and a wooded rise, now the location of Waseda University, in the distance. The slopes surrounding the hermitage were covered with camellias, although Hiroshige here shows us only cherry blossoms.

GREEN RIVER, WYOMING

Queen snapper are common offshore over rocky reefs of the continental shelf to 450 feet deep. Young queen snapper suspend at mid-depths.

Photographer, conservationist; born in San Francisco. A commercial photographer for 30 years, he made visionary photos of western landscapes that were inspired by a boyhood trip to Yosemite. He won three Guggenheim grants to photograph the national parks (1944--58). Founding the f/64 group with Edward Weston in 1932, he developed zone exposure to get maximum tonal range from black-and-white film. He served on the Sierra Club Board (1934--71).

TENAYA CREEK, DOGWOOD, RAIN, YOSEMITE NP

WATER FOUNTAIN IN DENVER, COLORADO

A Rustic Mill

When America entered the second world war, our geographic isolation from the areas of conflict gave us a distinct advantage over our enemies  The technology of the time simply made it too difficult for those fighting against us to mount serious action against our homeland.  In the end, this advantage left us the time and manufacturing power to smother our foes with an unending supply of the materials necessary to wage war. But we also had to overcome the vast distances, we had to find ways to safely deliver these materials, and men to use them, to the areas of conflict around the world.  At the time, ships were the only way to get the job done and the men doing it were finding that it was very dangerous work!  Shipyards across America were at full production, but enemy submarines were sinking the critical vessels nearly as fast as they could be built. Something had to be done.

The idea for the HK-1 flying boat came from Henry Kaiser.  Head of one of the largest shipbuilding firms of the time, Kaiser thought a ship that could fly over the danger might be the answer.  Howard Hughes was known as an innovator in aircraft construction and design.  These two men, both legends in their own time, would launch the venture to build the huge craft (originally three were to be built).  The new plane's official name bore the initials of the principals in the project-- HK-1.  But to most of us it's always just been "Spruce Goose."

The H-4 in comparison with a DC-3

The huge plane would be made primarily of wood, saving materials critical to the war effort.  The difficulties creating such a large airframe made of wood were unknown at the beginning of construction and would prove to be many.  The final product is a tribute to the efforts of the team in overcoming the problems they faced.  A structure made of lumber was created that, even on close inspection, bears little resemblance to any form of wood!  Hughes would prove to be a demanding taskmaster during the period of development and construction.  His attention to detail and insistence that everything on the new plane be nearly perfect, was largely responsible for both the beauty of the finished product and its not being ready to fly until after the war had ended.

The cockpit seats 20.

The timing of completion and final cost brought Hughes and the project under the critical eye of the post-war congress, one Senator grudgingly referring to the plane as "the flying lumberyard."  Howard Hughes was called to Washington D.C. to defend both the project and himself.  During a break in the hearings, he flew back to California to conduct a test on the "Goose."  It was during this test that the accidental flight took place.

Hughes' first and only flight in the Spruce Goose on November 2, 1947.

This event, whether intended or not, put a halt to critics of the project and served as the finale for this gigantic aircraft ...... the project was dead.  Though his feathers had been ruffled by the intense questioning he had endured, the flight had vindicated Hughes and the project.  The H-4, which by now would be known forever as the "Spruce Goose," was put into storage.  It remained hidden from public view, carefully preserved, until after Howard Robard Hughes' death in April of 1976.

The 80-foot-tall tail

Designed to be a troop transporter, the Spruce Goose could hold 750 soldiers.

In museum

Looking at left wing from inside cockpit

Artist's drawing of Evergreen Aviation Museum at McMinnville, Oregon, where the Spruce Goose is currently housed.

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