Early Billings Views
Imagine my surprise today when I received this postcard in the mail today.
Thank you to the anonymous benefactor!
Midland Empire Fairgrounds, Billings, Montana
The back reads:
These grounds, the favorite camping place of whites and reds, soldiers and immigrants back in the pioneer days, are now the scene of the Annual Midland Fair and Rodeo. It has a half-mile track and an auditorium accomodating some 10,000 people.
If you’re in the Billings area you may want to visit
The MATE Show
(which is nothing like it sounds!)
It’s the Montana Agri Trade Exposition
at the Metra which runs tomorrow through Saturday.
And here’s a postcard of the Sugar Factory.
February 17th, 2005 at 7:48 am
Cant put a date on the Sugar Factory. I would say somewhere between 1906 and 1930? Notice the water tower hasn’t yet been built.
I cant remeber the name of the auditorium at the Fairgrounds. I think it burned in 1970 when sparks from welding caused a fire during the night. The fire was the impetus for building the METRA. In the lower right corner the old Yale Refinery is visible. The Refinery was owned by Phil Fortin. There was a major fire and explosion there in 1938 caused bt someone welding on a tank. Several workers were killed.
Trivia question: What does METRA stand for?
GD
February 17th, 2005 at 8:43 am
“Montana’s Entertainment, Trade and Recreation Arena” Right?
Also, according to Yellowstone Genealogy materials at http://www.rootsweb.com/~mtygf/sugarfactory.htm
the sugar factory was “nearly completed” in 1906.
Neat cards, Karen.
Ann
February 17th, 2005 at 9:30 am
I’ve no idea on the RPPC (real photo postcard). There’s no publishing info - but it is on card stock. I have cards from sugar factories all over the US - and they all look like prisons to me.
February 17th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
I can remember that my father said that the railroad from Colorado to Montana was completed in 1906. He came to Billings at that time and said that he worked on the construction of the sugar factory and St. Vincent’s hospital.
I don’t know when the first beets were processed but the 1910 census that you found for Joliet showed that some of the boss’s relatives were beet labor at that time.
Pictures of beet factories that I have seen in southern states, Texas and California, have no walls. The equipment stands “outside.” bonnie
February 18th, 2005 at 11:18 am
I know that I have the info somewhere - probably in a book that I’ve lent out.
But here’s a guesstimate - building the factory began around 1904 - they seemed to have had a campaign in 1906 - I posted toady an old newspaper article related to a hoax in Billings. I’d be interested in seeing the Billings newspaper articles about it.
February 18th, 2005 at 7:56 pm
Sorry, my typo reminded me of this gem…
toady!
February 19th, 2005 at 11:57 am
Construction began in 1903 financed by P.B. Moss, I.D. O’Donnell and a man named Rowley.
GD
February 19th, 2005 at 3:49 pm
Thanks GD - I knew that you’d know!
February 26th, 2005 at 6:19 pm
The fairgrounds auditorium (which, for some reason, was always called “The Fairgrounds Auditorium”) burned down during the nine months my family and I lived in Spokane. The fire was the most spectacular in the neighborhood since the Billings White Truck Company (where my dad was the bookkeeper for almost 20 years) burned down in the middle of the night in 1965. For those who do not know, Billings White was located just to the east of the tire shop on the north side of 1st Ave. North, about two blocks west of the fairgrounds. (The building–which also housed a Toyota dearship–was never rebuilt as the company bought another building on 2nd Ave. North about a block from the fairgrounds.)
METRA was built in part using the proceeds from the insurance policy on the auditorium. There was a great deal of debate on whether the arena should be big enough for a football field (this was just after they had built the MiniDome at Idaho State University in Pocatello), but when it was discovered how much such a building would cost, the plans were scaled down to what there is now. There was also a great deal of debate on the location for such an arena. There was a great deal of wailing and knashing of teeth over the amount of the Rims that would be destroyed to put the arena in (the cliff line ran right through the middle of the arena site), and maybe it would be better to have such a facility downtown. (However, the insurance proceeds couldn’t be used for a downtown arena.)
Back to the Auditorium: it was a welder’s spark that did the old building in–not surprising in that the building was made of wood! (There had been talk about tearing it down–it was built in the 1910’s, I believe–but the fire settled that debate.) The fire happend in either January of February, but the ruins were still there when we returned from our exile in the Inland Empire sometime in April, and the site was not cleared until just before the Midland Emipire Fair (later known as the Yellowstone Exposition and now as MontanaFair) in August. It was replaced by the biggest tent not used to house a circus every year. (Having not been back to MT for fair time since I moved to AZ in 1978, they may still use a tent on that spot. My memory tells me that it was used for commercial exhibits–but then my memory has to fight with all the other voices in my head!
)
February 27th, 2005 at 6:59 am
Thanks Kirk! Your memories seem pretty good. Even with all that Maricopa County air!
February 27th, 2005 at 9:32 am
KKM: My memory is usually pretty good–even in my advancing age (AARP will be sending me my membership card in about 20 months).
As for the air here in the County still known as Maricopa, it has been replaced by whatever in in the atmosphere in the counties of Los Angeles and Orange. The haze is so bad, that there are days we can’t see the McDowells and the Superstitions from here in Mesa (or, as I perfer to call it, Kizmai, AZ).
KAD