110 YEARS AGO • JULY 15, 1910

START MAKING BRICK

Henry Florin and Edward Donlan have started to make brick on the land of the former just west of Thompson (now Solid Rock Estates), Mr. Florin being in charge of the enterprise.

Some of the best brick and pottery clay in the state is found on Mr. Florin’s land, a large kiln of pottery now being ready to fire. The outlook for a heavy demand for brick in Thompson this fall and next spring is the prime factor in causing these gentlemen to start work and they hope to have several large kilns ready for the market soon. The manufacture of brick at this place is no experiment and that a brick of the finest quality will be turned out is guaranteed by previous kilns burned here.

70 YEARS AGO • JULY 19, 1950

SALTING BIG GAME BY AIR

On June 16 the Pitman Robison Division of the Montana Fish and Game Department again salted the big game animals of the Cabinet National Forest by airplane. This salt was dropped in 100 pound lots between Plains and Trout Creek East and West and the Big Hole Basin and St. Regis North and South. The plane took 3,000 pounds of salt up from Missoula dropping it on the Cabinet Forest coming into Plains and then took on another 2,000 pounds at Plains and dropped it on the return to Missoula. All this salt is dropped on the high ridges in an effort to draw game animals out of the lowlands. In addition to this salt the Forest Service takes out 9,000 pounds of salt by pack train to the high ridges, making a total of 14,000 pounds of salt per year distributed on the Cabinet Forest plus some local salting done as the need arises. The Plains-Paradise and Thompson Falls Rod and Gun clubs purchased one ton of the salt dropped by plane giving this area an additional ton of salt. One of Johnson’s tri-motored planes is used for the aerial salting at a cost of about $50 per hour. Although this method is very effective in reaching out of the way places the program is limited due to the cost. This is the second year that this method of salting has been used on the Cabinet National Forest.

The Cabinet National Forest was established in Idaho and Montana on March 2, 1907. On July 1, 1954, it was divided among Kanisku, Kootenai and Lolo National Forests.

100 HEAD OF ELK TO BE PLANTED ON VERMILION

The Thompson Falls Rod and Gun Club, the State Fish and Game Department and the Forest Service are working on a proposal to plant 100 head of elk in the Vermilion River Drainage this fall or next winter.

Members of the Rod and Gun Club will discuss this proposal with farmers and other landowners in Vermilion River in the near future. No plant will be made unless a majority of the landowners signify in writing that they are agreeable to the plant.

In 1910, only 3,000 elk were thought to survive in Montana outside of Yellowstone National Park. Citizen conservationists formed local sportsmen’s clubs to raise funds for restoring elk populations and pushed for harvest restrictions. The state’s first elk transplant was in 1910, from Yellowstone National Park to Fleecer Mountain near Butte.

Over the next 30 years, a total of 1,753 elk from Yellowstone Park, Jackson Hole and the National Bison Range were transplanted to several dozen sites in national forests. Sanders County’s first elk transplant was in 1912 by the mouth of Thompson River. The elk were brought in by rail cars from Yellowstone National Park. In 1933 the Cherry Creek game preserve was established principally to protect elk from being over hunted. Elk were transplanted there in the 1930s.