Coaled Feet Too

This is the second of two letterheads that I acquired from the Waterworks Art & Heritage Center in Miles City, Montana, in the Spring of 2012. The Custer County Historical Society was forced to close their office, and the folks at the Art & Heritage Center allowed me to purchase any paper that I found that was of interest to me.

The letter itself is a bid submitted to the City for coal, delivered by rail from the mines mostly West and a bit North of Miles City by approximately 225 miles.

I completed the first of the two letterheads in July of 2012, and I posted it in early August. That piece sold in September of 2012 at auction to support the Waterworks Art & Heritage Center. This one will be going to the Footprints on the Trail art show and sale in Great Falls, Montana, opening the 18th of this month for four days.

Miles City Fire Engine, No. 1

I have taken photographs of the No. 1 Miles City Fire Engine, Seagrave build number 16667. It is slowly being restored. The radiator badge was in fine shape. It is cloisonné, and truly the shining crown to a piece of fire apparatus that's almost a hundred years old. The monogram above the emblem is my rendition of what I think the hood lettering looks like. It is so terribly faded that it was hard to determine what it originally looked like.

Above is a photograph of the Miles City Monogram on the hood. It is surrounded by painted filigree scroll work.

Above is a factory photograph of a 1916 Seagrave Chemical Motor Fire Apparatus with chain drive. This is what the Miles City engine looked like - sort of. The engine in the photograph was built for the city of Coshocton, Ohio, as their No. 2 engine. Apparently, Coshocton could afford the extra-special adornment of gold leaf, filigree and chrome. The Miles City Number 1 didn't get the royal treatment. I'd like to see the Miles City engine look like this one!

I am not done with this little project just yet. I have the carbon copy response to this letter which was attached to the piece of letterhead pictured at the top with a small pin - early paper clip if you will. I have contacted the Hall of Flame Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, in hopes of obtaining information they may have about the Miles City Engine. I've been told that the Museum has the Painter's Log for the Seagrave Company. The Painter's Log and the Build Number will tell me just when the Miles City engine left the factory, which is something I'd like to be able to tell a patron who decides they have to have this old piece of paper and a little piece of early Montana History on the side.

An update to the story: I spoke with the Curator of the Hall of Flame Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, Peter Molloy this afternoon, and he was able to tell me that the Miles City Number 1 fire engine was painted on January 18th, 1917. He was also able to point me to another Museum in Michigan, that may have a photograph of the Miles City engine. Peter explained to me that every truck that left the Seagrave factory was photographed in a manner similar to the photo above. These were large glass plate negatives which Seagrave at some point in time parted with, as they had no reason to keep documentation for engines they built over Seventy years ago if not more. This was done to document not only the truck itself, but also the apparatus that was included as part of the sales package. I will also be able to determine (hopefully) what  color scheme was used.

Seagrave Build No. 16667

 

A work in progress. More later for those of you still hanging around.

L. A. Huffman, Mrs.White Elk & The Ring, Part II

This is as close as I'm going to get to a finished product until this Saturday evening, September 29th, in Miles City at the Custer County Art & Heritage Center's 37th Annual Exhibit and Auction. If you are interested in seeing the difference between the artist proof and this one, you can find the first one in my previous post.

Some information has been passed to me by Joan Hantz, who works and teaches at Chief Dull Knife College in Lame Deer, Montana. I wanted to know more about Mrs. White Elk before the Quick Finish so that as I'm working to finish it I have something to talk about. Joan kindly provided with this:

Census records for June 30, 1888
White Elk, 36 years old
Shaving Woman, wife, 31 years old.
Crooked was their son and he's listed as being 13 years old.
Magpie Woman, Mother in law, 71 years old.

Census records for 1896
White Elk, 44 years old and now registered as Jule White Elk.
Shaving Woman (Mrs. White Elk), 39 years old and registered as Anna.
The son Crooked did not appear in this census.

Records indicate that White Elk was still living in 1914. He was born in 1849. No records indicate a birth or death for Mrs. White Elk.

Jule White Elk fought at the Battle of the Little Big Horn (1876) at age 27. He was a member of the Elkhorn Scraper Society. He also fought at the Battle of the Rosebud, aka The Battle Where the Girl Saved her Brother. This battle occurred just days before the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

I owe a debt of gratitude to a number of people: Kevin Layton and Mark Browning at the Custer County Art & Heritage Center in Miles City. The story of how Mrs. White Elk and how this photograph came to be are little bits of history I can enjoy for a long time. I thought that the story needed to be told in my way, and both Kevin and Mark were very accommodating.

Gene and Bev Allen are folks I've known for many years. I consider them patrons. It was through them that I first learned of L. A. Huffman, and also sold me my copy of  the L. A. Huffman book. The source for the early signature was a blind stamp - a metal stamp which was used to indent the signature in the photographic paper or card stock on which the photograph was mounted. They also related to me some of the history of the man himself which I did not know. Gene and Bev also provided me with a scan of the lower portion of a Huffman carte de viste as well, which I've used as some of the text on my piece of art.

Michael Lee, a local photographer that I met some months ago, provided me with the copy of the photograph that I'm going to be affixing to the envelope after much trial and error. I wanted this to be on heavy photo stock, and reproducing the image that I had permission to use is not the easiest task. The image I had was a photograph of a photograph, so the image was a second generation image already. Thank you again Michael for all that you did.

I'm as ready as I'm going to be for the Saturday evening event.

A large Thank You to all of the folks I've mentioned, and those I haven't as well!

 

L. A. Huffman, Mrs.White Elk & The Ring

This is the Artist Proof for the piece I will be doing for the Quick Finish at the 37th Annual Art Invitational and Auction on the 29th of September in Miles City, Montana. Three of us will be completing our pieces to be sold during the auction. Mine will be a 100% donation to the Art Center, and my way of telling the story of Mrs.White Elk, and although there are three images that tell the tale of this Indian Portrait, I am using the second portrait that L. A. Huffman created during one sitting in his studio.

I have to do at least a one-off to see what the finished envelope will look like, and to determine what part of the piece I can finish in an hour.

This piece is a bit rough around the edges from where I'm sitting, but I'm really never satisfied. I can tell you there will be some changes in the composition regarding type size and placement. The lower portion I have done in sepia ink comes from an early Carte de Visite that Huffman produced for sale, and several of the elements are "covered" in my effort to use a map that is right for the areas that Huffman photographed.

The Custer County Art & Heritage Center in Miles City, Montana, holds an extensive collection of the well known Western photographer, L. A. Huffman. I wish I could show you all three of the photographs of this beautiful woman, but I have permission to use only the one that you see above.

Perhaps between now and the end of the month, I can tell you a little bit more about this fabulous photographer.

Coaled Feet

Coaled Feet

Envelope in which the bid was submitted

Copy of original coal bid document

 

 

This piece is headed to the 37th Annual Invitational Art Exhibit and Auction at the Custer County Art & Heritage Center in Miles City, Montana. I've included a copy of the original so that the letter can be read, as well as the envelope which is also very interesting from several perspectives:

The letter is actually a bid submitted for coal to be used as fuel by Miles City for city resources. The envelope is a corner card for the Chicago, Milwaukee and Puget Sound Railway. What connection the railway had to the Roundup Coal Mining Company I have yet to discover, but I found it interesting that the offer is based upon a delivery price for fuel coal, by rail to any Miles City facility with a railroad siding.

The exhibit opens on August 18th, and the live auction will be held at the end of the exhibit on September 29th. There will also be a Quick Finish event at that time, and I'm playing!