Montana Preservation
I’d spent that 1980 April morning interviewing. The Montana Historical Society’s Preservation Office Program Manager job was up for grabs. Notwithstanding the fact that I’d just snagged a great position in the National Park Service’s Washington Interpretive Bureau, I applied. I wanted an “I’ll show-you-the-world-is-my-oyster” adventure. Professional and daring one-upmanship over the two people who’d broken my heart.
So I’d flown out from D. C. and was staying at Jorgenson’s—Helena’s 1960s “political” motel. It was close to the Capitol and the Historical Society, had a heavily-used, deeply smoky bar and a restaurant long on family favorites served by skinny, permed spinsters. I’d enjoyed a full country breakfast and likely stank of cigarettes.
I walked to the Society for my 9:00 am interview, past Helena’s ugly shopping mall. Along the way, at an intersection, I mistook a handicapped-accessible, audible “walk” beep for some exotic Montana bird.
The Director had assembled every last Society program manager and what must have been a couple spares for the interview. We were installed around an antique dining table covered with glass, sitting on matching straight-backed, wickedly uncomfortable chairs. Not kosher museum practice. One overturned coffee that seeped under the glass and the table would have sported stains!
The interview seemed not to have been orchestrated with agreed-upon questions. It felt like a carnival shooting gallery and lasted until noon. Whereupon we all got up and went to another vintage motel restaurant for lunch. I always hate having to eat in a group, but especially when I’m nervous. Plus, Brian Cockhill, the Archives program manager, kicked off conversation by asking what winter sports I liked. And without thinking, I said “none.”
The truth of the matter was that I’d thought more about what I might get away from in Washington D. C. than where I might be headed. And what it would be like. I’d worked for the central National Register of Historic Places office; understood what federal law required state historic preservation officers to do; knew that Montana’s program was so befuddled and youthful as to require special assistance from Washington. I knew, too, that the previous preservation officer had departed abruptly after threatening to resign if her demands weren’t met—and they weren’t. The office secretary joined her in protest.
What I didn’t know much about, at all, barring basic geography and history was Montana. Her size, her temperament, her economy, her topography, her politics, her population—much less her stock of historic resources. You’d think the interview might have gone in that direction. But apparently my competition, a favorite of the Society’s press editor, was a candidate from Florida. I had, at least, crossed a tiny corner of the state on my way to school in Oregon. And I’d reviewed one or two Montana National Register nominations in my central NPS office work.
In the afternoon, Library Director Bob Clark took me around to Society’s offices for awkward introductions. After a stop in the bowels of the Archives, he turned me loose on the edge of Territory Junction, a basement installation of phony 1880s storefronts serving as artifact displays. I’d later learn that the “Junction” was the most visited of the Society’s exhibits. But in my stupor that day, I wasn’t sure whether MHS employees would pop out in period dress.
The Preservation Office lay around the corner and behind the row of territorial stores. Enclosed on three sides by glass, either a fishbowl or the innards of Territory Junction. The lights were off, though I spotted a person inside. I stepped in and introduced myself to the architectural historian and was met with her deadpan face and brusque response. The room held a table, a couple desks, a row of file cabinets, a door to an even darker room— all situated on a grimy yellow and white shag carpet. I couldn’t figure out what more to say, or what to ask except about other staff. The architect was just out. The archaeologist was up on the Hi-Line at his family’s ranch. I kept moving.
Once in a while I’ve turned down jobs for which I’ve interviewed, but not as often as I should have (remind me to tell you about my last working gig). Mostly, once I’ve invested in applying for a position, I become attached to succeeding. As happened here. I was vacationing with friends in Arizona when the Society director called and made the offer. Within a month, I’d cashed out my National Park Service retirement, packed, put my Alexandria, Virginia, condominium on the market, found tranquilizers for Sooty Cat’s plane ride, contracted with a moving company, and flown back to Helena.
From earlier essays, you may remember that I purchased a stick shift Toyota within a day of arriving and swooned over Helena’s June lilac profusion. Plus, after lurching up and down Broadway and working my first day, I arrived back to my new apartment to find my belongings gone. A cleaning crew had emptied out the wrong unit—although they did leave Sooty. I was told I’d find the property manager in the Securities Building bar. I hustled over. Only to fall ass-over-teakettle from the threshold onto the bar’s sunken floor.
And at work, I began to absorb the office’s degree of disorder. The dirty shag carpet stank of dog. I needed to hire a secretary; locate a desk for myself; find functioning typewriters (a problem which entailed a marginally successful trip to state surplus property); encourage the archaeologist who was still waiting up at his family ranch for a favorable report about me to return; and joggle the architect into appearing regularly.
For all that I’d worked in offices for more than a decade, I’d never started from scratch: to figure out how to order supplies; to learn and then revamp a filing system; to master new phone and mail and procurement procedures; to build a rolodex of contacts. Then, more important than just having names and numbers on file, to begin the process of fitting people and their niche into a workable context: federal agency, state agency, district manager, forest archaeologist, community leader, local historical society doyenne. And beyond that, to suss out their particular powers, fears, skills, and angles. To get a handle on Montana’s geography and the kind of prehistoric and historic resources that reflected our history.
Life within the agency was complicated too. Until two years prior, the Preservation Office had been housed within the state Fish and Game Department. Where it was seen as a cash cow for state parks rather than having a statewide mission. So we were still new to the Historical Society and viewed with deep skepticism. We traded in controversy and threatened to politicize the gentle world of Western scholars and museum curators. Our office received precious federal grant money, as other departments did not. The press editor remained disgruntled that I’d been hired over his candidate. The exhibit fabricator, whose carpentry shop lay across from our door, pined for the voluptuous secretary who’d just departed and lobbied for a similar replacement. And though I was slow to spot all his serious liabilities, I began to see the Society Director as the wimpy, manipulative fellow he was.
Then, there was the doorbell. A Society, of course, protects its archives and artifacts from danger. The basement door to the building was just a few yards away from our office. Security consisted of a doorbell outside that solid door which we—with no information about or glimpse of the visitor—answered by pushing a corresponding door release. Heck of a system.
Three weeks after I arrived and had mastered the stick shift’s psyche, the Hill County Historical Society invited me to speak at their summer meeting. I don’t remember how they knew I even existed or had taken the job. I don’t remember what I was to present. I do remember looking at the map and noting a three hour drive to Havre, partly interstate. Easy, I thought. I’ll go up in the afternoon. The program ends at eight. With June’s long daylight, I can be home by midnight without too much time in the dark.
I learned several things on that trip: that the drive was drop dead gorgeous; that attention from Helena mattered a good deal in far flung corners of the state; that community members were eager to talk about their town, their projects, their historic sites and so sought leisurely conversation before and after the program. My decision to drive home the same night was both faux paus and dangerous. If I stayed over, I could have seen more, appreciated their history more. Still, I carried on with my plan. And somewhere about midnight, in the long curves and hills of the Missouri River corridor between Great Falls and Helena, I saw a huge snowy owl flying beside me.
Reality or hallucination? I’ve never been sure. Then and now, I trust in the owl’s symbolism—though every culture has their own take on the appearance of that nighttime messenger. Surely not an omen of death. I chose to embrace another culture’s belief instead: that he represented wisdom and intuition and independent thinking especially during this new adventure. How could I not? ©
