northern pacific railroad construction, 1880s (Helena, Havre: to buy, living, transport)

[greatnowhere]

col. jb clough, who was the division engineer for the yellow stone division of the northern pacific railroad during it's construction, is my great great grandfather and i am trying to find information about him and his role in the history of montana. he died in helena in 1887 and is buried there. any help out there?

[MTSilvertip]

Many pioneers of the frontier days of Helena are in the Benton Ave cemetary.
The Montana Historical Society in Helena has huge piles of information about the first settlers and are happy to help. If you know where he lived there might be other resources as well. There are several old ghost towns in the area, and other old graveyards.

There are pioneer graveyards in Elkhorn, Winston, and others around Helena that date back to the 1860's and 70's.

If he worked for the railroads, you might check with some of the railroad societies. Some of them serve as unofficial historians for the line and most of them are old railroaders who have great stories of work on the lines.

Helena wasn't a big railroad town, but Livingston was and so were Havre and Glendive. Their Historical Societies may have information as well.

Hope that gives you a starting point.

[AQHA]

The Montana Historical Society would be where I would start. As Silvertip said, they have tons of info.

Let us know what you find.

[Ben Around]

A few summers ago, I happened on a historical railraod museum in Mandan, ND, an important division point on the Northern Pacific. Don't remember the name of it, but spent a couple fascinating hours there. They had lots of memoribilia and records from the Northern Pacific and the docents knew their stuff, you may want to contact them.

Another possibility is the Lake Superior Transportaion Museum in Duluth, MN. It's just 10 miles from Carlton, MN, the original eastern terminus of the NP. They have a huge collection.

One more: the James J Hill Business Library in St. Paul has extensive records going back 100+ years on commercial enterprises in this part of the country, particularly railroads. Yes, James Hill was the founder of the Great Northern, the NP's rival, but his namesake museum isn't confined just to his business interests. The librarians are very knowledgable and a phone call my get you some leads on the info you seek. (You may know Hill tried to buy the NP, but back then the trust-busters didn't allow corportations to get "too big to fail". It wasn't until 6 decades later that the NP was merged with the GN.)