Jerry Hoover Remembers the Old Days

SEELEY LAKE – At 87, Gerald Hoover has a lot of stories to tell. Though he was born in Minnesota, many of his favorite stories center around his life in the Seeley and Swan Valleys.

Before coming to Montana, Hoover served in two military branches. A year after his discharge from the U.S. Navy he joined the U.S. Air Force. The Air Force sent him to Wyoming to become an electrician. Hoover said he appreciated the opportunity and worked hard to learn the trade. He was less enthusiastic about being in Wyoming.

Hoover relates: "That was a terrible place to be in the winter. Cold! One time we went to the parade grounds. It was about a couple miles over there. Got over there and they dismissed us cause it was too cold – about 30 below. There was a whole bunch of 'em got frozen ears. We had to wear them flat caps and they didn't have no ear flaps or nothin'. Kinda tough on us. My ears didn't freeze but they were damn cold, I'll tell you that. Them barracks weren't that warm either. They had a fire man for every three or four barracks. Sometimes he'd fall asleep and the fire'd go out and it'd get colder than hell in them barracks. You had a big comforter for your bed. You put that on your bed every night or you'd freeze."

Once discharged from the Air Force, Hoover made his way to the Seeley Lake area where he worked mill jobs and with outfitting crews. All totaled, he worked for five different hunting camps.

Hoover has some favorite hunting stories. There's the one about Rattler: "Old Rattler, he was quite a horse. Tall and pretty skinny. He'd come on down off the hill in the morning before the hunters were up. He'd stick his head into the tent and shake his bell. That's why we called him Rattler."

And there's the one about the horse that had been trained to be a lead horse and got his revenge when he was demoted from lead position: "Horses are funny. If you get 'em broke to lead and then later put 'em behind, they're terrible. He'd jog trot for a mile-and-a-half before he'd get to walking normal. It was miserable riding. He'd make you pay for him not being in the lead. That jog trotting, all that does is shake you up."

There are people stories too, like the one about the dude hunter who was supposed to be following right behind Hoover. Hoover came within sight of a big bull elk and turned around to tell the dude to take the shot, only to find the fellow back a ways sitting on the ground with his boots off.

But Hoover's fondest memories are of the 34 years he worked for C.B. and Helen Rich when they owned the Double Arrow Ranch and later as part of their outfitting crew. C.B. originally hired Hoover as a cat skinner, someone who drives a bulldozer and hauls cut logs out of the woods.

Hoover said, "I remember one time coming in with a great big log. It was kind of an oval shape and they said, 'there's enough lumber in that log to build a house!" It was around 3,400 board feet or something. That was from the back end of the ranch." Trying to pin down the year, Hoover finally said, "That was way back. Jack [Rich's son] was just little then. About six years old."

Of the Riches, Hoover said, "They were awful good people. Seemed like she [Helen] was feeding every stray that came along. She always had a pancake or two or something for 'em to eat. They were people that got laid off from the railroad and other places. I was the only one that ever stayed there."

Finances were tight in those days and Hoover said in the winter when he was working at one of the local mills he would pay the Riches for his room and board. He recalls Helen telling him if it weren't for his payments she wouldn't be able to feed everyone. Hoover said he used to load an old pick-up with scraps of waste lumber called mill ends. He would haul it to the Double Arrow Lodge to burn in the furnace downstairs and the big fireplace upstairs.

Hoover said, "I liked them people and I worked for them for practically nothing. C.B. told me a couple of times he wished he had a brother like me. Cause I hung in there with 'em, you know. We loved each other." Then Hoover laughed and added, "But I loved Helen more than I did him."

Hoover has stories about the Double Arrow Ranch even before the Riches owned it. "The guy that was there when I first came here was Whitey Rahn. Herb Townsend was up there with that Whitey Rahn when he had it. That's when they had all the movie stars up there. That Whitey Rahn, he was a Hollywooder. [Cabin Fever: A Centennial Collection of Stories About the Seeley Lake Area identifies Whitey Rahn as a Hollywood filmmaker.] He brought 'em all in [movie stars]. They had rodeos and stuff. I remember that Townsend telling about riggin' up a rodeo arena down on the hay field. He liked that stuff. He was a rodeo-er and used to ride double – two horses, one on each side. He must a been a pretty good cowboy in his day."

For a short while, the Riches tried to raise cattle on the ranch. Even after they sold off the cattle, there were horses to feed. Hoover tells of diverting Morrell Creek and Trail Creek waters so that they came down through the meadows on the east side of the highway and irrigated all the land below the lodge, turning the rodeo arena back into a hayfield. That area is now the Double Arrow Golf Course.

Hoover doesn't have much to say about the golf course except, "CB didn't own the ranch then. Richards had a lot to do with that [the golf course]. First time I seen him he had knickers and a flat hat like a golfer. I was teasing him and I said...we've really gone to hell – Seeley Lakers being golfers!" Hoover laughed quite a bit over that memory.

Hoover moved to Ronan and worked 26 years at the Kicking Horse Job Corps Center, finally doing the sort of work the Air Force trained him to do. For most of those years he was the head of maintenance. He worked as electrician but also as plumber and water guy and he ran the pump house. As he put it "I done everything – even rewired the wells going into the pump house."

Hoover is now retired and living in Seeley Lake. His final comments, "I'm in pretty good health for an old guy. I lived a good life, really."