Distinctly Montana Magazine

63 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m by ROSS PETERSON I N 1887, THE BOSTON & MON- TANA BAND held its first re- hearsal in the log cabin of miner and horn player Joe Ivey. Lit by dim oil lamplight, warmed by logs crackling in a potbelly stove, Ivey and five other Cornish em- ployees of the Boston & Montana mining company made a racket that rattled windows. The cav- ernous oom-pah of Tom Burt's tuba harmonized with Ivey's and Charles Griffin's horns, the clar- inet of Jack Carbis, and the cor- net of band leader Sam Treloar. Bill Jennings drummed. As Treloar, 21, standing little over five feet, led them, other res- idents of the Butte suburb Mead- erville crammed into Ivey's cab- in to observe. These spectators could not have foreseen that this crude ensemble would become one of America's great bands. Or maybe they could. The Boston & Montana (B&M) Band rose to fame through tal- ent, hard work, Treloar's bril- liance as a director… and help from William A. Clark. Despite Clark's well-known fraudulence, the band had him to thank for their renown. They lent their excellent music to his causes. He offered great exposure. The Montana Historical Society's collection of band records and a survey of historic Montana newspapers reveal this synergism. Clark came west, leaving an Iowa schoolhouse. He hit pay dirt in the 1863 gold rush before making a fortune as a Deer Lodge banker and funding Butte's early industrialized mines. In the 1870s, his business decisions made Butte, then a languishing gold camp, a real city. By the late 1880s, Clark owned many mines, a smelter, the Butte Miner newspaper, and the local street rail. He possessed political ambitions too. Sam Treloar directed the B&M Band for sixty years. He com- posed and arranged music, held office as a legislator, conduct- ed Deer Lodge's band of prison inmates, and had worked every mining position from mucker to superintendent. When Britain's mining industry tanked, teenage Treloar em- igrated to the U.S. with his widowed father Tommy. Sam mined in the Black Hills as the Frontier Wars raged then in Leadville, Colorado. Tommy, meanwhile, lived in Butte. He worked for "Captain" Thomas Couch, a childhood friend from Cornwall. Couch managed a new mining company, the Boston & Mon- tana. Before long, Sam lived in Butte with his father, mining at the Boston & Montana's East Colusa. This band formed because the company faced a crisis. In 1887, no streetcar connected its headquarters Meaderville with the rest of the city. The isolat- ed borough lacked entertain- ment. So, Boston & Montana miners, Meaderville's chief workforce, hiked two miles to patronize Butte's city center nightlife. If they came to work the following day, they arrived late, suffering a skull-gnawing hangover that only Old West Butte could inflict. By the late 1800s, over 200 saloons, like the Graveyard, Cesspool, and Bucket of Blood, served a population of around 10,500. Plentiful establish- ments furnished gambling. And red lights burned, according to the Butte classic Copper Camp, on East Galena Street, where French Erma, Austrian Annie, Jew Jess, Mexican Maria, and Mickey the Greek worked. Boston & Montana's productivity suffered. Couch and Treloar thought a company band might help. Members would keep their noses clean and be excused from the graveyard shift—incentivizing employees to master an instru- ment posthaste. The B&M Band created a local sensation. It seems odd now that a mining company would have its own band that could command such attention. Bands, though, once purveyed the most popular American music. The adoration now seen for pop stars Americans once exhibited for brass bands. Au- diences loved occupational bands. As well as miner bands, there were dentist, farmer, cowboy, factory, and newsboy bands. Pa- tients in insane asylums even formed bands, according to schol- ars Margaret and Robert Hazen. Clark and the B&M Band's symbiotic relationship began in 1888. Clark ran as a Democrat for the Montana Territory's del- egate to U.S. Congress. The B&M Band marched in his Election Day Eve parade with other bands and flame-juggling flambeau clubs. As part of the festivities, Clark, trying to court Cornish

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