A. M. Holter Hardware Company Archive [Territorial and Early Statehood Montana]

Archive of material from the businesses of Anton M. Holter, the father of the lumber business in Montana. This archive includes 13 binders of manuscript letters, orders and receipts, most on company billhead and dated between the 1870s and 1890s. Each binder has between 50 and 125 sleeves; most sleeves contain multiple items. There are approximately 1500 items. Correspondence has expected wear and soiling but overall the archive is in very good condition. Holter family papers are found at the Montana Historical Society and the Library of Congress.This archive of material surrounds the A. M. Holter Hardware Company, a business influential in the social and economic development of Montana Territory. A treasure trove of information for the Montana historian, this archive contains correspondence from Montana businesses during its territorial and early statehood days. Anton Martinius Holter (1831-1921) has an impressive resume. "The father of the lumber business in Montana" was a member of the first territorial council, first state legislature, first school board of Helena, and invested widely in mines, ranches, real estate and lumber businesses throughout the state. Holter arrived in America from Norway in 1854 and worked as a carpenter in the Pikes Peak gold rush. In 1863 he and Alex Evinson (Holter & Evinson Company) established the first sawmill in Montana at Ramshorn Gulch near Virginia City, and later set up lumber yards in Nevada City, Helena, Great Falls, Sun River and Fort Benton. In 1867 Holter established a general merchandise company in Helena, A. M. Holter & Brother, which in 1886 became the A. M. Holter Hardware Company. The A. M Holter Hardware Company sold general hardware, mining and railway supplies, and is considered one of the oldest commercial businesses of its kind in the northwest. Other enterprises Holter participated in included the Virginia City Water Company (established in 1865 with Samuel T. Hauser) and the United Missouri River Power Company (promoter). He was also a heavy speculator in mining properties across the West including the Mullan Pass Coal Company, Elkhorn Mining Company, the Maginnis Mining Company, the Seven Devils Mining District, Helena and Victor Mining Company, Blue Canyon Coal Company, Helena and Frisco Mining Company, and the Little Ben Mining Company (all in Montana). The material found in this archive shows the success and extent of the A. M. Holter Hardware Company. Eleven of the twelve binders contain correspondence written by Montana businesses to the A. M. Holter Hardware Company. Some of the towns represented in these documents include Livingston, Elkhorn, Missoula, Cokedale, Blossburg, Horr, Toston, Avon, Anaconda, Helena, Augusta, Radersburg, Boulder and Jefferson City. Some of the businesses seen in the archive (many with great letterhead) include J. W. Eberl, general blacksmith and wagon maker, of Augusta, John E. Keating & Son of the Keating Mine in Radersburg, A. W. Miles, hardware and implements, of Livingston, Louis I. Blood, dealer in lumber, of Avon, Riverside Stock Farm in Toston, Cook & Woldson, railroad contracts of Toston, Montana Coal and Coke Company of Horr, Mullan Pass Coal Company of Blossburg, Elkhorn Trading Company, and the Missoula Mercantile Company. Many of these companies are of historical significance in Montana history and could be their own subset in the archive. For example, the Missoula Mercantile Company dominated the town's wholesale and retail trade from 1885 to 1920 and at the turn of the century was the largest mercantile business located between Seattle and Minneapolis. Orders are mostly for mining material; from bolts and buckets to rubber hoses and blasting powder. An example from the C. & D. Mining & Smelting Co. of Elkhorn: "Please send us by freight 3 best axe handles, 1 nozzle for 1 inch hose, 1 doz. clamps for 1 inch hose, 2 half hatchets. We think your price on inch rubber hose is rather high. Yours truly C & D Co." Two binders contain 1870s lumbering material from Holter's early lumberyard and sawmill businesses; this includes promissory notes, accounts, and statements for lumberyards, sawmills and mines. One binder with about 25 items contains letters, on company letterhead, from A. M. Holter to fellow businessman, A .P. Loberg (?) of Victor, Montana. The content of these letters is about mining in Victor, for example: "A. P. Loberg, yours of 29 at hand. Ship the concentrating ore to Corbin on the Wickes branch. If the strike in The Tunal is holding out would it not be well to put more men to work in that place that is if it will pay expenses, Yours truly A. M. Holter". An excellent record of early Montana businesses from a leading Helena businessman. .