Somers
For 50 years Somers was a company town. In 1900 John O’Brien built his sawmill and adjacent town on 500 acres on the northwest shore of Flathead Lake that he had purchased from Tom McGovern. The mill supplied treated railroad ties under contract to the Great Northern Railway, plus finished Western larch and fruit boxes.
In 1907 O’Brien sold the mill and town to the Great Northern. The company advertised back east for workers with promises of good wages with deductions for house rent and one dollar per month for the services of the company doctor. A sign in the employment office in Stillwater, Minnesota advertised, “Men wanted to work in the woods and a sawmill in western Montana. Good wages. Only $12.50 fare on the Great Northern Railway. In 1902 a local newspaper reported, “…a fence around the town, but, nevertheless, it is a nice place to live….electric lights, waterworks, and no saloons.” The mill burned in 1911 and was rebuilt in 1912.
The town’s name is thought to honor George O. Somers, the Great Northern agent in charge of building the railroad spur line from Kalispell to the Somers docks in 1901. In addition to freight, the line brought twice-a-day passenger cars to meet the boats from points around the lake. The docks hosted popular boat excursions on the lake and, on summer evenings, dance barges on the bay. Until Kerr Dam raised the lake, people from all over the valley gathered at the wide beach east of the town to camp, picnic, and swim in the warm, shallow water.
With the (according to the company) “diminishing supply of timber on the company’s own land” and “the necessity of conserving the remaining stand of timber,” and to the consternation of the workers’ families, the sawmill closed in 1948 and the planing mill the next July.
History courtesy of Northwest Montana Historical Society in Kalispell, MT. Text and photos are from a newly installed History of the Flathead Valley exhibition at the Museum at Central School, 124 2nd Ave E, Kalispell, MT
In 1907 O’Brien sold the mill and town to the Great Northern. The company advertised back east for workers with promises of good wages with deductions for house rent and one dollar per month for the services of the company doctor. A sign in the employment office in Stillwater, Minnesota advertised, “Men wanted to work in the woods and a sawmill in western Montana. Good wages. Only $12.50 fare on the Great Northern Railway. In 1902 a local newspaper reported, “…a fence around the town, but, nevertheless, it is a nice place to live….electric lights, waterworks, and no saloons.” The mill burned in 1911 and was rebuilt in 1912.
The town’s name is thought to honor George O. Somers, the Great Northern agent in charge of building the railroad spur line from Kalispell to the Somers docks in 1901. In addition to freight, the line brought twice-a-day passenger cars to meet the boats from points around the lake. The docks hosted popular boat excursions on the lake and, on summer evenings, dance barges on the bay. Until Kerr Dam raised the lake, people from all over the valley gathered at the wide beach east of the town to camp, picnic, and swim in the warm, shallow water.
With the (according to the company) “diminishing supply of timber on the company’s own land” and “the necessity of conserving the remaining stand of timber,” and to the consternation of the workers’ families, the sawmill closed in 1948 and the planing mill the next July.
History courtesy of Northwest Montana Historical Society in Kalispell, MT. Text and photos are from a newly installed History of the Flathead Valley exhibition at the Museum at Central School, 124 2nd Ave E, Kalispell, MT