The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1920-05-13
NOW REAL
RADIO STATION
GOVERNMENT FORCES MONTANA
WIRELESS OPERATORS TO
PASS EXAMINATION
So A. @. Campbell, Who Talks in
Sparks at That Town and Bill Fer
guson, Who Holds Down Station at
Miles City, Hike to Chicago and
Get Licenses.

Jordan, Garfield county, a county
seat 100 miles off the railroad, had
a run-in with the department of COM
merce at Washington last month over
the fact that this enterprising little
town had installed a wireless tele-
graph station and was holding com
munion in dot and dash sparks with
Miles City, where another wireless
outfit had been established. The re-
suit of the difficulty with Uncle Sam
was that A. G. Campbell, who oper-
ates the wireless at the Jordan end,
and Bill Ferguson, secretary of the
Milestown Commercial Club, took a
trip to Chicago and showed the gov
eminent smart Alecs that they knew
how to sling the wireless by passing
the radio examination that allows Ii
censes for operators to be issued.
Until last fall Jordan felt no need
of any means of communication more
rapid than the mails. 1t was a Cow
town." in the heart of the last of
Montana's open range. AS the rem
devious and supply station for sew
eral hundred COW punchers, the town
found nothing troublesome in it's iso-
lation.
Then the Montana legislature de-
cided to facilitate the fencing of the
open range by chopping famous Daw-
son county's 300-mile border into
three parts. Jordan, being near the
center of one of the two new coun-
ties, was made the seat of govern
ment.
Now, a county seat, with a court
house and a sheriff and records to
keep, has responsibilities unknown to
a COW town. Jordan began to look
about itself, toward the rest of the
world.
1t saw nothing but prairie for 100
was the nearest town of size. Jordan
had neither railroad nor wire. Not
even the roads were much to boast
of, for COW punchers don't need
smooth going.
"We didn't know what to do" said
Campbell. "There wasn't a chance
of getting wires strung across all that
range, and we won't have a railroad
for a year or two-not until our oil
wells get going and we have a regu-
lar city.
wireless was our only chance, so
I got busy, studied old man Marconi's
stuff and rugged up an outfit. Down
in Miles City they set up another sta
ton to help US out, and Ferguson,
who used to be an army aviator, did
the sending and receiving"
During the winter the wireless was
the only link connecting Jordan and
the official business of Garfield coun-
ty with the rest of the state. Heavy
blocked the roads. But for the
Campbell-Ferguson wireless, Jordan
might as we'll have been at the north
pole.
Perhaps the operators weren't able
to send and receive as fast as some
wireless experts, but they managed to
make each other understand a great
many life-and-death messages during
he winter.
They did so well, in fact, that the
government heard about their wire
.ess. The department of commerce !
,wooped down on them with an
alarming communication, to the eff
'ect that amateur wirelessing on such :
| scale could not be permitted-not
in Montana. 1t was intimated {
hat the operators might save them +
ie1ves from prison by hurrying to +
Chicago to take a radio examination. :
eve did u d%arnedest to stall out ;
# it," said Campbell. "The govern !
nent examination was made for the :
ocean steamship operators, and it's .
stiff one. But they wouldn't listen =
us. =
$50 we fooled 'em by passing their .
examination. They had to give us Ii =
enses. Now we're at work again. =
Jordan grow"