The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1920-02-12

When Dan Flanagan crawled into
! 9. box car 80 years ago and made his
departure from Butte he was, &C
cording to his own story, "a drunken
bum," but when he returned last
week he carried a check book which
! authorizes him to draw on a Cali
fornia bank to the extent of at least
$250,O0O.
Thirty years ago Dan Flanagan
walked down to the Oregon Short
Line; crawled into a convenient box
a and fell asleep. Mr.. Flanagan
was slightly intoxicated, he admits it
himself, and during the preceding
three days and nights had wondered
from saloon to saloon in search of
liquor and excitement. Consequent
ly he was not disturbed when the car
was switched about the yards and
finally coupled onto an outgoing
freight train.
When Flanagan finally blinked
his blood-shot eyes and stretched his
aching arms, his ears detected the
clickety-click, clickety-click of the
wheels rolling over steel rails. He
looked out of the side door and
thought the train was just leaving
Butte, but as a matter of fact it was
just entering Pocatello.
, wonder what time it is?" he NUT
tered to himself but when he looked
for his watch, it was gone. So was
his money. 81 probably soaked it,"
he told himself, cor else some skirt
SWITCHED it."
Such was the Dan Flanagan who
left Butte in 1890. But it was a
prosperous, middle aged and com
petent Dan Flanagan who returned
to the mining city during the first
week in February.
81 don't recognize the old town,
he said to a reporter, land I can't
find a single friend, so I'm not going
to stay another day. I guess I must
be like Rip Van Wrinkle; l slept too
long. 1 was only here six weeks but
knew a few miners and teamsters,
but I should have had enough sense
to know that they would all be
gone.'
At present Flanagan is owner and
manager of a southern California
quarry from which building material
used extensively in California, Utah,
Arizona and Nevada is extracted.
Mr.. Flanagan was once employed
in his own quarry as a day laborer.
when I stuck my head out of the
car door at P~ocatello," he said, "a
man yelled, Hey, come out of that
We want you'll He herded me and
about rs other men down to the
city corral, gave us a good breakfast
and then sent us out into the coun-
try to work on an irrigation canal.
I worked there two weeks and then
drifted to Salt Lake and from there
to San Francisco"
In San Francisco Flanagan yield
ed to temptation again; fell asleep
in a saloon and when he awoke was
taking another journey. This time,
however, he heard no clickety-click
of steel rails but the roar of waves
breaking against the sides of a YES
sci was audible. He had been
"shanghied."
According to his own story he had
"a tough time of it" for six months,
but eventually learned to like the |
sea. For six years he sailed the Pa {
cific and touched upon every foreign |
WdlSh UOldClO thdb OCCohs
and he says, "since I'm done with I
that kind of life I'll admit it now l
I was inside nearly every Jail on the l
Pacific coast for minor ~offenses or I
disturbances
After abandoning a sailors life he
joined a prospecting expedition e
which was sent into Mexico. The @
expedition met with disaster, how a
ouor For ~ o1orio Tndionc ord poft1nL c
snakes harassed the little party to S
left behind beneath little n
to mark their final resting L
n
In 1898 he returned to San Fran h
cisco just in time to become imbued n
with the K1ondike fever and he join t.
ed another prospecting expedition. n
Two years later he emerged from 81
with a comfortable STAKE" d
which he squandered in his 'last big F
trunk" 'Then," he says, ST held Il
lp my right hand and vowed never CT
Kept my word" tt
He drifted from job to job until he te
southern California, where tt
lC 0CCulth WI n LII q iOSh ddoli y . L -
vas steadily advanced from laborer m
O straw boss, to time keeper, to al
manager, to superintendent, to gen at
,ral manager and a few years ago he a.
invested his savings and purchased nj
he entire property. tr
'I'm not sorry" he said. "I've di
made my pile and unless the unusual al
Iappens will never be in want again.
I've had my fling and seen the al
World. When l get to be an old man liz
can sit by the fireside and dream be
f the drunken brawls and fights he
7hich occurred in the orient, the sil
or water front of Frisco. so
"I'm sorry, though" he said, that pr
can't find any of my old cronies in co
Even the streets have chang re
d. You know I've often dreamed th
coming back to this place, but for tn
ONE reason I have always thought SC
f Butte as the old care-free mining 81
amp that it was in 1890" We