The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1921-05-12
BY VIII A. Campbell

Rubbing HIS eyer Will a sun
burned hand and stretching a pair
of legs which were hard from long
marches but not much larger than
a pair of saplings, a young major OF
the United States army pulled him
self out from under a blanket spread
by the side of a freighter's wagon in
Payne's Corral, where the Helena
postoffice building stands now, and
took a good look at the camp which
he had decided to make his new home
in the west. 1t was a summer morn
ing in 1869.
This soldier, who had won his
commission for distinguished service
with a Michigan cavalry regiment
and fought in most of the battles
along the Potomac and turned down
a regular commission in the army,
though he was endorsed by officers
of his own regiment and approved
by General Phil Sheridan, had one
dollar and fifty cents in his pocket,
a blanket and a few pieces of bacon.
There was no soldiers welfare
committee in Helena in the spring
of 1863, where a young officer dis
charged from the union armies could
find friends; there was no club house
nor reading rooms for returned sol
diers. He did not belong to a
union" where he could get financial
aid or secure a few "jigs" to help
him through the first week. There
was no state nor territorial fund for
putting soldiers on their feet. They
had to scramble on to their own feet
and stand on them.
So this major from the Union
army of the Potomac-this soldier of
fortune with the bacon and the blan-
ket, rented a one-room cabin over
in Dry Gulch, opposite Hangman's
tree, and moved in.
Had there been a city directory
published in Helena in those days,
down toward the end of the list of
citizens, this name would have APP
peared:
WALLACE, Major Robert c., No.
l Hangman's Park, Dry Gulch."
For this young man was Robert G..
Wallace, native of Ayrshire, Scot
land, adopted son of Michigan, who, I
on May 1, 1921, completes his 50th
year as a grocery merchant and head
of the firm of R. G.. Wallace & Co.,
of Helena, whose store front has
so feet of plate glass on Main street.
Sees an Old Friend
From his cabin he could see the
bright lights" of the Gulch and the
first evening in Helena Major Wal
lace walked forth and curiosity led
him to go into a gambling house
operated on the ground floor, with a
dozen games in progress. Seated be-
hind a table dealing faro was a man {
whose face was familiar to the young
army officer. Turning back his
memory to the battlefields of the =
early sixties, he recognized in the
dealer a man named "Forky," one of
General Sheridan's scouts. Major 5
Wallace was strongly tempted to I
make himself known to the man but I
decided he did not want to begin his {
acquaintance in the territory with t
gamblers, so he shuffled out of the s
,lace. \
A short time after Forky was a
hot to death in the streets of Last Z
Chance Gulch by another gambler
md his body buried back in the hills a
~ the rough crowd with whom he Il
4
Thirty years later Wallace had the I
of ~Sheridan's old scout removed D
o the Grand Army burying ground a
a government maidstone erected, b
living the name and regiment of n
a good soldier and a brave o
ian. "
But the bacon was getting low in r,
he little cabin of Wallace and he s
licked up a farmer who needed help
II his potato patch down on the Il
'rickly Pear. Wallace went to work
or him at $3.50 per day and board, O
which was fairly good wages for a Ii
otato digger, though miners were Z,
Sc per day and boarding O
themselves. fl
Hard Work Begins to Count f,
With the potatoes out of the r
ay, the young man from the officer W
anks of a famous Michigan cavalry
sgiment found a job removing tail
lgs from a little gulch which it was =,
to convert into a street. 1t Z,
Sixth avenue now. The work was o
ard for a green hand on the job and =,
is hands got so sore and cracked "a
the shovel handle was often &C.