The Bozeman courier. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1919-1954, 1924-06-04
Weekly Editorial Digest
WHAT A RECORD FOR dad" GEER!
From the Big Timber Pioneer

Fifty-five years of continuous service as locomotive engi-
neer without an accident of wreck, is the record of George C"Dad)"
Geer of Livingston, who recently passed away in California.
What a record! Starting when only narrow gauge tracks
were known, when steel rails were unheard OF, when blocking
systems were only a day dream, when hand brakes had not been
replaced by the safer and more expeditions air brake, when
ballasting of tracks with rock had not been preached, the record
of this man extended through a period of more than half a
century, without wreck or accident.
And what a period of development it covered, especially in
the west! Coming to Livingston in 1863, taking his examination
on road rules before George A Loasby of the Boulder, then chief
dispatcher at Livingston, dad" Geer started on a continuous
service of thrty-nne years for the company by which he was
placed on the pension list about two years ago.
And what he must have seen from the cab window between
Livingston and Helena, or between the former city and Billings,
in nearly forty years of service, on his triweekly trips!
First a barren waste covered with sage brush or bunch
grass; inhabited only by wolves, coyotes and jack rabbite. Then
here and there a squatter's cabin, a pole fence with one strand
of barbed wire, a plowed furrow or two, a cayuse, a cow, and
maybe a chicken or two and a hog. Then more cabins, more
strands OF wire, more burrows, more cayuses, more COWS, more
chickens, more hogs; and then fields of waving grain. Then
narrow trails turned into primitive wagon roads, pack horses
suppanted by wagons, fenced highways, and a disappearance of
the early day bull train. Then irrigating bitches and farm i'm
pements, mowers, reapers and binders; then small settlements,
school houses and here and there a place of worship. Then in
place of the cowboy, with red silk handkerchief, buckskin shirt
chaps, plt ana SIX shooter racing with the train, the bicycle along
the country road. Then the automobile, racing at breakneck
speed for every crossing, and then the airplane soaring high
above.
large and commodious school houses; churches with steeples
extending far into the air; cement sidewalks and paved streets
water works and sewerage systems; electric lights; telephones
public parks and Fairgrounds for children; race tracks, ball
grounds; and lastly the auto tourist camp ground.
All this Dad Geer saw from his cab window in the way
of development of the great west, in forty years of continuous
service. And he also saw tie vanishing of the standard and
hog engines and the institution of the manet; iron rails replaced
by steel; irregular and uneven tracks replaced by the highest
standards of rock beds; telegraph reinforced by the telephone;
air brakes substituted for hand brakes; blocking signals insuring
utmost safety to employe and passenger; wooden coaches giving
way to all steel palaces.
Not only this did dad" Geer see in the way of develop
ment, but, IN the sunset OF life, he saw the end of a locomotive
career equalled and exceled by none. For forty years a hand
that never failed held the throttle, an eye that never quavered
glanced ahead along the rails, a heart that never weakened guided
the destines of hundreds of thousands of passengers DER danger
Gus places-along river banks, around rocky canyons, over tres
ties seemingly held in space-without wreck or accident.
What more could a man ask?