Montana Picker

05/31/2026

05/30/2026

Red Lodge

05/29/2026

Butte, Montana was built by people who came from somewhere else.
Thomas Holmes. Age 9. Brass neck tag. Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire to Butte City, Montana. Per Empress of Ireland and Canadian Pacific Railway.
🇺🇸 This is the story of America.🇺🇸

05/27/2026

Early leather Montana license plate 97!

05/26/2026

Brass tag. Punched hole. Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire to Butte, Montana.

Thomas Holmes. Age 9. Passenger to Butte City, Montana. Per Empress of Ireland and Canadian Pacific Railway.

W. Robinson & Son, Emigration Agents, booked him end to end. Ship and rail. Liverpool to Quebec to Butte, America.
The Empress of Ireland sank May 29, 1914. Collision in the St. Lawrence River. Dense fog. She went down in fourteen minutes, taking 1,012 of 1,477 people with her. One of the deadliest maritime disasters in Canadian history. Almost nobody knows her name.
Thomas Holmes was already in Butte.
The tag was found there.

05/26/2026

Virginia City