Archives West Finding Aid

Perry Sanders Melton was born in Cambridge, Kansas, on February 6, 1907, the son of Elisha Reuben "Rube" Melton and Lilly Melton, while the Melton's were gradually working their way west from their home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western Virginia. They arrived in Kalispell, Montana, when Perry was a year old. As a school boy, Perry was involved in sports, drama, journalism, and the Boy Scouts. He graduated from Flathead County High School in 1924. Accompanied by several friends he travelled by car across the country in late 1925 and early 1926 to visit relatives in Virginia. On his return to Montana he worked for several years as a seasonal Forest Service employee in what later became the Bob Marshall Wilderness, served in the National Guard, and worked odd jobs. In 1933, in an incident that was to haunt him in later life, Melton was arrested for selling homemade chokecherry wine to several Indians. He pleaded guilty and served 40 days in the Cascade County jail. He was eventually pardoned by President Richard Nixon. In the mid 1930s Perry began an apprenticeship with his father as a house painter. The senior Melton was one of the founders of the Kalispell local of the Painters Union. After Perry qualified as a journeyman painter, he became active with the union and in 1938 was elected its secretary. He held that post until 1951 and then again from 1958 until the local merged with the Missoula local in 1973. Perry Melton was one of the founders of the Kalispell Central Trades and Labor Council and served as its secretary-treasurer from its founding in 1937 until 1951 and then again in the 1970s. Melton also served from 1964 to 1974 as secretary for the Northwest Montana Building and Construction Trades Council. In 1955 Melton lost a bitterly contested election against James S. Umber for leadership of the Montana State Federation of Labor. His bootlegging arrest in 1933 became a central issue in the campaign. In 1951 Perry Melton accepted a job with the United Textile Workers of America as an organizer in North Carolina. The three years he spent as a union organizer and radio commentator in the South strongly influenced his views on the labor movement, politics, and human rights. In 1938, seeing the need for an independent labor-oriented press in Montana, Melton convinced the Kalispell Trades and Labor Council to publish the Flathead Labor Journal. The following year the title was changed to the Treasure State Labor Journal to reflect the wider audience the paper had acquired. In December 1950 the Council sold the paper to Melton. Two years later he in turn sold it to the Kalispell Laborers Union who attempted briefly to publish it. The Laborers sold the paper to the State Federation of Labor which terminated publication in January 1955. In 1967 Melton was one of the founders of Flathead Valley Community College. He served on its Board of Trustees until his retirement in 1979. He was briefly removed from the Board in 1973 when the issue of his 1933 arrest again surfaced. When the state Supreme Court determined that his conviction was only a misdemeaner he was restored to his position on the Board. From 1978 to 1980 Melton served on the board of the Montana Committee for the Humanities. In 1934 Perry Melton married Luella Wicklund. She became his life partner in all his work and a union activist in her own right. She was active in the Retail Clerks Union and in the Hotel, Restaurant Employees and Bartenders Union. She helped edit the Labor Journal and helped campaign for Flathead Valley Community College. After her death in 1979, Melton founded the Luella Melton World of Work Memorial to promote labor education materials at the College library. The couple had four children: Pearl, John, Perry Jr., and Emily. Perry Melton died March 28, 1992 in Kalispell.