Albert V. Howard was born in October 1850 and grew up in northern Kentucky. He was a gold prospector and lumber dealer who first came to the Libby, Montana Territory, area in 1885. Prospecting with his brother, B. F. Howard, Albert filed claims on parcels along Libby Creek near its confluence with the Kootanai River, and began to supplement his mining income by selling sawn lumber for construction in the area. After the establishment of the town of Libby, he opened a wholesale and retail lumber business under the name of A. V. Howard. He died November 12, 1935, in Libby.
The A. V. Howard narrative, dictated in the first-person, describes Howard's arrival in the Libby, Montana, area with his brother, B. F. Howard, and details their mining operations along Libby Creek. Other miners and claim holders are named throughout the narrative, and there are descriptions of crime, social conditions, and the first buildings constructed in the town of Libby. Howard also describes business arrangements made by miners with each other as well as investors located elsewhere, including an unnamed Chinese resident of Missoula. The photocopied manuscript is a single-spaced typed document on Howard's stationery, and includes penciled annotations on several pages, likely added by Howard while proof-reading the dictated typescript prepared by his employee, Maie B. Hillis.
This collection is open for research.
An original typed narrative prepared by Maie B. Hills from the dictation of A. V. Howard was loaned to Montana State University for copying by Jeanne B. Hillis of The Dalles, Oregon, on April 22, 1966. After its duplication by MSU library personnel, the original manuscript was returned to Hillis. Its present location is unknown.
This collection was processed 2011 October 4
[Creator Name], [Date of Creation], [Brief Description of Object], Folder [#], Box [#], [Collection Name], [Collection #], Montana State University (MSU) Library, Bozeman, MT