This collection is open for research.
Donate by Hubert L. Wessel in 1977.
Louis Wessel was born October 10, 1879, in Calumet, Wisconsin, to German immigrants Wilhelm and Fredrika Wessel. He had five brothers: William, Herman, Paul, August, and Walter. During his early life Wessel suffered from severe asthma that interrupted his schooling, though he eventually completed the eighth grade at age fifteen. He remained in Wisconsin for several years afterward due to continued illness while pursuing independent study and farm labor. Wessel traveled to Montana between 1899 and 1906 held a variety of jobs across the northern plains and Montana, including seasonal agricultural labor, railroad construction, ranch work, and threshing crews. While living with local families he studied independently to earn a teaching certificate, and taught rural schools along the Lower Marias and Highwood. He entered the Railway Mail Service in 1903 and served on several Montana routes. In 1906 he met Mary E. Schley, later Mary Sly, during a trip through Yellowstone National Park, and the couple married in Los Angeles, California, in 1907 before returning to Montana. That same year he joined the U.S. Forest Service, conducting land classification in the Little Belt Forest Reserve and later managing a ranger district headquartered at Woolsey, Montana. Around this time, Wessel spent time as a naturalist in Glacier National Park assisting in mountaineering expeditions
Wessel and his wife settled in Great Falls, where their first three children, Hubert, Donald, and Richard, were born. After leaving field ranger work, Wessel pursued business training and held clerical and commercial positions in Great Falls while remaining connected to land and resource management. The family moved to Bozeman on November 11, 1918, when Wessel accepted a position with the Federal Food Administration as the Sugar Administrator for the state of Montana. Two additional children, Ella May and David, were born to the family in Bozeman. In 1919 he managed the Bungalo in Bozeman and later operated a business that required frequent travel.
After the business ended in 1921, Wessel left Montana for forestry employment in Oregon and California, working in timber surveying and cruising operations and periodically returning to Montana and Wisconsin. He enrolled at Oregon State College and received a bachelor's degree in forestry in 1931. Wessel and his wife divorced in 1932. By the mid-1930s he was employed in conservation education programs in the Adirondacks, presenting nature programs and guided excursions known as "Uncle Louie's Camp Fire" for the New York State Conservation Department and the New York State College of Forestry.
Wessel spent his final years in Great Falls, Montana, where he died on July 18, 1942, after a six-month illness.
[Creator Name], [Date of Creation], [Brief Description of Object], Folder [#], Box [#], [Collection Name], [Collection #], Montana State University (MSU) Library, Bozeman, MT
Collection was processed in February 2026.
This collection contains a photocopied manuscript of a reminiscence written by Louis Wessel. The reminiscence describes a summit attempt of Mount Saint Nicholas in Glacier National Park made by Wessel and a group of other mountaineers in 1906. On this expedition, Wessel traveled with zoologist Dr. Morton J. Elrod and horticulturalist Dr. Augustine Henry. Henry accompanied the expedition in an effort to collect seeds of the Lyall larch. The text details the struggles of their failed attempt, including a bout of hunger that was remedied by a mountain goat the party witnessed falling to its death, which the party then harvested and ate. The manscript also details the technical challenges of mountaineering in the early 20th century.