The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers was founded as the Brotherhood of the Footboard in 1863 in Marshall, Michigan. A year later it changed its name to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. The BLE represents locomotive engineers, conductors, brakemen, firemen, switchmen, gostlers and other train service employees on numerous railroads in the United States. In Missoula, Montana, the union represented employees of the Northern Pacific Railroad. E.W. Walling was one of the officers.
The collection contains correspondence and dues receipts from the Missoula District, but mostly consists of materials collected from the national organization, including its constitution and by-laws and reports. The correspondence mostly concerns union members and their work conditions, complaints by and against them (which includes correspondence with and about their wives), and other union business. A dues receipt book from 1890-1892 shows members' names and dues paid. Accident reports from the Northern Pacific Railroad Company document an accident at Garrison, Montana, on August 14, 1892, from the perspective of the two engineers involved. Materials from the Northern Pacific Railroad include wage scale and employee rules and an accident report from Garrison, Montana.
Researchers must use collection in accordance with the policies of Archives and Special Collections, the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, and The University of Montana-Missoula.
Researchers are responsible for using in accordance with 17 U.S.C. and any other applicable statutes. Copyright not transferred to The University of Montana.
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (U.S.). District 262 (Missoula, Mont.) Records, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, The University of Montana-Missoula.
This collection was originally held by Stanley Dahlstrom, Commander of V.F.W. Post 209. The Missoula Chapter of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers was previously housed in the same building. Dahlstrom donated the materials to the Historical Musuem at Fort Missoula on October 31, 1978. Fort Missoula then donated the collection to the Archives and Special Collections in 1979.
The bulk of this collection was donated to the Archives in 1979 by the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula. In 2024, Fort Missoula donated envelopes, which had been separated from the correspondence originally donated in the 1970s.
The original processors organized the collection and prepared a brief finding aid. In 2004, that fiinding aid was augmented and encoded. In 2024, envelopes corresponding to existing letters and reports in the collection were processed.
During original processing, a photograph of an engineer's funeral from about 1895 was separated to the Photograph Collection.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.