blackfoot-valley

pied themselves with the ranch, but also branched out into other activities. After twelve years, Jim set up a mercantile business and store. A younger brother of John, Dan Geary, came to the valley from Ireland in 1887, got started as a clerk in Jim’s store, and after Jim’s death succeeded him as head of the Geary Commercial Company. Michael (“Mike”) Geary was admired as a no-nonsense man of unim- peachable integrity and responsibility. He became a fixture of not only Helm- ville, but the larger area as well. He was elected in 1900 to the Seventh Montana Legislature from Deer Lodge County, which then included the cities of Deer Lodge and Anaconda. This was the deliberative body that early the next year created Powell County as separate from today’s Deer Lodge County. As a resident, Mike had both a major imput into the bill’s content and an in- fluence in getting it passed. He also continued to work the family ranch un- til past his mid-sixties. When he died, he left the ranch, with its then 3,700 acres, 600 head of cattle, and 100 horses to his boys. About eleven miles upstream from Helmville, off the road to Avon and close to the now-backed-up waters of Nevada Creek Reservoir, is the well preserved Fitzpatrick Ranch, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The still-standing original log cabin on the ranch was built in 1872 by Jimmy Isabel, a miner with claims in the vicinity. He lived there until 1885 when he sold it to J.F. Fitzpatrick. During that year, it was designated as a post office named Isabel, Montana, with Fitzpatrick as its postmaster. It be- came the center of community activity for the portion of Nevada Creek up- stream from Helmville, and as a weekly stage stop between the Little Black- foot Valley (Avon and Blackfoot City) and Helmville. Fitzpatrick and his wife Anna homesteaded and built it into one of Mon- tana’s more prominent dairies. During the 1880s and early 1890s, several more log structures were built: A dairy barn, grain storage shed, carriage- barn, and in 1892, a two-story log home. At that time, he entered Deer Lodge County politics and was elected County Commissioner and Sheriff. During his four-year tenure as Sheriff he lived with his family in Deer Lodge. After returning to the ranch, he added more buildings before being elected to the State Legislature in 1899. Fitzpatrick and his wife ran the ranch until 1917 when, due to ill health, they sold the ranch and moved to California to spend their retirement years. Today the Fitzpatrick ranch is maintained as a National Historic Landmark Site. The original log cabin, storage house, and caretakers’ home are still in use. The site is worth a visit providing a glimpse of a bygone era in the Nevada Creek Valley and the surrounding areas. 126