The whole truth about Half Moon

Where is Half Moon?

Half Moon Road leads north from Montana 40 to F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co., where the Half Moon railroad siding is located, but not the Half Moon School. The school, a short distance west of the Half Moon siding, is the former Canyon View School, now a residence.

Half Moon School was in the LaSalle area and is now a residence on the North Fork Road.

Confusing?

So where is Half Moon?

That depends on which Half Moon we are referring to.

Before the pioneers came, and even before American Indians frequented the North Valley, a glacial lake drained and the Flathead River meandered through the lowland near the present-day junction of U.S. 2 and Montana 40. After the lake dried up and the river changed its course, a large fertile prairie remained where native grasses and shrubs grew.

The old oval-shaped lake was bounded by steep hills on the northern part for about 200 degrees. This configuration reminded the first people of a half moon and they called the geographic formation just that. If viewed from the air today, when shadows are low, this phenomenon is semi-circular.

Early on, the Indians rode horses to this rich prairie to hunt and to fish the rivers. While women jerked venison and dried fish, the men entertained themselves with games. They raced their ponies on a long track east of Trumble Creek Road between Hodgson Road and Wishart Road. The track was still visible when the Hodgson family bought land nearby in 1896.

Ample organic matter made the rich prairie soil a much-coveted place for farming. And that’s where the second Half Moon enters the picture.

Early-day farmers settled in this half-moon valley and their children needed schooling. The Conns, Dyers, Hodgsons and numerous children from State Mill families went to the log, one-room school house in the Half Moon School District 17, located at the northwest corner of Wishart Road and Trumble Creek Road.

The community wanted the old school moved a mile north to be closer to the State Mill village where most of the children in District 17 lived. At the new location, W.E. Hodgson received $100 for an acre of land at the northwest corner of Hodgson Road and Trumble Creek Road.

On Aug. 18, 1910, the school district paid a workman $50 to move the log school to this new site. He moved it about a third of the way when evening stopped his efforts. During the night the schoolhouse burned to the ground. So in September 1910, the district was without a school.

The school board hired Webb to teach in a house at State Mill village for the seven months while their new school was being built. The children of mill families attended this school, while some of the neighboring children went to Grand View School on Whitefish Stage Road.

Archie M. Short, the carpenter, had the new school ready for a holiday dance by Christmas. He earned about $640 for his efforts. The school district received $600 insurance for the old log school and a bond was circulated for $800 at the time. Joe Monegan built a small teacherage also.

For many years the one-room Half Moon school house flourished for first through eighth grades and a community center. Many box socials, Christmas programs and dances entertained the community. According to the Flathead County Superintendent of Schools office, the last year that students attended Half Moon School, 1959-60, the school had 24 pupils.

Finally, School District 17 joined Columbia Falls School District 6 in 1962. After the district joined Columbia Falls, Charlie Keller moved the schoolhouse and teacherage a mile north to his property.

Movie star Kiefer Sutherland later had the teacherage restored as a studio for his intended bride-to-be, Julia Roberts. Sutherland’s plan did not materialize.

In 1974, Charlie Fisher bought the school house and had Treweek move it to the North Fork Road. It took Charlie three years to gut and clean the building and renovate the school house into a farmhouse complete with antique furniture for his family.

Marion Fisher lives in it today. In some rooms she enjoys the original flooring with ink stains and gouges from the old school desks’ metal legs. The narrow board wainscoting is painted a lovely Wedgwood blue. The original large windows and double panel solid-core doors are evident.

It is truly an honorable second use for the regal 100-year-old building where so many youngsters learned their three R’s.

Another Half Moon is the Great Northern Railway siding on the mainline north of the junction of U.S. 2 and Montana 40. By 1918, F. H. Stoltze wanted to relocate the State Mill from the Whitefish River north of Hodgson Road because loggers had depleted nearby forests.

Surveyor Jaquette recommended the site near the Half Moon railroad siding as appropriate for the new State Mill. Stoltze already owned a considerable amount of land with stumpage north of the area. Trumbull Creek provided a good water source. Vast forests, plus the railroad mainline, satisfied the needs of the new mill which opened there in 1923.

Soon the community at the State Mill, later Stoltze land and Lumber Company, with the mill workers and their families, made Half Moon Siding a little village — the third Half Moon so to speak. Somewhat confusing is the name of their school, Canyon View, not Half Moon, which is also a residence now.

It is still a vibrant community although no longer able to boast a school, post office (Louis Westerhouse passed out the mail but it is unknown whether or not he was a postmaster), store, bunk house or cook house.

A final Half Moon to be noted is a lake east of Lake Five. It is shaped somewhat like a crescent, possibly getting its name from that shape.

Although these Half Moon entities have long confused some valley residents, the name has undoubtedly been in use longer than most other place names in the North Valley.

Mary Tombrink Harris is a Whitefish historian.