Longtimers, news archives recall Kalispell's early black community

Some of Kalispell’s earliest black residents were born into slavery before they later made their way to Montana after the Civil War.

Snippets of their lives can be pieced together by searching the archives of the Daily Inter Lake, which has reported on the lives of the Flathead Valley’s citizens since 1889.

That citizenry included a modest number of black residents whose lives and livelihoods were a part of Kalispell’s early days. The newspaper reported frequently about the happenings of Kalispell’s early black community, extolling their virtues in obituaries, detailing lawn parties held by local black families and even reporting about the birthday parties of black children. Their achievements in the military and college were duly noted.

John W. White Sr., one of Kalispell’s most well-known black residents, was a Flathead pioneer born into slavery in North Carolina in the mid-1800s. White’s obituary didn’t say, though, why he chose the Flathead Valley as the place to call home. He worked for 33 years as a janitor at Central School in Kalispell and by all accounts was beloved by the community.

When he died in 1934, his obituary took note “he had been honored and beloved by generations of boys and girls, by faculty, by trustees, by the whole Kalispell community and by all who knew him.” It lauded White as “a man who took great pride in his work and brought honor to it.”

White came to the Flathead when Demersville, the robust frontier town on the north end of Flathead Lake, was still a thriving community. He moved to Kalispell with the beginning of the town.

White’s sister, Christina, was a member of Flathead County High School’s class of 1902, the first class to graduate in the then-newly built high school building.

It was the next generation of the White family that many Kalispell residents still remember.

John White Jr. stepped into his father’s shoes at Central School in 1933 and served as a custodian and school-bell ringer for close to 30 years.

Bob O’Neil, 88, of Kalispell, remembers how White Jr. used to keep ringing the bell — “a good-sized handbell,” he recalled — until all of the tardy students raced through the door.

Dorothy McGlenn, 91, of Kalispell, has that same memory.

“I’d be walking to school and if he saw me a block away he’d keep ringing the bell,” McGlenn said. “He did that for all the kids.”

The Museum at Central School’s John White Speaker Series honors the White family’s contributions to the school.

Graeme Baker, a Flathead graduate who lived next door to the White family, remembers going to the White house to watch television because his family didn’t have a TV.

The Gibbs families were other prominent black residents in Kalispell.

Howard Gibbs came to Kalispell in 1921 with his parents, when he was just 4. A graduate of the Flathead County High School class of 1935, he was a member of the first a capella choir at Flathead and excelled in sports. He ran Howard’s Shoe Shine Parlor on Main Street for 37 years.

“Howard’s Shoe Shine Parlor was the downtown hangout for boys,” recalled Bob O’Neil, 88, of Kalispell. “High school kids felt comfortable in Howard’s place.”

Charlie Gibbs, one of Howard’s brothers, was a friend of Richard Riley of Kalispell.

“I knew Charlie pretty well; he came to our house for dinner,” Riley remembered. “He was extremely strong and well-built. I used to box with him once in a while. Well, he used to knock me around is what it amounted to. He was a very nice fellow.”

Riley said he lost contact with his friend after Charlie joined the Army in the 1940s. Charlie died in an automobile accident while stationed in Camp Hood, Texas, in 1949.

O’Neil also has fond recollections of Charlie Gibbs. They worked together at the local pea warehouse after World War II.

Mike Gibbs, another of Howard’s brothers, was a standout athlete, Riley recalled.

“I was told he had four letters in football,” Riley said. “He was a great athlete, a very fine fellow.”

Riley said he doesn’t recall any incidents that involved racial prejudice.

“In those days we didn’t even know what discrimination was,” he added.

O’Neil does, however, remember an incident at a local café in 1946, when Willard Thompson, a half-brother of the older Gibbs brothers, was on the football team.

“We sat down at the café counter. The owner came out and he looked at Willard and said he wouldn’t serve him [because he was black],” O’Neil recounted. “That’s when we all walked out. The guy on the inside, farthest down on the counter, scraped his arm along the counter, clearing everything off.”

The incident was a clear statement to the café owner that racial intolerance wouldn’t be accepted by Flathead’s football team.

Fred Griffin Sr. and his family were other black residents who were noted for their accomplishments in the Inter Lake. Griffin married Christina White — the sister of John White Sr. — in 1907 and moved their young family to Kalispell in 1916. Their only son, Fred Henry Griffin Jr., became a well-known pharmacist and was the first black pharmacist at the General Hospital in Los Angeles.

Baker recalled that Griffin Jr. also was an accomplished cellist.

Christina White Griffin was well-known in Kalispell in her own right. In 1938 a two-page advertisement in the Inter Lake for the new Grizzly Park Service Station took special note that Mrs. Christina Griffin, “well-known Negro maid in Kalispell, will be in attendance in the lounge during the busiest travel hours of the day.” The swanky service station, billed as Montana’s finest, had a separate lounge for women.

If there were incidents of overt racial prejudice against the Flathead’s black community — and there were plenty along the way, according to black children who were raised in Kalispell — there were no reports of such behavior in the Inter Lake archives. Sylvester Douglas Thompson, born and raised in Kalispell, said he endured a lot of name-calling as a child here. Cora Gibbs said she and her brother Roger also endured name-calling because they were black, even though their father, Howard Gibbs, was a well-respected Kalispell businessman.

There also was plenty of acceptance of the black community in the Flathead, however, Cora Gibbs noted.

“Kalispell was pretty progressive,” she said. “It was an interesting pocket of where [black] people were accepted … I think [the racial prejudice] is worse when you’re a kid.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.