Q – Was Montavilla ever “a wild west” town?
A – On the eve of Montavilla’s 100-year-anniversary celebration in 1989, Marguerite O’Donnell-Barnes told Oregonian reporter Suzanne Richards that her grandfather said, “No God-fearing man would go to Montavilla on a Saturday night.” It’s true that in Montavilla’s early days, the 1890s and the early 20th century, it may have looked like something from a Wild West movie. It still had dirt roads, plank sidewalks, saloons (until Montavilla finally went dry in 1905), blacksmith shops, and horse-drawn vehicles. But was it as rowdy as the O’Donnell-Barnes statement implies?
In the early days, Montavillans worked to meet the community’s basic needs, such as a school, community meeting spaces, churches, a steady water supply, and better streetcar service. They also advocated for road and sidewalk upgrades. By 1901, they also sought help maintaining law and order. So, that year, the Montavilla Sub-Board of Trade campaigned for a Justice of the Peace and a Constable.
What kinds of crimes might have been on their minds? We can get some answers from Portland newspapers since they reported on neighborhood crimes. The Oregonian of August 13, 1896, for example, reported that in Montavilla burglaries were so frequent that residents had to sleep “with one eye open, and a shotgun within easy reach.” The thieves came at night with buggies for the loot. William DeVeny (1852-1918), Montavilla’s Buffalo-Bill-look-alike, was determined to stop the thievery. Although he was just a foot doctor by trade, he billed himself as a law-and-order man. (In his 1915 autobiography, he would describe his earlier peace-keeping efforts in the Midwest.) So, one night, he stood watch and caught a pair of thieves in the act. He let them go with an order to leave Montavilla at once and never come back.
Besides thefts, Montavilla also had a counterfeiter. In 1900, fake coins—more valuable back then, of course—were circulating in Montavilla. The Oregonian of April 30, 1901, reported that Secret Service officers had found dies for making fake half-dollars, quarters, and nickels under a loose board in a building on Base Line Road (now Stark Street). The current occupant, H. W. Lang, publisher of the Villa Observer newspaper, said he knew nothing about the equipment, and the Oregonian did not mention an arrest.
Thefts continued to be reported in the Portland press in 1905 and 1906: J. J. Herman’s stump-removal machine, L. Scott’s Jersey cow, and several house burglaries. Still, Montavilla did not have its own police officer until about 1909, when William W. Post (1867-1948) was appointed. Police Captain Joseph F. Keller (1880-1945) considered the Montavilla beat a dull one, but on June 30, 1912, Officer Post noticed three men holding up automobile passengers at gunpoint and had already shot a woman passenger. Post apprehended one of the three thieves, Don Brundridge, at gunpoint, but the two others fled. They were tracked to downtown Portland and later arrested. Captain Keller recommended that Patrolman Post receive an award for bravery. I found no report on whether he actually received it, but he did get his photo in the Oregonian.
Of course, having a police officer on duty did not end criminal activity in Montavilla. Portland newspapers continued to report crimes there. Dickson Drug Store, for example, endured periodic merchandise thefts: cameras worth $200 in 1914, 600 cigars in 1918, and copious quantities of tobacco and cigars in 1921. Even the Montavilla School was targeted by thieves who ransacked the building and stole about $10 in change.
Sometimes, criminal activities were thwarted by police or citizens. On April 30, 1917, for example, robbers broke into the West Oregon Lumber Company on Stark Street. When trying to break into a safe, the thieves’ nitroglycerine failed, so they could not open the safe door. When Patrolman Post heard the explosion, he hurried to the scene, but by this time, the burglars had fled.
Another robbery failed again on September 3, 1919. Two armed men entered the Montavilla Savings Bank at the corner of Stark and 80th and demanded cash. The teller and cashier refused. When the bank’s bookkeeper threatened them with a gun, the robbers fled in their getaway car.
Besides thefts, speeding automobiles also aroused Montavilla’s ire as they gradually replaced horses in the early 20th century. In October 1902, for example, a car was clocked at an amazing 40 miles an hour. After speed limits were passed, police officers were sometimes assigned to arrest violators speeding on Base Line Road.
Any crime is deplorable, of course, but when Montavilla was just three years old, the community was truly shocked by a murder that took place on a Montavilla street. The victim was the beautiful 18-year-old Birdie Morton, who was shot by her former sweetheart, Martin Burdette Wolfe (often misspelled “Wolf”). The murder set off a manhunt that lasted for nearly 20 years. The deed and the efforts to find Wolfe and bring him to justice were reported in detail in Portland and other Oregon newspapers.
The deed took place on October 13, 1892. Birdie and her younger sister had just left their family’s home and were walking to a prayer meeting. Burdette, as he was usually called in the press, had learned that Birdie was going out with other men. He approached Birdie and demanded that she walk with him. When she refused, he grabbed her arm, but she pulled back. Enraged, he pulled a revolver from his pocket and shot her in the chest.
Seeing what was happening, Birdie’s sister ran back home to get her father. By the time he got to Birdie, she had been shot and was lying on the street. He carried Birdie home and called a doctor. The bullet had just missed Birdie’s heart, and at first, there was hope she might live. Believing this, the Morton family did not intend to press charges. The two families were friends and had approved of the former Birdie-Burdette relationship. On October 21, however, Birdie died of sepsis. Family and friends mourned her death, and she was buried in Montavilla’s Brainard Cemetery.
The Morton and Wolfe families must have been shocked by the deadly deed. So was attorney Clarence S. Hannum, who until recently had been training Wolfe to be a lawyer. When interviewed by an Oregonian reporter, Hannum described Wolfe as industrious and reliable “with no bad habits of any sort.” At the beginning of 1892, Wolfe was a young man with promise. By October, he was wanted for murder and reportedly on the run.
The search for Wolfe lasted nearly 20 years and was tracked in the press. Rewards offered for his capture prompted the continued search. Early on, he was reportedly sighted in the Blue Mountains, then in Klamath County. In March 1893, a search party tracked him near Coos Bay. In 1896, he was reportedly killed by a posse. Then, in 1897, he was spotted alive in Arizona. In 1901, he was supposedly in Peru. The last reported sighting was in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. This report was page-one news in the Oregon Journal of February 25, 1911. The informant was an unnamed man who said he had worked with Wolfe in Brazil and then traveled with him to Calcutta. Portland authorities believed they would be able to extradite Wolfe. I found no articles showing they succeeded. Finally, the search was at an end.
So, was Montavilla a wild-west town? I guess that depends on your definition.
Title Illustration from W. C. Tuttle’s “The Loot of the Lazy A” in Short Stories Magazine, 1926. Source: Wikimedia
This is an installment of Montavilla History Questions Answered. If you have questions about Montavilla’s past that you’d like answered, local historian Patricia Sanders will investigate your question. Please email your questions to history@montavilla.net and we may feature it alongside Patricia Sanders’ research in a future post.