SOMERS – Inside Tom Sliter’s hardware store sits a miniature tin model of a locomotive S-2 and a wood shelter the Somers Company Town Project hopes to construct to protect the real S-2, just a block down the street. Next to the model is a paint can set out to collect donations. So far the group – organized to protect and preserve the former industrial town’s history – has raised more than $11,000.
Sliter hopes that a series of upcoming fundraisers this summer, including the annual Somers Cajun Street Dance and a scrap drive, will make the wood shelter a reality within a few years. Currently the group is trying to secure nonprofit status and Sliter said the locomotive shelter is the first of many local projects the group hopes to tackle.
“In the 1980s they dismantled the mill and it became a Superfund site, but there are a lot of good memories and history that these ethnic neighborhoods left behind,” Sliter said. “We want to raise funds to put a shelter over the engine so it doesn’t become a rust bucket.”
Sliter was referring to the Somers Lumber Company, which traces its roots to the late 1890s when James J. Hill was building the Great Northern Railway between Chicago and Seattle. Hill needed railroad ties to bind the steel rails together and built a branch line to the Somers lumber mill. Soon immigrants flocked to what was quickly becoming a company town and by 1937 the mill employed 375 people and produced 60 million board feet of lumber.
Inside the mill, a handful of small steam locomotives shunted cars filled with wood ties. Unlike a normal steam engine, the locomotives didn’t burn coal to heat water and produce steam, but were filled with fuel from the local steam plant. Because the engines were moving wood around, having an engine produce hot cinders seemed like a bad idea.
When the mill closed, one of those engines was preserved by Flathead County to be part of a museum. Plans for the display never got off the ground and, when the county decided to dismantle the collection a few years ago, the S-2 was almost shipped out of the area. That was until Dale Lauman, a current Flathead County commissioner, and a group of locals banded together to bring the engine back to Somers and put it on display near the old mill site.
“I think it’s an important part of Somers’ industrial heritage because it was in Somers almost since it was built 80 or 90 years ago,” Lauman said.
Once the engine was moved back, locals began restoring the S-2 and it now sits at the head of the Great Northern Historical Trail, right across the street from Del’s Bar. Soon after, talk began of creating a shelter to protect it and the Somers Company Town Project was born. Sliter, who serves as the group’s treasurer, estimated the structure could cost about $40,000 and would also include a space to display photos and artifacts, including the old mill whistle that once signaled shift changes. The group also hopes to use the space to retell stories of the mill’s laborers.
Sliter said it’s important to establish a historical display before those who remember the mill are gone.
“It’s our heritage, it’s our roots, our beginnings. It’s why people came here to settle, not just because there is a beautiful lake, but because we had jobs,” Sliter said. “It was a company town. Somers had a real purpose.”
To secure funds to preserve that heritage, the group is hosting a scrap drive this month. It’s a project Sliter sees as a “win-win” for the town because it will also help clean up the area. And later this summer, the annual Somers Cajun Street Dance, held on July 21, will raise even more money for the group. The event will feature dancing, food and a performance by Lil’ Brian and the Zydeco Travelers.
All of the proceeds will go toward protecting the little engine down the street, which many see as a perfect representation of Somers’ past as a “company town.”
For more information about the project check out www.somerscotownproject.com.