Event Detail

Join the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula in welcoming author Bibi Gaston who will be speaking about her new book: Gifford Pinchot and the Old Timers. Free event, with books for purchase.

Note: Talk will be held upstairs in the T1 Building (next to Heritage Hall)

More about the book:
In 2005, six tattered blue boxes were unearthed in the Library of Congress’s Pinchot Collection in Washington D.C. Inside were 5,000 pages of letters describing the work of early resource conservation professionals. The letters were labeled simply “The Old Timers.” The letters, penned between the years 1937–1941 by the first class of American Forest Rangers to serve under President Theodore Roosevelt and first Chief of the U.S.Forest Service Gifford Pinchot, offered a mirror to the America we once were, and an optimistic guidebook for the road ahead.

These narratives tell of extreme hardship, fearless struggle, confrontations with cattlemen, miners, loggers, and the challenges of turning confrontations into cooperation and gratitude. It wasn’t an easy life by any means, but to these men and women, a life of service was the best life they could imagine. To a one, they were grateful for the chance to live a meaningful life in a time of struggle.