Western Underground Under The Streets Of Havre, Mont., Visitors Can Find A Well-Preserved History Of The Rough And Rugged Old West

The room is cramped and dusty, an obscure corner of a dark basement in a remote Montana community.

Its few worn bunk beds are the remains of an opium den, one of three known to exist in the town of Havre (pronounced have-er) at the turn of the century. Opium was a popular drug in these rough and ready Old West communities - and not just among the Chinese laundry workers who brought it to America.

Basements were then, as now, a convenient way to avoid the prying eyes of authority. In Havre, now a city of 11,000 people, the basements also housed brothels. They became emergency sites for retailers when most of downtown burned to the ground in 1904. They became emergency getaways for persecuted Orientals. They became saloons and warehouses during Prohibition.

And today, an entire square block of basements in the heart of downtown has become Havre Beneath the Streets, a remarkable recreation of life in the Old West.

Other cities have underground tours, and other museums have Western memorabilia. What makes the Havre exhibit outstanding is the quantity and quality of the furnishings - all authentic, all loaned or donated by residents of Havre and surrounding Montana communities.

The blacksmith shop, for example, features an enormous hand bellows that was used to fire a forge. Ancient, belt-driven machine tools - a drill, a grinder, a triphammer - stand near the walls, waiting for a wheezy gas engine (no electricity back then) to bring them to life.

In the tack shop next door is a framed “Wanted” photo of a horse thief. His saddle and hat are nearby.

Close by is the actual location of a 1905 sausage shop with a wicked-looking meat chopper (no OSHA in those days; no workmen’s compensation).

One of the most outstanding exhibits is the pharmacy. It contains the entire contents of a turn-of-thecentury drugstore from Livingston, Mont. The shelves, cabinets and counters are original; so are the hundreds of bottles, some of which contained medicinal herbs. There’s a mortar and pestle, a machine for dispensing labels, another machine for making suppositories. There are women’s toiletries and drugs for animals. There’s a real soda counter, with a black and white checkerboard floor, lacy steel chairs and dispensers filled with straws made of paper, not plastic.

The post office dates from 1906 and features stamps and envelopes honoring “buffalo soldiers” - the nickname for black soldiers who were stationed at nearby Fort Assinniboine in the late 1800s.

Havre was a maintenance depot for the Great Northern Railroad and also served the fort, which was built during the Indian wars. The result of both operations was plenty of men with money, who spent much of it on two traditional pastimes: drinking and sex.

The underground bordello is believed to be in the same location as the real thing. Small beds line the walls, with numbers above the mattresses (a curtain would be pulled around each bed to provide a certain measure of privacy). In the room are three stalls, with a sink, a shower and a toilet. The madam’s quarters feature antique furnishings and carpeting, brass lamps and a plush bed.

Nearby is the replica of a saloon, so authentic that visitors immediately want to belly up to the bar, order a whiskey and light a cigar. (The room can indeed be rented for parties, but the fire code, alas, bars smoking.)

The wooden tables are original, with burn marks along the rims from where cigars had smouldered. The bar (believed to be from a real saloon, the Sporting Eagle) is held up by two barrels. The tables are decorated with old-time poker chips and liquor bottles. A buffalo head glowers from the wall, and there’s a coat rack from Fort Assinniboine in one corner, holding an old bear coat.

History comes alive with the names on the walls and businesses. There is the office of Shorty Young, an early entrepreneur who owned a saloon and brothel. The door to his safe is in the office wall, though all it contains today is concrete.

At Wah Sing’s Laundry, there’s still a big zinc tub and an old tin of lye soap. Cowboys used to leave a change of clothing in the laundry. They would come in, take a bath, pick up their clean clothes and leave their dirty ones to be laundered before their next trip.

The exhibits keep going … an old-time telephone switchboard, a barber shop, a mercantile store, a bakery, a sausage factory, a meat company, a hardware store. If there’s a better replica, anywhere, of the commercial heart of an Old West town, I don’t know where to find it.

Havre Beneath the Streets is also a prime example of a small town pulling together to make a project work. Volunteer work parties hauled tons of rock and rubble from beneath the streets and tore out miles of unsafe wiring. They installed new plumbing. Other volunteers spent thousands of hours refinishing cabinets and other artifacts, setting up displays and painting and plastering walls. All the memorabilia was either loaned or donated. No grants or loans were obtained.

“It’s remarkable what the community has done for us,” says Frank DeRosa, who heads the nonprofit group and also leads narrated tours.

The project was three years in the making and opened only last June. But already, more than 10,000 people have walked down the stairs, through the corridors and far back in time.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO Getting there By car, Havre is about 350 miles east of Spokane on U.S. Highway 2. Amtrak also serves Havre; it’s possible to leave Spokane or Sandpoint on the eastbound Empire Builder train to Chicago, spend a few hours in Havre, then catch the westbound train the same day - that is, if the trains are on time.

Havre Beneath the Streets Tours, which last approximately one hour, are $5 for adults, $3 for children under 12. Group discounts are available. Tour times vary, so call for more information. Reservations are recommended. The tours require descending and climbing stairs to reach the basement level, but otherwise are physically undemanding. For information, call (406) 265-8888 or write to: Havre Beneath the Streets, P.O. Box 1605, Havre, Mont. 59501.

Other attractions H. Earl Clack Museum/Wahkpa Chu’gn Archaeological Site and Bison Kill. Museum is open daily from mid-May through midSeptember. Fort Assiniboinne, a few miles south of town, is the state’s oldest and largest military post. Tours are available through the museum.

For more information Havre Chamber of Commerce, (406) 265-4383. Travel Montana, (800) VISITMT.