GREAT FALLS — Judy Ellinghausen sorts thousands of manilla folders, one by one, that contain tens of thousands of snippets of central Montana history.
Anyone who lived in the area during the 20th century stands a good chance of finding a file with a family connection. Ellinghausen found one on the top floor of The History Museum, the home of the Cascade County Historical Society on Second Street South.
“When I was upstairs, I did out of curiosity go to the Es, and there was a story about my dad,” she said. It was a small newspaper clipping about her father’s gardening in Great Falls.
Two afternoons per week, Ellinghausen diligently picks through the folders, which are stuffed into two dozen filing cabinets. They are the reference library archives saved from the Great Falls Tribune building just before its sale in 2022. The folders are labeled by topic and contain newspaper clippings, notes and photos that might have accompanied the articles.
The files depict everyday life for Great Falls residents, from small slices of life to major events. If not for a local philanthropist, they might have disappeared alongside the Tribune newsroom.
Ellinghausen, formerly a full-time archivist, is manually indexing the material for public research at The History Museum. Most of the assets are from the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, though there are a handful that date back to the early decades of the 1900s. For each folder, she looks for historically important photos to pull for safekeeping in acid-free paper. She notes the contents and handwrites a catalog sheet to record her indexing work and provide a reference for the museum. There are shelves of binders that contain the catalog sheets.
“The biggest asset to having these is the photographs,” Ellinghausen said. Those are prized research items.
Today, most media organizations have some kind of digital clearinghouse to organize and store photos and articles. If somebody needs to access a previously published photo of a prominent figure, they’d simply search for it on a computer.
Prior to the digital age, newspapers like the Great Falls Tribune used reference libraries containing physical folders sorted by topic. Folders might be dedicated to local officials, national politics, notable residents, animals or anything else that might need to be referenced at a later date.
For every topic in these Tribune archives, a staff member created an index card. Either typewritten or handwritten, the index cards showed what news coverage or images might be on file for a given subject. Like a library index system, they would reference folders containing the needed assets.
If a reporter was writing about the mayor, for example, and needed to call up a photo taken a year prior, they would consult the index cards that referenced the file folder to get a copy of that photo.
“It was so much work. It was these little index cards,” said Rich Ecke, who worked for 38 years in the Tribune newsroom, first as a reporter and later as the opinion editor. “And so every story, every local or state story that there was, you had somebody typing that on these index cards. At the time, it was the only way to find out what had been in the Tribune.”
Thankfully, the Tribune employed a librarian who helped the staff navigate the files.
The transfer of these archives from the Tribune building was initiated by Owen Robinson, a local businessman, philanthropist and public servant. For years, he tried to reach the newspaper’s parent company while the for-sale sign hung on the building.
“I tried to get a hold of them, and I was unable,” Robinson said. “Nobody ever called me back.”
Gannett, which has owned the Great Falls Tribune since 1990, is the country’s largest newspaper chain. Like many newspaper companies stretched thin, Gannett has cut products and people, including more than 13,000 nationwide employees during a four-year stretch. The Tribune, which once had dozens of reporters, is down to a single editorial staffer.
The company is also selling real estate around the country, as it did with the Tribune’s landmark, riverfront location. In each of those markets, the fates of the newspaper archives that captured the details of local life aren’t always secure.
Another Gannett newspaper, The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass., shed its physical newsroom in early 2024. The paper was founded during Martin Van Buren’s presidency, and John Quincy Adams frequently contributed letters to the editor. Today, the paper serves a city of more than 100,000, as well as the surrounding communities. Now that Gannett closed the physical newsroom, the status of its archives is unknown.
“Both our organization and the local library (the Thomas Crane Public Library) expressed interest in receiving and preserving their photo collection particularly, but after an initial discussion we never heard back from them,” said Alexandra Elliott, executive director of the Quincy Historical Society, in an email to Montana Free Press.
Elliott said they know of no other entity in the area that took possession of The Patriot Ledger’s archives. An inquiry to the paper’s executive editor wasn’t returned.
“And so every story, every local or state story that there was, you had somebody typing that on these index cards. At the time, it was the only way to find out what had been in the Tribune.”
Rich Ecke, former opinion editor at the Great Falls Tribune
A Gannett spokesperson, who didn’t provide a name, wouldn’t comment directly on the fate of the paper’s archives.
“We make every effort to preserve the legacy of our publications, including the historic Patriot Ledger,” the spokesperson said. “While not accessible to the public, many of our archives are stored internally.”
Similarly, the spokesperson wouldn’t comment specifically about the transfer of the Great Falls Tribune archives, saying instead that “conserving historical publications like the Great Falls Tribune is vital, and we make every effort to sustain their legacy.”
It’s unclear what effort Gannett made, if any. A Tribune article in 2022 noted that there was no plan for the future of the historical files. After getting no response from Gannett, Robinson finally made headway by reaching a local editor, Grady Higgins, who helped provide access.
But by that time, the building had been sold and the new owner, a church, was ready to move in. Robinson had little time. A few former reporters, including Ecke, helped identify the 23 filing cabinets that held the archive files. The pickup trucks Robinson brought weren’t enough to move it all.
“There was no way we were going to handle that,” he said. “So I went over to Mayflower and asked them on short notice if they would be able to move it for us.”
Mayflower was able to help, and Robinson paid the $7,500 moving bill. A former board president of The History Center, Robinson said he recognized the significance of the archives and their uncertain future.
“The importance isn’t really to me, it’s to historians and researchers,” he said. “There’s so much stuff there that’s important that would have been thrown away.”
Robinson and the moving crew also saved another relic from the Tribune: a 1,200-pound, 8-foot-long mural depicting a printing press. Robinson said that TC Glass of Great Falls helped provide special equipment and labor to move it into one of Robinson’s office spaces, where it sits today.
“It was very arduous to get it out of there because it was so wide, and they didn’t want to pick it up from beneath,” Robinson said.
The news archives that have been indexed at The History Center can be viewed at the newly renovated Owen and Gayle Robinson Research Center, to which the Robinsons made a large donation. Ellinghausen said she has a good number of the files ready to be searched.
“At least 6,000 of these [files] are done and ready for people to view,” she said.
Ellinghausen has now recruited another volunteer to help index the files, and work continues on the thousands of snippets of central Montana news coverage. What was once a reference library for Tribune reporters is a ready-made public research archive. The images are dated. The subjects are noted by name, usually. News clippings provide some context.
Ellinghausen wants the community to know more about the region’s history. She suggests starting with a family name, as she did, to find value in having the real file in hand.
“Something that isn’t a screen,” she said. “And it wasn’t that long ago that this was in use.”
The Owen and Gayle Robinson Research Center at The History Museum is open to the public with photos, historical records and more available for review. Fees, hours and more information can be found on the museum’s website.
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