Great Falls’ First Municipal Christmas Tree
In 1914, hotel manager W. E. Ward had installed a Christmas tree in the Palm Room of the Rainbow Hotel, open for the public to admire.
Of the Rainbow Hotel tree, the Great Falls Tribune reported:
“It is a very shapely tree and lends itself well to the decorative art that has been applied. The tinsel and other decorations that have been placed show with special attractiveness in the evening under the glow of the electric lights.
“The tree which Manager Ward has arranged this year gives some small hint of what a Municipal Christmas tree might afford. […]
“The city could stage a big Municipal Christmas tree at the fountain at the head of Central avenue with excellent effect. If would be in range of vision of the passengers on the through trains and also at the head of the busiest avenue of the city, easily reached by the car service and also out of the way of traffic so that the people could enjoy it to the full when it was illuminated in the evenings during Christmas week. It is a subject the people could study over and have in shape to handle next year and if they will take a view of the progressive step taken by Manager Ward of Hotel Rainbow they will get some good hints of the beauty and pleasure that would come from such a tree.”
Great Falls Tribune, December 26, 1914
The strong hinting by the Rainbow manager and the Tribune would succeed - the following year would see the installation of the first Great Falls municipal tree.
Now Great Falls was not without Christmas trees before 1915. Many churches and fraternal organizations had been decorating for public benefit since the beginnings of the city. In 1885 for example, a committee formed by citizens met to arrange for a Christmas tree to be set up in the school house. However this tree was the first of its kind for the new movement of “municipal Christmas trees.” The nation-wide trend for municipalities to display a “municipal Christmas tree” increased in visibility in the 1910s. Newspapers across the country, including Great Falls, told the origins of municipal trees starting with a 1912 tree in New York, followed by a tree in Boston, and followed by many more. These city trees, accompanied by community programming, were mostly spearheaded by women.
Mrs. Otto F. Lange, a “prominent young matron” as described by the Great Falls Tribune, led the municipal tree project. Mrs. Lange was the leader of the local Campfire Girls organization, and her troop decided to focus charitable gifts for the poor in their community.
Merry Christmas For Everybody
To make a merry Christmas for every one is the endeavor of the camp fire girls and the boy scouts, and each individual is requested to bring in the names of at least two poor people that can be aided for Christmas; people who have the bare necessities of life but who are unable to have anything more during the holidays. This is what the Charity hall is going to do; the funds are going to make a better Christmas and to aid the poor of Great Falls, and the Indians of Rocky Boy’s band.
The municipal Christmas tree is another feature that will add good cheer to the season, and plans for it are going forward merrily. The aim now is that no one will be left out and that the spirit of Yuletide may be felt in every home in the city.
Great Falls Tribune, December 14, 1915
Mrs. Lange’s December 23 program for the tree included a charity ball in the Palm Room of the Rainbow Hotel and old English Christmas carols sung by a trained choir beside the tree. The committee requested donations of food, clothing, children’s toys, and any other offerings that might make a nice gift.
A mammoth 40 foot high tree was secured near Neihart and was installed on a vacant lot at the northeast corner of 1st Avenue North and 3rd Street, directly east and across 3rd Street from the post office and near, at the time, a street car stop. The Great Falls Tribune described it as a “tall, graceful pine, lavishly decorated with vari-colored electric bulbs, draped from the top over the tree to the base until it presented a cone shape at the peak of which was a large green light bulb.” The lights were strung and provided by the Montana Power Company. Four strings of electric lights were strung from the top of the tree to the street corners. It was the largest tree the city had ever been graced with.
Though a wind, “blowing almost a gale” chilled residents, several hundred people still gathered around the tree. Santa Claus handed out small gifts once the tree was lit. Due to the chilly wind, the outdoor program was cut to just include singing “O Holy Night” led by the Campfire Girls and Boy Scouts. The Tribune estimated that several thousands had come to see the Christmas tree over the course of the evening.
Mrs. Lange’s charity ball at the Rainbow Hotel Palm room began afterward at 8:30 with several musical numbers and tableaus, which included a nativity with a little lamb calmly munching hay. Dancing by music from Bergh’s orchestra continued until midnight.
The Campfire Girls raised $185 for the poor, which included 9 shoulders of beef for the Native Americans on the west side, blankets, and flannel for children’s clothing, tea, candy, and tobacco. A share of the money raised was given directly to Native Americans at the event.
The 1915 tree would start a long tradition for Great Falls’ municipal trees.
Great Falls Tribune Clipping, November 27, 2015. Photograph by Rion Sanders with caption “Santa waves to the crowd after lighting the city Christmas tree in front of the Civic Center during last year’s Parade of Lights.”
Unsurprisingly, more than one city in Montana claimed to have installed the first municipal Christmas tree in the state.
Billings Now Claims Christmas Tree Idea
Great Falls is proudly boasting that it was the first city in the state to have a true municipal Christmas tree and now along comes Billings, the sugar camp on the east, and lays claim to another idea all over Montana. The Billings Gazette says:
“They’ve builded better than they knew — those who conceived and carried out the plan of that Christmas tree at the union station. There was but one though in the minds of the originators when they first began the conducting of arrangements. They wished merely to lighten a bit on Christmas day the gloom of those who were away from home. This through is still predominant. But those who had no active hand in the arrangements seen in the Christmas tree an idea entirely original with Billings; an idea which will afford this city a much nationwide publicity as it received through practically any other factor this year — an idea that promises to spread and spread until from end to end of the United State union station Christmas trees will become an annual custom.
“News of the tree was seized gleefully by high railroad officials of Montana and telegraphed to practically every station in the state. As a result, agents, realizing the complete novelty of the play, made haste to mount Christmas trees in their stations. Butte was among the first to fall in line. But in no city of the state is the plan being carried out on as elaborate a scale as in Billings, its burthplace.”
The Great Falls Leader, December 12, 1915
Anaconda first published news of their “municipal Christmas tree” to the Butte Daily Post in 1913.
-Ashleigh McCann, Collections Curator