{"id":412,"date":"2020-11-18T00:12:43","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T00:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/collectingpoliticalbuttons.com\/?p=412"},"modified":"2026-05-05T20:10:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:10:01","slug":"top-10-montana-locals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collectingpoliticalbuttons.com\/?p=412","title":{"rendered":"Top 10 Montana Locals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Obviously, any list of top ten items, events, games or venues is subjective by nature. If the major collectors of Montana local items were polled each would likely have a different list and each would have criticisms about my inclusions and order but since this is my blog I win. I tried to pick items based on their rarity, historical significance or just because of the interesting story around the piece or candidate. Given the significance of the Battle of the Copper Kings in Montana’s formation and political governance for most of the twentieth century, there are three items from William Clark’s various elections. Hope you enjoy my selections; I welcome your input.<\/p>\n

#1 <\/strong>David Folsum was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor in 1900. He led an expedition to explore the territory that later became Yellowstone National Park. He moved to Montana to ranch in 1880 and was a state senator from Meagher County. Although historically Mr. Folsom is but a footnote this is the only example of this striking and huge badge (7″ in total length).<\/p>\n

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#2 <\/strong>Burton Wheeler poster for re-election in 1928. He was one of the most prominent and long serving elected officials in Montana; he was also the Progressive Party VP candidate in 1924 and a Presidential hopeful in 1940. His challenge of FDR for the nomination ultimately brought his elected career to an end when he lost the primary in 1946. Politically he was a maverick. He failed to enforce the sedition acts during WW1 and fought the powerful Anaconda Copper Company and Montana Power conglomerate. The graphics and color on this poster are incredible depicting corporate corruption including Teapot Dome. I know of only one other example but have seen an old photo of downtown Billings with these plastered on every power pole.<\/p>\n

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#3 <\/strong>“8 Hour” anti-amalgam pin for Wm Clark from 1900. This was a common theme for the 1900 Fusion Ticket which elected a favorable legislature to finally send the “Honorable” Mr. Clark to the senate. Clark combined forces with F. A. Heinze, one of the other Copper Kings, to take on Marcus Daly for control of the Montana Democratic Party. Each faction fielded a slate of state candidates and sent separate delegations to the Democratic National Convention (Clark’s were seated and were thus able to use the Democrat moniker for their slate). This pin is very rare and has great content. In addition, it was manufactured by Hawes Photography in Butte.<\/p>\n

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#4 <\/strong>Montana Silver Dollar Club is a coat tail for the 1934 election. This is an “off cycle” pinback boosting James Murray and Burton Wheeler for Senate and Roy Ayers and Joseph Monaghan for Congress. Murray was running to fill the seat vacated by Thomas Walsh when he was appointed Attorney General by Franklin Roosevelt but never filled the position as he succumbed to a heart attack travelling to the inauguration from his Caribbean honeymoon. It was a successful ticket as all were elected.<\/p>\n

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#5 <\/strong>Territorial Coattail for Harrison-Morton-Carter 1888. This ribbon has everything except esthetics to include the candidate sponsored by Daly to hand Clark his first embarrassing loss in his run for Territorial Delegate to Congress. It was a surprising loss for Clark as the heavily Democratic precincts of Butte went overwhelmingly for the Republican Thomas Carter. Many have speculated there may have been some voting irregularities which contributed to the result.<\/p>\n

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#6 <\/strong>William Clark “flag” pin is the rarest of the Clark photo pins. It is likely from the 1900 election as well. Unfortunately, the few known are quite light and stained.<\/p>\n

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#7 <\/strong>William Dixon and Charles Duer coattail from 1890. Duer lost his race for state senate from Choteau County garnering only 317 votes. How many of these could have survived. Of note, W. W. Dixon was a prolific ribbon distributer; I own three different varieties.<\/p>\n

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#8 <\/strong>Wilbur Sanders for territorial delegate to the US House. He ran in 1864, 1866, 1880 and 1886. He also famous for his role in the vigilante movement in territorial Montana which hung 28 men most of which were considered highway agents “convicted” of robbing and killing miners.<\/p>\n

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#9<\/strong> Larry Duggan Labor Party candidate for mayor of Butte in 1902. Most collectors don’t pursue items for such minor offices but this one has an interesting side story. He lost this race but he ran one of the largest funeral homes in Butte. Loose rocks in the mines were not called widow makers by the locals but were called “Duggans”<\/p>\n

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#10 <\/strong>James Murray for US Senate in 1934. Rare pin that matches the “Silver Dollar Club”. He went on to serve 25 years in the Senate.<\/p>\n

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There is a distinct bias in my selections to earlier items ie. pre 1940 and I would not fault adding some later items but they just don’t hold an appeal for me personally.<\/p>\n

I am always interested in purchasing Montana or Presidential campaign items (406)217-2017<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obviously, any list of top ten items, events, games or venues is subjective by nature. If the major collectors of Montana local items were polled each would likely have a different list and each would have criticisms about my inclusions and order but since this is my blog I win. I tried to pick items […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-montana-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collectingpoliticalbuttons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collectingpoliticalbuttons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collectingpoliticalbuttons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectingpoliticalbuttons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectingpoliticalbuttons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/collectingpoliticalbuttons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1146,"href":"https:\/\/collectingpoliticalbuttons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions\/1146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collectingpoliticalbuttons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectingpoliticalbuttons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectingpoliticalbuttons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}