Wisdom Cabin History

In the late 1890s, Hattie Noyes, a pioneer homesteader in the Big Hole Valley, subdivided her homestead creating the town of Wisdom.

Some time around 1915 the Wisdom Cabin was built as a family home on Pine Street. The style of construction is called a Four Square house, having four equal sized walls and a four slopes on the roof; construction was easy and low cost.

In it’s original state, the cabin was, and is still built of 8 inch squared lodgepole pine logs and rock stacked to form a rubble foundation. The outside of the logs was covered with narrow cedar siding and the interior walls were covered by newspapers of the time to stop drafts through the logs, then sheeted with the fiber board of the day. The kitchen had a brick chimney and a wall between the kitchen and front room. The back of the cabin was a uninsulated room holding the old, drilled well, storage, and a wash room. On the northwest corner was a garage, sized for a model T Ford.

Most small communities in Montana had a Chapter of the Women’s Club. Many pioneer women found living in the small towns of the west very difficult as they lived far from their family and childhood friends. To build a support system, Womens Clubs were formed, and the Wisdom Cabin served as a meeting place in the 1930s and 40s. After a new Women’s Club room was added to the community building in 1950, the cabin was used as a family home and later a bunkhouse for an outfitter.

In 1994, the Havigs bought the cabin. The windows were broken, wild cats lived in the front room, the roof was failing, the sill logs were deteriorating; the place was a wreck. Initial contractors contacted by the Havigs told Dennis and Diane they should just burn the little house and build a new one. The Havigs finally located a contractor that would save the building and rehabilitate it.

New water, new sewer, new insulation, new interior walls, new electrical, a new roof, a new heat source, some exterior upgrades, and the Wisdom Cabin was reborn.

Today, as you look at the cabin, the exterior siding, trim, and detailing is all original with the exception of a new entry canopy. The old maple floors in the front room have been refinished, but were also original to the house, along with the attached garage.

Story of Place: Wisdom and the Big Hole Valley

Tucked away in a valley in southwestern Montana, the Wisdom Cabin is located in the town of Wisdom, population 100. The valley, often knows as a “hole” by the early trappers and miners was one of the largest in the area, hence the name the Big Hole Valley.

For centuries the valley was a seasonal home to the Nez Perce, Salish and Kootenai Indian tribes. It is unlikely that these peoples wintered in the valley, due to harsh conditions. The Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-1806, were the first white men to visit the valley. When the expedition discovered the mouth of the Big Hole River, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark named it the Wisdom River after Jefferson’s attribute of wisdom; the name did not stick. Later, Clark traveled back through the valley on the way home with Sacajawea and a small contingent.

Trappers moved into the valley following the expedition, and in the 1860’s miners first found gold on the west side of the valley. The gold strike at Pioneer, a long abandoned gold mining town in Ruby Creek, is probably the second gold strike in the state of Montana. Unfortunately, the strike was unproductive and the miners moved on to places like Bannack and Virginia City. Following the gold strike in the 1860s until the 1880’s miners continued to poke around and found scattered low grade deposits.

Al Noyes and his wife Hattie arrived in 1882 as the first permanent white settlers. Hattie platted the town of Wisdom out of her homestead and sold lots; she must have known the Lewis and Clark story. Prior to the establishment of Wisdom the place was known as “the Crossings,” for it was where most cattle were crossed on the Big Hole River. Wisdom was on the map. Around the turn of the century, population peaked with perhaps 1,000 residents in and around the valley. The town supported several bars and hotels, a pharmacy, car dealership, churches, hotels, a bank and many small businesses. Cheese and butter were shipped out of the valley to the miners in Butte and Gibbonsville. Cattle were trailed to the railroad in Divide and Armstead for shipping. Timber in the surrounding hills was milled and used to construct fences and homes. Wisdom was located on the Yellowstone Road, an early attempt at tourism from Glacier to Yellowstone National Parks. Gravel roads served the community until the 1960’s. As manpower and horse power were replaced with larger and larger motorized equipment, small ranches became unprofitable and were consolidated into larger ranches. The gold played out as federal timber became in short supply and as larger communities offered better shopping and more jobs, Wisdom began to shrink.

The photo shown above was taken from the 2 story brick schoolhouse, in the early part of the 1900s.