HELENA — Ninety years ago, Helena suffered one of the worst earthquakes in the state’s history. The Earthquake of 1935 saw hundreds of tremors hit the areas, half of the buildings in town damaged or destroyed, and four people dead.
The first shocks began on October 3, 1935, and continued sporadically in the coming weeks. Though most were small in nature, with the largest a 5.0 on October 12, they warned of the bigger quake to come.
(WATCH: History of the 1935 Earthquake)
October 18, 1935, started as a pleasant autumn day for the Queen City of the Rockies. The temperature reached the high 60s. A Jack Benny film was headlining The Marlow Theater. High School students were celebrating ahead of Saturday’s football game against Butte.
Everything would change at 9:48 p.m. The earth beneath Montana’s capital violently and uncontrollably rocked and shuddered as a 6.2 earthquake struck the area.
Although few in number, there are still those who remember the big shake. Peggy McMahon was just shy of turning four years old at the time.
“There were card tables in the living room, ladies sitting around. They were there for a baby shower,” recalled McMahon. “My brother got to pass the candy around, and that’s what we were doing. And then all of a sudden, the chandelier, it was swinging and the lights went out. Ladies were screaming. So I took Jim’s hand, he was two, and we went and hid in the closet.”
The 6.2 quake lasted 12 seconds according to data from the USGS. During that short amount of time, hundreds of buildings had been damaged. Following several fires in Helena’s early years, many buildings were built with unreinforced brick and other stone masonry.
“I remember standing on the door of our house, and it was very dangerous. Big cracks, and it was a brick house, brick falling off,” said former Helena Mayor Steve Keim.
“Entire fronts and sides of buildings were just completely gone, and cars that are just covered in rubble as those walls collapsed out into the street,” said Sean Logan, City of Helena commissioner and former fire chief.
The Montana Power Company had realized there was a quake and shut off power to the city. The USGS concluded this decision was likely the major factor in preventing fires from starting.
People quickly took to the streets seeking safety away from structures they had feared would collapse. As the hours drew on, the shaking continued, though not as severely. Many would camp out that night in their yards and garages. Many others would leave the city altogether, believing it was the safest course of action.
“We went to Anaconda to stay with my grandparents,” said McMahon. “I remember mom had to get permission from the doctor in Helena to leave to make sure the baby wasn’t born on the pass or something.”
City hall was significantly damaged, forcing police to operate out of a single patrol car parked in a vacant lot. Helena Fire also moved out of the building, eventually setting up shop in the AA Garage. The National Guard was immediately activated, and first responders worked with what little resources they had to help people in need.
St. Peter’s Hospital suffered relatively little damage, but St. John’s Hospital was not as lucky. Patients at St. John’s were evacuated by candlelight as the walls crumbled around them. The hospital at Fort Harrison also needed to be evacuated, with their patients having to be evacuated to Walla Walla, Washington.
Two people would die as a result of injuries sustained during the Oct. 18 quake. David Hunter Harris was crushed after the front wall of a building on South Main Street collapsed into the street. He’s buried in Helena at Forestvale Cemetery.
The second person to die was Charles Siggelink. He had been staying at a homeless shelter at the Lewis and Clark Fairgrounds. Siggelink had tried to flee the building and was struck by debris near the entrance. He was transported to St. Peter’s Hospital and died from his injuries the following morning.
In the following days, smaller tremors continued to shake Helena. The residents who remained tried their best to ignore the daily quakes and repair what they could. It was the Great Depression, which meant many didn’t have the financial resources to leave even if they wanted to. A lot of the residents whose homes were damaged set up tents, moved into their garages, or moved in with family or friends in the area.
Keim’s family split up temporarily following the quake. Catholic nuns took in his mother and sisters while he, his brothers and their father made due in a tent behind their house.
“There was a lot of aftershocks, but we survived that. But my father didn't want us living in that house, and he didn't have any money. We were just falling out of the depression, even though he was a pharmacist,” noted Keim.
On Oct. 31 at 11:37 a.m., the ground beneath Helena again shook violently with a 6.0 aftershock. Many of the buildings damaged by the Oct. 18 earthquake crumbled under the new tremor.
Two brickmasons from Salt Lake City, Bernard Vincent Kennedy and Edward O'Brien, were working at the top of a stack at the Kessler Brewing Company on the west side of town. The two men were flung from the multi-story structure with a cascade of falling bricks. Both men died from their injuries.
The damage left in the wake of quakes was extensive, with hundreds of buildings destroyed. The worst of the damage occurred on what was then the east side of town, now considered central Helena, with the Sixth Ward seeing significant losses, leaving around 500 people homeless in the area. To make things worse, winter had reared its head, with the temperature on October 31, 1935, only reaching a high of 6 degrees Fahrenheit and seeing a low of 8 degrees below zero.
The brand new high school, currently Helena Middle School, was mostly destroyed, as was Bryant Elementary. While most of the students at Bryant could be absorbed into Helena’s other elementary schools, the larger population of high school students needed an alternative solution. A section of East Lyndale Avenue – dirt at the time – was closed, and train tracks were laid to accommodate train cars donated by the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railway companies. The coaches were used as classrooms from December 1935 to June 1937. The rebuilt Helena High opened in the fall of 1937.
The Montana Deaconess School Children’s Home – now known as Intermountain – also saw significant destruction. The boarding school focused on providing quality education to rural boys and girls whose parents were unable to care for their children, such as illness, poverty or death. None of the children were harmed during the quakes, and they were evacuated to the neighboring dancehall called “The Shanty.” The remnants of the building still stand off Seirra Drive, having sat vacant for 90 years.
St. Joseph’s Orphanage saw significant damage. The orphans spent the night of Oct. 18 in a barn. They then took shelter in coaches owned by the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. That Sunday, they were escorted by the Montana Highway Patrol to the Boulder Hot Springs Hotel. The property was owned at the time by U.S. Sen. James Murray, D-Montana, who allowed them to stay there until the orphanage could be repaired.
Most of Helena’s churches were relatively untouched by the event. The First Lutheran Church suffered damage that needed considerable repair, and the Cathedral of St. Helena saw damage to its altar and southern tower. The cathedral was declared safe enough in December for the funeral service of Gov. Frank Cooney, D-Montana, who had died of a heart attack. St. Paul's Methodist Church saw the most damage of any of the places of worship, with the building being declared unsafe after the first major shock. The congregation gathered at the Rio Theater until a new location was constructed..
The county courthouse saw thousands of dollars of damage. Most notably, the clock tower was removed due to damage and the fear that it would fall down. The jail, now the Myrna Loy Center, saw damage as well. The initial major quake saw some bricks fall from parts of the building, but the building saw much more severe damage from the Oct. 31 shock. The jail was closed due to the damage, and the inmates were released. All those incarcerated were serving time for minor offenses, according to a 1935 report from the Independent Record.
The Alergia Shriners’ Temple, now the Helena Civic Center, saw relatively minor damage, mainly to the west wall. Local folklore says the quake caused one of the two minarets to fall. In truth, the building has only ever had one minaret, as backed up by historic photographs from before the event.
Intermountain Union College’s three-building campus initially saw significant damage from the Oct. 1 quake that forced it to temporarily close. Those help from the community and their students, the college managed to make necessary repairs and reopen on Oct. 29. Two days later, the campus saw more severe damage from the later tremor, forcing the school to relocate to Great Falls. The college never returns to Helena, eventually merging with Billings Polytechnic Institute to create Rocky Mountain College.
Following the major quakes, tremors continued for months. Residents were on edge, frightened that more big shocks would come. Many of those who left the city for safety never returned, but most eventually returned.
Helena’s Firetower was not spared damage, just like the city it has stood watch over. City officials at the time considered tearing it down in 1935 for safety, but were persuaded otherwise. The structure was repaired, weathering this disaster as it has many others over the years. Ninety years later, the Guardian of the Gulch remains vigilant, a symbol of Helena’s resilience and ability to recover.
Pam Attardo, Helena & Lewis and Clark County Preservation Officer, says it’s important we reflect on the past and learn from those people’s stories.
“You don’t have that institutional memory of what happened at that time, which is why it’s so important—these first-person accounts that we have, it’s so important for people to read those and to know what—it’s terrifying,” said Attardo.
MTN wants to give a special thanks to the Montana Historical Society, Lewis and Clark County Historic Preservation Office, and HelenaHistory.org. Through their preservation efforts, we are able to share past pictures from the 1935 Helena Earthquake.
