Local stories from Whitefish's earlier years

Jane Forsberg chose to move to Whitefish 38 years ago with her family when her husband, Doc, sold his veterinarian practice in Forsyth and became a federal veterinarian, serving the entire area from Eureka to Butte. 

While they could have lived anywhere within that area, Jane said they chose Whitefish for the quality school system for her two daughters and son. 

“It was a nice, little, unknown town,” Jane said. “When we moved here, we felt we needed to check out every little corner and we would do that on Saturdays.” 

She joked that the move from Forsyth, a town of 2,000, to Whitefish, which had a population of about 5,000 at the time, made the couple feel they were living large. 

She said the events at Whitefish’s Christmas Stroll, like the handbells, choirs and wagon rides are always in the same order but other things are different. 

“You knew everybody that went up and down the street,” she said of the stroll. “Everybody was out and you had a place to park your car. And the town was cozy.” 

Now that Whitefish has around 8,000 people, the Christmas Stroll, as well as other seasonal traditions, have changed. 

“I'm 91 years old now and I've been going every year but with the parking, it’s just impossible,” she said. “Hard to see all these folks come in.” 

When they first moved to town, the Forsbergs lived in Park Knoll, just one mile from the grocery store. Jane said she would walk or ride her bike to most places.  

“It was easier without all the traffic,” she said. “I think anybody who has been here several years realizes how the town has grown, and they miss what we had - the cozy little town that nobody knew about and was just delightful.” 

Jane and Doc drove to Glacier Park often and they took advantage of the outdoor activities around town. She golfed for 56 years and was a cross-country skier. 

“I got too old and I skied too fast and it was just a matter of time, so I quit,” she said with a smile. “But our son got started and now he is a snow snob.” 

She also describes her son as a retired Navy captain and an orthopedic surgeon oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.   

One of Jane’s daughters lives in Whitefish. She and her husband are retired Air Force colonels and her other daughter is a retired elementary school teacher who taught for 34 years in Billings. 

“She was teacher of the year,” Jane beamed. 

FLORENCE FLETCHER was born in Whitefish in 1932 and said the word that best described the town then was “quiet.” She said the population was only about 3,000 when she was growing up and that almost everyone worked for the railroad, including her father, who spent 42 years with the railroad. 

Florence said the holiday celebrations then were more low-key. 

“They put the tree up on the corner of Second and Central, closer to Christmas, not so early,” she said. “They'd have the night when they turned the lights on, and I think everybody came down to town to watch the lights come on. 

“It was very simple and quiet,” she added “No band and nothing going on like we do now.” 

Fletcher said the only traffic at that time came from the logging trucks that drove in from the west and went through town. She said there were no commercial trucks then because the town wasn’t very big. 

“We didn't have lights at the corner to control traffic,” Fletcher recalled. “You only had a stop sign going from north to south on Central.” 

Fletcher, a Whitefish High School graduate from the class of 1950, lived with her family on Second Street East. She said the family always walked everywhere and that her parents never had a car. 

She said the stores downtown were different then, too, and she worked at the Orpheum, one of two theatres in town. There were also three pharmacies. 

“The City Pharmacy was my favorite,” she said. “They had a soda fountain in there, so when we went to school, we’d always run home for lunch ... wait until after school and run down there and get a Coca-Cola -- a chocolate Coke.” 

Fletcher and her husband, Jack, were among the original 30 people who bought the depot for the Stumptown Historical Society.  

“The railroad, it was Great Northern then, wanted to sell their depot,” she said. “They sold it to us for $1. Can you imagine? I'll never get over that.” 

MARLIN KOESTLER said he followed his sister out to Montana from Minnesota in 1954, when he was just 19 years old. He describes himself as a railroader, having worked 43 years for the railroad. 

“I railroaded out of Havre for seven years,” he said, before getting drafted into the Army.  

The Army sent him to work on the railroad in Anchorage, Alaska. When we got out of the service, he was transferred from Havre to Whitefish. 

“Hardest years I ever put in,” he said of his early years in Whitefish. “I transferred over from Havre without seniority. I had to start over again.  

“I worked all kinds of jobs trying to make a living for about seven years and I finally got a steady job on the railroad,” Koestler said. “I worked odd jobs and I knew everybody in town.” 

He also worked extra board on the railroad. When they needed a man to go to work, they’d call, which meant Koestler never knew when the call would come. 

“I wanted to keep working for the railroad and get a regular job, so you had to wait until someone retired in order to catch a job,” he said. 

Although he had some tough years, the people made Whitefish a great place to be. 

“The town was a sleepy little town. But it was a wonderful little town,” Koestler said. “You could trust people. If you didn’t have money, you could make a deal with the merchants.  

“I used to tell them, ‘I'll pay you next payday,’” he said. “The next payday, I'd tell the ones I couldn't pay, ‘I'll pay you the next payday.’” 

    Marlin Koestler worked on the railroad for over 40 years. (Julie Engler/Whitefish Pilot)

    The traditional community Christmas tree located in the center of Central Avenue, just south of Third Street was decorated with ornaments created by students at Muldown School. Pilot photo from 1974.