The Booster / Published in the Interests of the City of Great Falls, Cascade County and all Montana, 1909

Item Details

Great Falls, MT, Robert J. Horton, 1909, paper wraps

VG+

[MONTANA]  [PROMOTION]  [MONTANA – GREAT FALLS]  [RESOURCES]  Robert J. Horton.  Promotional booklet titled The Booster / Published in the interests of the City of Great Falls, Cascade County and all Montana.  Describing the advantages and opportunities of Great Falls and the country surrounding, and containing many beautiful half tones, together with valuable information, facts and figures.  Issued as a Souvenir, September the sixth, nineteen hundred and nine (Great Falls, MT: Robert J. Horton, 1909).

Overhanging dark gray paper wraps with the cover title The Booster / Souvenir of Great Falls, Montana / Price 10 Cents; 64pp of which pages 2-19 and 49-64 are local ads; half-tone illustrations from period photographs.  The overhanging portions of the wrappers have some creasing and small tight tears; interior is clean and bright.  VG+ condition.  [20-546]

The editor-publisher of this great promotional booklet, Robert J. Horton, was the manager of the Horton Advertising Agency, specializing in General Publicity.  The agency’s ad on page 55 states that it could print booklets and circulars, plan and write folders and letters, write and place newspaper advertising, and produce half tones and line cuts.  They offered a monthly service to retail stores and assist with special sale events.  The agency claimed that town, county, and real estate advertising was a specialty.  The firm was located at 18 Conrad Bank Building in Great Falls.

The text portion of this promotional booklet contains short articles written by several different contributors, edited by Robert J. Horton, including descriptions of the city of Great Falls, the B. & M. Smelter, the Development of Water Power, Public Schools, Great Falls as an Industrial Center, the Flour Industry, Real Estate values, One Million Acres of Irrigated Land near Great Falls, Agricultural Resources, and the community of Valier and its Irrigation Project.

The back cover contains a statement about “True Temperance”.  It says, in part, that true temperance “means moderation; not prohibition.  It applies not alone to drinking, but to eating, and all other normal desires.”  It concludes, in smaller print, with “It is generally conceded by scientific men that a good beer made, as it is, from pure water, and barley malt – the most nutritious of all the cereals – delicately flavored with the fragrant hop, is invigorating and healthful.  The truly temperate man generally selects it for his beverage, and if he lives in Montana, ten to one, it’s “AMERICAN.”  It then refers the reader to page 53 which is a alf-tone of a brewery that is captioned “Where American Beer is Made”.

This 1909 illustrated booklet on Great Falls is a scarce sought-after publication.  OCLC reports two institutions holding a copy (SMU and the University of Montana) and there are two copies currently available on-line.