A history of Victor,
then and now
Postcards, papers and photographs of Victor from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Victor is named for Chief Victor of the Bitterroot Salish, whose proper name was Xweɫxƛ̣ ̓cín (Many Horses). Chief Victor met Lewis and Clark when he was 15 years old in September 1805 at Ross' Hole and later he would refuse to cede the Bitterroot Valley to the United States' Washington Territory. After Chief Victor's death in 1870, the Salish were forced to move to the Flathead Reservation.
The townsite was platted in 1881. Repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893 hit Victor hard, forcing many of the local mines to close. The economy rebounded in the late 1890s with the growth of the timber industry and agricultural enterprises.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Victor’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
2 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewNorthern Pacific depot, 1900: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Victor, decade by decade
1990s
Nothing in Victor is on the National Register yet
That’s true of most small towns. It doesn’t mean Victor has no history, only that no one has written up a nomination. The closest listed place is Etna School in Victor, 2.8 miles away.
Victor and the nearest listed places
How a place gets listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Northern Pacific depot (1900) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (1) and the Library of Congress (5). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.