I was terrible about documenting the 10
months I spent on an off-grid homestead in Montana. Fortunately I spent
most of that time scribbling for the local rag, The Philipsburg Mail, which covers all of Granite County, MT (population 3000). I'll be posting some of my articles here.
From the Philipsburg Mail, May 2013:
--------------------------------
by Reecy
Pontiff
Granite
County's airport, Riddick Field, bears the name of a quixotic legend,
a man who barnstormed with Charles Lindberg, ran three unsuccessful
presidential campaigns and pioneered environmentalism in America.
“He
wasn't going to be the president... but everybody tolerated him. He
had respect,” said Dean Neitz, who worked at the Philipsburg Mail
when Merrill K. Riddick made his home here after World War II.
Neitz ran
the printing press late into the night, sometimes until two in the
morning, and Riddick would stop by to chew his ear off.
“When
I'd be working at night Merrill would come in, and he'd talk and he'd
talk and he'd talk. I was trying to run the press... He was kind of a
nuisance. ” Neitz said.
But “he
was certainly very bright... and a very accomplished pilot,” Neitz
said.
And
Riddick surely was. A graduate in the first class of the Army Air
Force Aeronautics School in California, Riddick flew reconnaissance
missions in Europe during WWI and acted as a flight instructor in
both World Wars. He later barnstormed in an air circus with Charles
A. Lindbergh and was also one of America's first airmail pilots,
according to the University of Montana's Riddick archives.
Neitz
recalls Riddick saying “he landed many times on the White House
lawn with the mail,” during one of their late-night sessions.
Though
born in New York state, Riddick's family moved to Montana when he was
11 years old. After his adventures through the wild blue yonder,
Riddick returned to Montana to prospect for gold, according to his
New York Times obituary.
While
mining around the Granite County area, Riddick made local history by
staking a claim on the corner of the bank parking lot in downtown
Philipsburg. He drove a 4x4 post into the ground and placed the claim
in an old tobacco can hanging from it, according to Mike Kahoe, who
was chairman of the committee that rededicated Philipsburg Airport in
Riddick's name.
“I don't
know if you can actually stake claims on private property,” Kahoe
said, “but I think he was trying to make a point.”
“The
banker didn't like that very well because [Riddick] was actually
thinking about drilling,” said Steve Immenschuh, who was just a boy
in the 1960s and 70s when his mother ran the Philipsburg hotel where
Riddick took up residence, “He had a drill rig just outside of town
here on another project... he was serious!”
Riddick
was quite a character around town, a short, round widower with thick
glasses. He forayed into politics after the death of his wife, making
a bid for governor of Montana in 1968 and U.S. senator in 1972.
Failing miserably on both counts Riddick decided to raise his sites
to the highest office in the nation – he ran presidential campaigns
in 1976, 1980 and 1984, according to his New York Times obituary.
Immenschuh
was a teenager when Riddick asked him to paint a campaign sign for
his first election, which was hung in the window of Riddick's office
on Broadway.
After
Riddick lost, “it was stored in the hotel basement... a year later
he decided he was going to run for another political office and we
dig out the sign and I repaint it with a different party and a
different office,” Immenschuh said, “The 'Merrill Riddick' stayed
and everything else changed.”
Riddick
was also famous for refusing to accept campaign donations – with
the exception of a silver dollar from young Immenschuh.
“He was
kind of a unique guy. I went down to his office and said, 'I know
you're not taking any campaign contributions, but have a silver
dollar,'” Immenschuh said, “He thought that was pretty nice. He
said, 'That's not really a campaign contribution, that's something
else,' so he took it.”
Fortunately
Riddick had other projects to spend that silver dollar on. He also
published a periodical on resource management called the “Journal
of Applied Human Ecology” completely out of his own pocket – and
that of his local financiers.
“My dad
owned the service station... and I can remember him when I was a kid
coming up and asking my dad for a little bit of money” to publish
the journal, Kahoe said.
As the
name of his journal suggested, the environment was a huge issue for
Riddick. During his late-night sessions at the printing press with
Neitz, “he talked about environmentalists. Nobody had heard the
terminology [back then]. He was ahead of his time,” Nietz said.
To that
end, Riddick ran for president under a political party of his own
creation, the grandiosely named Magneto-hydrodynamics-Puritan
Epic-Prohibition Party.
“He
explained to me [his political party] had to do with producing
electricity through burning coal and producing steam to turn the
turbines,” Immenschuh said, “Which was really neat because I'd
never heard of it before.”
And so it
came that Philipsburg Airport was renamed Riddick Field on the town's
bicentennial in 1976. Due to poor health Riddick had already
relocated to Maryland to live with his sister, but he returned to
Granite County with his family for the ceremony on that sunny day in
May. “Several hundred persons flocked to the field” to listen to
the local high school bands and watch the air circus, according to
the May 6, 1976 issue of the Philipsburg Mail. Riddick even returned
to the skies once more, taking a ride in an open cockpit biplane
during the celebrations.
Merrill K.
Riddick died in 1988, but here in Granite County his legend will live
on forever.
#end#
sk)
