The mail must go through, but in winter in frontier Montana it was even more important that the freight got through. The wagon team of freighter Joe Hartman is pictured here at a stop in Zortman with his twelve horse freight outfit on December 23, 1907, loaded with 18,500 pounds of supplies for the Ruby Gulch Mining Company and the merchants of Zortman.
Additional note: Joe Hartmann was born in Chicago on December 3, 1883. He came to Montana shortly after the turn of the century, and from 1904 to 1916 operated a freighting operation with his brother, Tim, between the railroad town of Malta and the mining town of Zortman on the south slope of the Little Rocky Mountains. They provided the main supply link between those towns. Of particular note was the nearly month-long journey Hartmann took during the harsh winter of 1906-1907, when his team hauled much-needed supplies to Zortman through deep snow and dangerously low temperatures.
MHS Photo Archives #PAC 2011-65.08
| View of Joe Hartmann's twelve horse freight outfit in Zortman, Montana, December 23, 1907, loaded with 18,500 pounds of supplies for the Ruby Gulch Mining Company and the merchants of Zortman. |
| View of Joe Hartmann's twelve horse freight outfit in Zortman, Montana, December 23, 1907, loaded with 18,500 pounds of supplies for the Ruby Gulch Mining Company and the merchants of Zortman. |
