2 / DECEMBER 2021 PRIME
Story’s Story
Local historian shares lives of Nelson Story and other local legends By Hannah Stiff
J
ohn Russell is the kind of researcher who delights in finding overlooked or undiscovered facts hiding in the annals of history. He doesn’t mind playing the long game with his research, either. For his recent book, “Treasure State Tycoon,” Russell spent two decades researching the polarizing Nelson Story.
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a water-powered flour mill in Bozeman. Russell stiches all these stories and several unheard more together in “Treasure State Tycoon.” “You always try to find something that nobody else has touched,” Russell says. “That was the advantage of Nelson Story, there was no other biography. I feel confident that everything that needs to be said about Nelson Story has been said here.”
“You always try to find something that nobody else has touched.”
Russell’s book chronicles the life of Story, a figure with fingerprints all over Bozeman. Twenty years ago, when Russell first started researching Story, on a part-time basis, he realized that no one had penned a thorough book about Story. As Russell dug into Story’s life – spanning from 1838 to 1926 – he realized a thorough accounting would take time. For Story had many jobs in life. He was a pioneer and Longhorn cattle driver. He was a landlord and an enterprising businessman. He was a family man and a ruthless enemy. He struck gold in Alder Gulch and opened
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Though he’s spent recent years working his way through Story’s life in the Gallatin Valley, Russell himself has been in the area nearly five decades. He was drawn to the Gallatin Valley in 1974 when he moved from Kansas City to study history at Montana State University. Russell stayed after graduation and worked his way through jobs in title insurance, mortgage banking, and media. Eventually he returned to his roots in history. For almost 16 years, until 2014, Russell served as the Executive Director of the Gallatin Historical Society and Pioneer Museum.
“Ever since I came here, I heard the name ‘Story’,” Russell says. “‘Story this,’ and ‘Story that.’ And you hear people talk about Nelson. But I was surprised there was no book about him. I started to dig in various places.” Folks from the Bozeman area have likely made the connection between the Ellen Theatre and Nelson Story (Ellen was Story’s wife). Or the Story Mansion that belonged to one of Story’s sons before it was sold to the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity in the 1920s. Then there’s Story Mill, which some will remember as Nelson Story’s flour mill, and the first customer of the newly installed Northern Pacific Railroad.
“Nelson Story was such a go getter that he had his hand in so many things,” Russell explains. “His name is solidified in the western annals because he went to Texas right after
