Savenac Nursery was created by Elers Koch, of the Forest Service, who also helped fight the Great Fire of 1910, commonly referred to as the Big Blowup, the Big Burn, or what?
Savenac Nursery Historic District Savenac Nursery Historic District is located near Haugan in Mineral County, Montana. It is 15 miles from St. Regis, Montana. Savenac was once one of the largest and oldest USDA Forest Service tree nurseries in the western United States, operating from 1907 until 1969. The nursery was created by Elers Koch, of the Forest Service, who also helped fight the Great Fire of 1910 that destroyed much of the Rocky Mountains in the northern part of USA, including the nursery. Savenac once produced over 12 million seedlings annually for use in reforestation of national forests throughout the United States. Its former operations have been moved to the Coeur d'Alene Nursery in Idaho.
Ben Lilly Benjamin Vernon Lilly or Ben Lilly (1856 – December 17, 1936), nicknamed Ol' Lilly, was a notorious big game hunter, houndsman and mountain man of the late American Old West. He remains famous for hunting down large numbers of grizzly, cougars and black bears. A mix between a transcendentalist spirit and an ardent Christian, he is described as an unfathomable Southern wild character. He was a stern practitioner of simple living and outdoor freedom, roamed and hunted from Louisiana to Arizona and from Idaho to as far south as Chihuahua and Durango, Mexico, and was a subject of American folktales. He guided oiler W. H. McFadden and President Theodore Roosevelt in hunting expeditions, whom he intrigued and who wrote about him. He was arguably the most prolific hunter of apex predators in the history of North American hunting and also the last active mountain man of the historical American Southwest. He was not a conservationist but made important contributions of fauna specimens and naturalistic observations to American institutions and museums. He was a contradictory character and his exploits have been consistently exaggerated to folktale proportions, and most records are oral, bona-fide, Americana transcripts.