William
Flowerree was a business man, rancher and banker in Great Falls Montana. He grew up
from early childhood in Montana, and for many years was associated with the extensive
ranching and other business enterprises with his father, Daniel Flowerree, (whose
career as a Montana pioneer has been sketched into the plains of Montana.)
William Flowerree was born in Huntsville, Missouri, June 30,1861, and came to
Montana with his parents in 1864. He can hardly remember a time when he could not
ride a horse. At the age of eight he spent a summer riding the range for his father and
was given in pay two heifer calves. The commercial instinct manifested itself in him as a
boy. In Helena, where the family lived he would gather up bottles and sell them, whiskey
bottles bring seventy-five cents apiece, other bottles a dollar, tin cans twenty-five cents
apiece. There was a scarcity of tin in the state at the time, and the tin recovered from
cans and employment was driving a mule through a long day from seven in the morning
until six at night,at a salary of 50 cents a day.
As an associate
with his father in the cattle and horse business he served as vice president of the
Flowerree cattle company. In 1880 he was one of a party of ten men who took 1200
head of cattle across the country to Cheyenne, Wyoming. On the way they were halted
by Sitting Bull and 600 of his tribal members. The ten men were there for a day and a
half in parley (conference for debating of points in dispute or /discuss terms with the
enemy.) before the men and their cattle were allowed to proceed. Cheyenne was then the
nearest shipping point, and from there the cattle were sent to Chicago markets.
William
Floweree became the vice president of the American Bank & Trust Company of
Great Falls in 1915. He served two terms as a member of the State Senate representing
Teton County.
In november 1998 the
William Flowerree mansion in Great Falls was donated to the C M Russell Museum. In
December 1999 a Great Falls attorney bought the Flowerree house from the CM Russell
Museum. It is now a bed and breakfast. Willard Velie was a collage roommate with
William Flowerree. When the Velie family would come out to their ranch in Montana,
I'm sure they would stop at William's house for a family get together.
