Last August I stumbled across a photo of a crowd at the Montana capitol in 1903. They were there to hear Teddy Roosevelt speak. It's a pretty cool photo but I was instantly drawn to one man and I couldn't stop thinking about him.

This is the photo.

After a couple of days, I found I was still thinking about the man I saw in the photo: Who was he? Did he live in Helena?Why was he there that day? Why was he perfectly framed in the shot? Why is he the only one looking at the photographer?

This is a close-up of the man.

The photo is from the Library of Congress, so I did what any other weirdo would do, and I emailed them to see if they had any information about the photograph or the man in it.

You can find it in their archives here: https://www.loc.gov/resource/stereo.1s02082/

Before this, I didn't even realize you could email a librarian at the @librarycongress - just like they were your local librarian - and ask them for help! But you can, so I did.

It took a couple weeks to hear back, but they got back to me about my very strange inquiry! They didn't have any additional info about the photo, but confirmed it was part of a tour Roosevelt was on and they provided a link to the speech he gave that day: https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record?libID=o289924

They also referred me to the Theodore Roosevelt Center bc they have extensive digital archives: https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/ 

Then, in late December, I had some time and decided to reach out to the @MTHist to see if they could give me a little direction about how I might learn more about who this man was.

I spoke with a very helpful photo archivist. She asked that I send her the info I had and she's see what she could find.

Now, don't get your hopes up. I didn't find out who this man is (yet!), but I finally feel like I picked up the trail and it's exciting!

We walked about whether he might be a Helena police officer bc Helena had black cops in this time period (!!). We also talked about whether or not he might be a Buffalo Soldier.

At any rate, I sent her what I had and waited.

About a week later I heard back from her. She spoke w an archivist with more military knowledge and they both think that's an infantry pin on his cap. He also thought it likely that the man was stationed at Fort Missoula or one of the Hi-Line forts.

She gave me a link to info on Montana's forts and a link to Montana's African-American military history: https://mhs.mt.gov/Shpo/AfricanAmericans/History/Military-History

And, today, @MTHist tweeted out these resources: https://twitter.com/MTHist/status/1351187591177986048

I have the day off work today and spent much of the morning going through Montana's photo archives and I've found some of the coolest stuff! (I know very little about the US military, so it was all news to me - maybe you too?)

The 25th Infantry (a segregated unit) had a bicycle corp! At one point, these badass dudes rode what I can only imagine were 70lb bicycles from Montana to Missouri.

And, some of the 25th infantry guys - in 1902 - played on the Fort Missoula baseball team. A man in this photo kind of looks like my soldier, but I suspect I'm just projecting.

And, saving my favorite photo for last, look at these men from Fort Missoula's 25th Bicycle Corp. Does a posed photograph get any better than this?

Hold up. You need to see a better quality version of that photo bc it is so good. That neckwear! Those faces! So damn regal.

I'm going to keep working on this little history project and I'll share what I find here in this thread. If you have any ideas or info about this, please share - bc I'm definitely no historian, so I could use the help!