Podcast appearances and mentions of ken robison

Ken is an historian and preservationist and a chronicler of neglected Montana history at the Overholser Historical Research Center in Fort Benton and the Great Falls/Cascade County Historic Preservation Commission. Ken served in Naval Intelligence for nearly thirty years with eleven years of sea duty in the Pacific and Indian Oceans during the Vietnam War and Cold War contingency operations. During Operation Homecoming he served as escort and debriefer for senior Navy Prisoner of War James Bond Stockdale. Ken's book "Cold War Montana" on Montana's indispensable role in the war against Communism. Utilizing the Lend-Lease pipeline, Soviet spies ferried stolen nuclear and industrial secrets, loaded in diplomatic pouches, from Great Falls to the Soviet Union. Army nurse Lieutenant Diane Carlson served as "an angel of mercy" at the Pleiku Evacuation Hospital in the Central Highlands in Vietnam. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/out-of-the-blank-podcast/support

Joe and Bryon sit down with Ken Robison and Ashleigh McCann for a talk about the Ozark Club, Leo Lamar, and the overall African American History of Great Falls. We find out in this episode that Ken has almost single-handedly brought about the cataloging and documentation of most of this History for Montana. Ken and Ashleigh are subject matter experts on following the little clue left from our past and bringing the stories to the present. Hang on for an amazing episode.We went through a lot of trouble after recording this podcast to find music from the Ozark Club. We do have it in our possession, so stay tuned for a special episode to talk about the music.Links mentioned in the show:History Museum Ken's amazing article for a deeper diveSweetgrass music

Home to some of the most powerful nuclear missile systems in the world, Montana played an indispensable role in the war against Communism. Utilizing the Lend-Lease pipeline, Soviet spies ferried stolen nuclear and industrial secrets, loaded in diplomatic pouches, from Great Falls to the Soviet Union. Army nurse Lieutenant Diane Carlson served as "an angel of mercy" at the Pleiku Evacuation Hospital in the Central Highlands in Vietnam. Young Montana smokejumper "Hog" Daniels joined the CIA's secret war in Southeast Asia, becoming the principal advisor to General Vang Pao in his desperate fight against Communists. In Cold War Montana (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2021), Captain Ken Robison (U.S. Navy, Ret.), award-winning author and Cold Warrior, reveals tales of Montanans who made their mark on this titanic struggle. Troy A. Hallsell is the 341st Missile Wing historian at Malmstrom AFB, MT. The ideas expressed in this podcast do not represent the 341st Missile Wing, United States Air Force, or Department of Defense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Home to some of the most powerful nuclear missile systems in the world, Montana played an indispensable role in the war against Communism. Utilizing the Lend-Lease pipeline, Soviet spies ferried stolen nuclear and industrial secrets, loaded in diplomatic pouches, from Great Falls to the Soviet Union. Army nurse Lieutenant Diane Carlson served as "an angel of mercy" at the Pleiku Evacuation Hospital in the Central Highlands in Vietnam. Young Montana smokejumper "Hog" Daniels joined the CIA's secret war in Southeast Asia, becoming the principal advisor to General Vang Pao in his desperate fight against Communists. In Cold War Montana (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2021), Captain Ken Robison (U.S. Navy, Ret.), award-winning author and Cold Warrior, reveals tales of Montanans who made their mark on this titanic struggle. Troy A. Hallsell is the 341st Missile Wing historian at Malmstrom AFB, MT. The ideas expressed in this podcast do not represent the 341st Missile Wing, United States Air Force, or Department of Defense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Home to some of the most powerful nuclear missile systems in the world, Montana played an indispensable role in the war against Communism. Utilizing the Lend-Lease pipeline, Soviet spies ferried stolen nuclear and industrial secrets, loaded in diplomatic pouches, from Great Falls to the Soviet Union. Army nurse Lieutenant Diane Carlson served as "an angel of mercy" at the Pleiku Evacuation Hospital in the Central Highlands in Vietnam. Young Montana smokejumper "Hog" Daniels joined the CIA's secret war in Southeast Asia, becoming the principal advisor to General Vang Pao in his desperate fight against Communists. In Cold War Montana (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2021), Captain Ken Robison (U.S. Navy, Ret.), award-winning author and Cold Warrior, reveals tales of Montanans who made their mark on this titanic struggle. Troy A. Hallsell is the 341st Missile Wing historian at Malmstrom AFB, MT. The ideas expressed in this podcast do not represent the 341st Missile Wing, United States Air Force, or Department of Defense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-west

Beginning in 1870, supplies, trade goods, immigrants, adventurers—and whiskey—traveled the now-legendary Whoop-Up Trail from Fort Benton to the eponymous Alberta trading post. In Tales of Whoop-Up Country, Great Falls historian and author Ken Robison relates how the absence of law and order forced the Canadian government to create the North-West Mounted Police to close down the whiskey trade and force traders back across the border into Montana.

Fort Benton’s Overholser Historical Research Center historian Ken Robison unveils new and neglected stories of Montanans in the Great War. Robison shares tales from Montanans serving around the world, focusing on the role of Montana’s women U.S. Navy yeomen, nurses, and “Hello Girls”; Montanans in the Russian Railway Service Corps; the unknown role Charles M. Russell played in support of the war; the contributions of Montana’s ethnic citizens to World War I; and more.

In this episode of Memphis Type History: The Podcast, we look at the history behind a few Memphis mansions. Hear from Caitlin about Ashlar Hall's many lives and the history behind the Woodruff Fontaine House. Then hear Rebecca tell a little history and description of the Annesdale mansion which could be your next wedding location.     Ashlar Hall Robert Brinkley Snowden grew up in Annesdale with his parents, Robert Bogardus Snowden and Annie Overton Brinkley Snowden, who lived in the Annesdale mansion because Annie’s dad bought it for them (learn more about Annesdale from Rebecca later in the show!) He went to Princeton to study architecture and returned to Memphis in 1896 to build everyone’s favorite 11,000 square foot local castle at 1937 Central Avenue – Ashlar Hall! This quote that Creme de Memph dug up from Memphis: An Architectural Guide about the Gothic Revival Mansion was simply delightful: "one wonders what books about medieval castles Snowden brought back with him from Princeton, or perhaps the whole may have been influenced by a too-early reading of Ivanhoe." The three-story, 8-bedroom mansion only cost $24,900 to build, which is $683,767.48 in today’s money. Inside are six bars, five bathrooms, and a swimming pool. Rumor has it there are two secret passages under the mansion: One passing under Lamar to Snowden mansion in Annesdale and the other leading under Central to the University Club’s pool area. Snowden would go on to take over the Peabody Hotel when it relocated in 1925, as the original one was started by his great-grandfather, Colonel Robert C. Brinkley, back in 1869. After Robert died in 1942, the place went into disrepair and became a Grisanti’s restaurant called Conestoga Steak House at some point in the ‘60s. In 1970 it became Ashlar Hall Restaurant. In 1983 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The mansion’s next life began in the ‘90s when Prince Mongo turned it into a nightclub called the Castle for a few years before abandoning it. Sometime around 2013, ownership started switching around for Ashlar Hall and the property fell further into disrepair. There are links below for the latest on its current life. Woodruff-Fontaine House This mansion of Memphis is located at 680 Adams in the heart of Victorian Village. In 1845, Amos Woodruff and his brother arrived in Memphis from Rahway, New Jersey, with the intent of expanding their business of making carriages. Although his brother went back to New Jersey, Amos found great success with carriages in Memphis and his other ventures: the Overton Hotel, two banks, a cotton compress firm, a lumber company, running the Memphis & Ohio Railroad, and the Southern Life Insurance Company In 1870, Woodruff spent $12,000 on land in “Millionaire’s Row,” in what was then the outskirts of Memphis. It's now known as Victorian Village, and it was here that he started building his five-story French Victorian mansion at a cost of $40,000. He also built a carriage house on the property alongside beautiful gardens and fountains. He lived in this 18-room mansion, with its three great halls and a three-story tower, with his wife, Phoebe, and their four children: Sallie, Mollie, Frank, and Cora. Many believe that the Woodruff-Fontaine house is haunted by Mollie Woodruff’s ghost. Some haunted moments include staff seeing Mollie's form in smoke, seeing her sitting on the bed in her former childhood room, and her demonstrations of anger like slamming doors and breaking items when anything gets moved or redecorated. Supposedly, her bed is sometimes dented as if someone has been lying there.... even though it’s roped off from all visitors. One paranormal website said she once told museum docents how they should have the furniture arranged. So of course we have to tell you more about her in this episode! In the 1960s, the mansion was in danger of demolition. So the Memphis chapter of the Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities started raising funds to renovate the property. They outfitted it for modern times, restored antique elements, and even found a fresco on one of the ballroom’s ceilings! It opened back up in 1964, although it wasn’t quite finished up at that point yet. Many people donated the furniture and stuff that’s inside, and how it’s a proper museum showing 1800s life in Memphis! Annesdale Mansion The Annesdale mansion was built in 1850 on Lamar Avenue which, at the time, was called Pigeon Roost Road. The home was originally built by Dr. Samuel Mansfield, a wholesale druggist from Maryland, on 200 acres on the outskirts of Memphis. Nineteen years later, Colonel Robert Brinkley, the guy who built the Peabody Hotel bought the estate as a wedding gift to his daughter Annie and it was named Annesdale, for Annie's Dale. Since 1869, Annesdale has been home to the same family for at least 7 generations. Annie married Col. Robert Bogardus Snowden. And for 160 years, members of the socially prominent Snowden family lived here. It is Italian Villa in style, built with bricks made on the site. It has a four-story tower which overlooks the current seven and a half acre park-like setting. The Details The Annesdale is an 1850 antebellum mansion nestled amongst seven and a half acres of elegant lawns and gardens. It holds a grand parlor, spiral staircase, and a marble entryway. A great description can be found in a Memphis Magazine article which states,  We were told that the +17,000-square-foot home has 13 rooms, five bedrooms, and four and a half baths. The downstairs public spaces have 14-foot ceilings, and the period details include: 11 fireplaces, pocket doors, carved walnut paneling, intricate needlework panels over the windows, stained glass, painted ceilings with exquisite figural details, ornate plasterwork and lustrous oak floors. Ken Robison is the one who purchased the home and estate in 2010 and rennovated and reopened the mansion as an event space. He says the Snowdens have been extremely gracious in helping him buy back antique pieces from family members that were original to the home. He has found additional items that once belonged there through other sources. In particular, he is especially proud of the portrait of Annie Overton Brinkley which hangs in the music room. As history tells us, when Annie married Colonel Robert Bogardus Snowden, her father, Colonel Robert C. Brinkley, made Annesdale a wedding gift from her father. And as the new owner likes to say, 'Annie has come home at last.' A later discovery... In 2016 a bone fragment, possibly human, was found in the grate of a boarded-up fireplace inside the mansion when a photographer came across it during a photoshoot. It went under investigation but Rebecca couldn't find if a verdict was ever made aside from knowledge that it was very very old, likely from the Civil War era which would make sense since the mansion did serve as a hospital during that time. If anyone knows of any updates on the discovery, please tell!

Great Falls historian Ken Robison examines the racial environment in Montana in 1917, the experiences of black soldiers as they entered the military and served in the war, and their reception back home upon their return.

Great Falls historian Ken Robison tells the story behind a Christmas 1861 address given by Captain John Mullan to the “Historical and Geographical Society” assembled at Fort Owen. Like his titular subjects, Mullan had contributed directly to the dream of a water and overland “Northwest Passage” by constructing a 624-mile Military Wagon Road from Fort Walla Walla, Washington, to Fort Benton in 1860.