Stafford Brothers were the unseen heroes of 1914 Winifred

James M. Stafford, born July 9, 1866, at Cockermouth, Cumberlandshire, England. He was the son of James Stafford Sr. who came from a family of Irish farmers on a small scale, but he was a miner. In 1882, he brought his family to the United States and they settled in Rathmel, PA. James Sr. found work in the coal mines. He remained a miner his whole life until his death in 1898. His wife was Rosanna Corr. They had a total of 11 children. In 1905, she died at Kendall, MT. Of the 11 children, James M was the eighth child and Peter was the tenth.
James M was 16 years old when his family first arrived in the United States. James M worked as a miner in Pennsylvania. He came to Montana in 1895, and continued as a miner and worked for the Anaconda Copper Company in Belt, MT. Later he went into the confectionary business, but then returned to mining at Gilt Edge, MT. While he was working as a miner in Gilt Edge, James M became associated with C.F. Randolph in his general store and it was named Randolph & Stafford. They sold that business when the mining stopped in Gilt Edge. James M. Stafford went onto Kendall where he was a merchandiser until Gold camp closed down also. He moved onto Hilger, MT where he and his brother, Peter, formed a partnership in the general merchandising store.

In 1911, James M. and Peter homesteaded near Winifred. They secured the first U.S. Post Office for the local area, and it was named in their honor, Stafford. The post office was located south/west of where Winifred is now. When the town of Winifred was organized; They put in an application for a post office. When it was authorized and granted the office of Stafford was discontinued. A new general store was reported to be built from a news article. “Reppe Brothers have secured the contract for the construction of the Stafford Store building and started work on it Saturday. The building will be made of native stone and will be 85 x 25 feet in size.” On August 1, 1914, the Stafford brothers opened their store in Winifred. They moved all their stock from the store in Hilger, Mt and added more merchandise to it. Stafford’s inventory was about $15,00.00 worth of general merchandise in 1914! (The Hilger store was closed down.) In 1914, this was the only building built by stone in Winifred and it is still standing today. It is still a grocery store too, but now is the Winifred Grocery. The current owners, Brad Bergum, has put substantial effort into restoring the building.

James managed the store while Peter oversaw the farming of their 400 acres. They raised registered seed wheat. The brothers also acquired more land down by the Missouri river, due to a store bill debt. The debtor turned the land over to the brothers as payment for their debt. The brothers decided to use it as a garden, since it was close to the river and had good soil. They planted vegetables of all sorts and planted fruit trees too. They had fresh apples and peaches that they sold in their store, along with the fresh vegetables that they harvested. Then the brothers came up with the idea of building a cannery, so they could have food supply for the store in the winter too. The cannery was built near the McClelland/Stafford Ferry. At that point, Ed Wildung managed this canning operation for them, supplying the Winifred store with much needed produce. The Stafford stock farm on the Missouri river also had Holstein Cattle and Duroc Hogs. The best yield in their seed wheat was 50 bushels per acre of winter wheat and 35 bushels per acre in spring wheat.

James M. Stafford served 5 years as a member of the city council and twice he served as the Mayor of Winifred. The brothers never married. In the later years, the store was sold to E.B. Hunt. Mr. Hunt had been working for James Stafford at the grocery store for some years after he rented out his homestead and had moved into Winifred with his daughter and mother. We do not know where the brothers moved after selling the store, but they left Winifred. My belief is that these brothers were a huge asset to the livelihood of the Homestead years in Winifred. It was all hard work, a tough country, and a harsh environment in this area. They were the reason many families survived here and had food to eat. If all these homesteaders that moved here had to wait on the train or river boats to get food, wow tough times. I think these brothers deserve to get credit for keeping this town alive and being unseen heroes. And just think their store that was built out of stone survived, even through all the major fires that burnt Winifred down twice. It is still standing proudly today too, thanks to Brad Bergum and the support of the community.