With thousands of images in the Gallatin History Museum collection, it is easy to spot one that grabs your attention. Researching the story behind a photograph is a challenging but rewarding exercise that brings the image to life. One of the many intriguing photographs in the museum’s collection depicts a 1908 Bozeman women’s basketball championship team.

Handwritten on the top of the photograph are the letters “G.C.H.S.” for Gallatin County High School, and the basketball pictured has been painted with “Champions ’08.” The photo’s reverse side preserves a list of names. Pictured in the first row along with a teddy bear are, from left to right, May Nelson, Rhoda Dawes, Clara Flanders, and Alta Bigelow. In the second row Minnie Mercer, Ella Moxley, and Ruth Hartman kneel. Coach and Referee Anna Krueger stands with Jean Brittan in the back row. Readers with a keen eye may also notice the swastika symbols emblazoned on the team uniform. For hundreds of years, this ancient symbol was linked with well-being and good fortune. It wasn’t until Nazism adopted it in the 1920s that associations began to change. In 1908 American culture, it was still a symbol of good luck.

Photos like this one prove that women’s basketball was a school-sanctioned activity at both Gallatin County High School and Montana State College in the early 1900s.  After the sport gained national popularity in YMCA organizations in the 1890s, basketball was quickly seen as an appropriate sport for women. In a guide titled Basket Ball for Women, published by the American Sports Publishing Company in 1901, proponents saw basketball as a “spirited,” gentler alternative to football. The game “should cultivate strength and physical endurance, and should be interesting enough to become a part of physical training for women as foot ball and base ball are for men.”

Game rules for early women’s basketball differed from modern regulations. Initially, individual organizations each adopted unique modifications to the rules. At the turn of the century a committee was established to attempt to standardize the rules for women’s basketball. Some of those early regulations seem foreign to us today. For example, in the 1901 guide, a player was only allowed three ball bounces, or dribbles, before passing to a teammate. The court itself was divided into three parts, each occupied by players who stayed in their respective zones. “The lines prevent the players from running all over the gymnasium, thus doing away with unnecessary running, and also giving the heart moments of rest. On the other hand, the lines do not keep the players almost stationary, as some believe. A player has the right to run anywhere she may please in her own third of the gymnasium.”

While it is unclear exactly what rules were used by our pictured 1908 team, Montana newspapers recorded the results of several games played by the Gallatin County High School girls basketball team that year. On January 24, Bozeman girls took on Helena High School in a game that possibly played a part in the awarding of the championship title later that year. In a fast, foul-filled contest, Bozeman defeated Helena, 5 to 2. The Helena Independent-Record claimed the “girls from the capital city” would have emerged victorious if it wasn’t for the fifteen fouls called against Helena by an unnamed referee from Bozeman. A couple of weeks later, on March 8, the Billings Evening Journal reported that the day before, Bozeman lost to Billings in “a hot contest standing 13 to 11. Many scores were made on fouls for rough playing, holding and running across the line.” The article listed Anna Krueger of Bozeman as the referee, and it is possible she was also the referee for the previous game against Helena on January 24.

The Billings paper also noted the positions of the Bozeman players during the March 7 game. May Nelson occupied center while Ruth Hartman was “running center.” Alta Bigelow and Rhoda Dawes played guard, while Ella Moxley and Clara Flanders occupied the forward positions. While Minnie Mercer and Jean Brittan were not mentioned, the newspaper report helps to corroborate the photograph identifications. And, with a little searching, one can glean a few details about the players’ lives in the years following the 1908 season.
Students on the steps of Gallatin County High School, circa 1908.

Rhoda Dawes and Ruth Hartman graduated from Montana State College in 1913, and Clara Flanders in 1914. All three played basketball in college. May Nelson married Frank Stone in 1925, and the couple settled in Gallatin Gateway. Ella Moxley worked as a telephone operator for Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Co. and operated her own antique shop in Bozeman. Upon her death in 1986, Ella’s obituary in the Billings Gazette specifically mentioned she was a member of the Gallatin County High School basketball team. Minnie Mercer stayed in Bozeman and married local businessman Frank Preston. She served as president of the popular Chambers Fisher Company department store on Main Street in Bozeman from 1955 to 1985. Players Jean Brittan and Alta Bigelow have proven somewhat more difficult to track down.

Coach and referee Anna Krueger was born in Bozeman in 1885, the only surviving daughter of Louis and Emelie Ketterer Krueger. Anna grew up in the family home at 317 North Bozeman Avenue, graduated from Gallatin County High School in 1903, and continued her studies at MSC. It is unclear if Anna played basketball in high school, but newspaper reports from the early 1900s list her in the guard position on the college girls’ team, and she was certainly a standout player in the spring of 1905. On April 7, 1905, the Bozeman Courier congratulated Anna on her performance in the recent game against Billings. “Much credit is due Anna Krueger for keeping down the score of the visiting team by her excellent guarding...” The article concluded with the news that the win made “the College girls the champions of the girls’ basketball teams for this year.” The following week, the Courier announced Anna was elected the next captain for the college team. After her playing career ended, Anna stayed in Bozeman and continued her involvement with local basketball for a few more years, until her marriage and subsequent move to Stillwater County.

In perhaps the last game of the 1908 season, Krueger and her Bozeman team played Butte in what the Butte Daily Post characterized as “an unusually interesting game.” The Helena Independent-Record described it this way: “It was rather a slow game, especially at first, and the crowd was annoyed by the continued calling of fouls. There was no criticism of the fairness of the decisions, but the 44 fouls called interrupted the play so much that there would have been no interest in the game except for the see-sawing of the score.” A tied score at both the first and second halves led to overtime play in which it was “agreed that the team that scored two points first should win.” Bozeman emerged victorious with a score of 11 to Butte’s 10 points.
Colorized postcard view of Gallatin County High School on West Main Street in Bozeman, circa 1908. The old West Side/Irving School is visible to the south.

The decorated basketball in the Gallatin County High School team photo suggests that Bozeman received the championship title that year, and an article in the Daily Missoulian, published in December 1908 appears to confirm this. It does, however, include an interesting statement summarizing the year’s sports winners. “The girls’ basketball championship was awarded to Helena. This action was taken on the motion of the representative of Bozeman, which city had claimed the title.” No further details have emerged, but the author wonders if this reversal stems from that controversial game against Helena on January 24, 1908.

Regardless of the outcome, the 1908 season provides an interesting glimpse into early women’s basketball in Montana. Organized women’s sports in early twentieth century Bozeman were short lived, at least temporarily. In 1911, there was no mention of girls’ basketball offered at GCHS, although a lack of interest was likely to blame. According to the 1911 annual, basketball “has been formerly reserved for the girls but as they were unable to organize a team, the field was turned over to the boys.” Not for long—they would return.