The little city of Bodie, California, was known during its ephemeral existence as being one of the most lawless and riotous places in the country; but James J. Hill, erstwhile president of the Great Northern Railroad is alleged to have declared that the town of Havre, Montana, on his line of road, was the toughest, wildest and the least law-abiding place in the whole country and there was not a person in the town who was possessed of any higher ambition than to carouse and indulge in all kinds of forbidden vice.

It was to this place that Eddie F. Wach, then 17 years old, was sent to fill the position of night operator for the Great Northern road.

Eddie had been messenger in the Chicago office and had readily acquired a practical knowledge of the business and it was a great day in his existence when he secured the position as night operator at Havre.

The boy’s introduction to this delectable office was not such an one as to enthuse a good young man.

Beer bottles, whiskey bottles, cigarette and cigar butts, stale tobacco smoke and other equally demoralizing objects met young Wach’s attention on his arrival at the Havre office, and he was besought on all sides to “join the club.” The young man’s refusal to partake of any of these alleged “refreshments” startled all and he became a target for all the jibes and jeers of the depot habitues and the rounders about the little city.

Young Wach took all this unpleasant demonstration in a kindly and good humored manner, never saying or doing anything to antagonize the men around him. He selected a respectable and quiet boarding place where he would retire when off duty. When pay day arrived he would figure out his monthly expenses, sending all the money left over to his parents in Chicago. By his unobtrusive kindness, and genial disposition, he found favor in the eyes of the men of whom it had been so frequently said that there was no good in them.

Promotion came to young Wach and a few months later he was appointed manager of the office. A new spirit was soon made manifest in the Havre office and all the evidences of riotousness speedily disappeared and the room assumed a businesslike air.

For more than three years Eddie Wach continued at this post of duty elevating his fellow men by his example, never yielding to temptation which at times fairly shrieked with disappointment in not being able to make him a convert to the “Havre Club” principles. Every month the major part of his salary would be sent to Chicago and the young man would spend his spare moments in study.

A few days before he was to leave Havre, young Wach received a call from Mr. Broadwater, one of the most influential citizens of the town and the state. Mr. Broadwater, although known to Wach in a business way, had never spoken to him till this day.

“I want to tell you,” began Mr. Broadwater, “that I have been watching you for the past three years and I have never seen you do anything unbecoming a gentleman and I have seen you sorely tried. I don’t know of anyone else like you in our city and I want to tell you that I consider you the only gentleman in Havre. In leaving us I want you to bear away with you that distinction together with our best wishes.”

Thus it was that E. F. Wach won the hearts and respect of the citizens of that little frontier town and now as he looks back from his present official position in Chicago he occasionally thinks of the time when he was called “The Gentleman of Havre.”