Trading Post preserves local history
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ST. IGNATIUS—Preston Miller was just an 11-year-old boy living in Pennsylvania when he collected his first Native American artifacts. Miller bought axe and arrowheads for $15 at an auction and stored them in a glass case beside his bed.
This purchase helped shaped a lifelong interest of Native American culture and history, as well as a thrill for collecting and selling artifacts.
He also credited his fascination for collecting history to his parents, who he described as “pack rats” that never threw old things away.
“My parents collected antiques and would drive all over looking for them,” Miller said. “So when they were looking for antiques, I was looking for Indian stuff.”
He also learned how to do beadwork and dance while a Boy Scout. Though he and his fellow scouts learned these things from books, Miller said local Native Americans, particularly members of the Iroquois Nation, would often visit and teach them as well. His troop was even scheduled to dance on the Ed Sullivan Show but the man leading that effort died and the plans fell through.
Today, Miller has come a long way from one glass case. He now owns buildings full of arrowheads, axe heads, beads, beadwork, books, documents, and regalia, just about everything associated with Native American culture and history. Even the buildings that house all these treasures are relics themselves.
Miller, 72, owns Four Winds Indian Trading Post on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Standing inside the main building of the trading post, which is located inside the original 1870 log store built by Duncan McDonald, a Hudson Bay Company Indian trader. Miller also owns the original 1862 Jocko Agency building that was once the home of Salish Chief Arlee.
In 1969, Miller started his business renting a storefront in Arlee. He originally moved to Montana in 1967 to work as a history teacher on the Rocky Boy Reservation. He came to Arlee with his first wife because she received a teaching position there. Miller said he was dismissed from his job at Rocky Boy because he was teaching “Indian things.” Miller said he had a Cree woman teach the Cree language to the class and he taught them how to make traditional games.
“We weren’t allowed to teach Indians Indian things," Miller explained. "They were suppose to be acting white."
About 30 years ago, when Miller purchased his land today, just three miles from St. Ignatius, he received the McDonald log house for free. All he had to do was haul it away.
“That is how I saved all these buildings,” Miller said, explaining how he hauled them whole or took them apart and reassembled them again. “If I have a slow day it doesn’t matter because I don’t owe anyone money. I never went in debt and never borrowed from banks.”
Other buildings that have been relocated to his property include the original log house where Mary Finley, the last survivor of the Swan Valley Massacre, was born. Her father, Antoine Sousse, built the log house sometime before 1870. Miller purchased the building from Finley herself. Miller also owns the 1885 Ravalli railroad depot where the last buffalo were shipped off to Canada at the turn-of-the-century.
His store is filled with beaded vests, jewelry and blankets hanging from the peaked ceiling. Long glass cases house more beaded items and arrowheads, next to a large collection of historical books. A black wood stove sitting in the middle of the room crackles as logs shift in the fire, with a small black and white cat curled next to it keeping warm.
Miller and his wife Carolyn Corey said they had about six customers today.
“And that is a busy day,” Corey said as Miller nodded in agreement. They typically see more business as summer progresses and visitors head to Glacier National Park.
Some of the beadwork hanging in the store was made by Miller and others he purchased from local Native American artists in the area. Years ago Miller employed a few local longtime beadwork artists, Ida Woodcock and Cecile Lumphrey, to reproduce what he calls old style Indian beadwork. Miller said he paid them $25 and would give them the supplies and the designs he wanted them to bead. He did this because he was looking for an older style of beadwork as opposed to the modern one. Miller currently employs one beadworker to do work for him now.
The economy has taken its toll on his business. They used to have a couple of employees who worked the main store, but now Miller and his wife fulfill those duties.
Genee Gardner-Williams, 58, worked at Four Winds Indian Trading Post for four years and was in charge of running the store.
“What he (Miller) is doing is really important,” Gardner-Williams said. “It’s a matter of keeping the culture alive and Preston has contributed a lot to the culture as well.”
Miller said most of his customers are not tourists but local people coming in to buy beads.
“People’s interest is low,” Miller said. “There hasn’t been a good movie for awhile.” Miller explained that during the time the movie “Dances With Wolves” came out, business was booming and he was providing tipis and buffalo robes for several movies including “Dances With Wolves.”
He said most tourists nowadays are not very educated when it comes to Native American arts and history. The tourists who are the most knowledgeable are often foreign travelers.
He added most tourists are looking for turquoise and silver because countries like China are mass-producing fakes.
Miller and Corey, who studied anthropology/archaeology at the University of New Mexico and the University of California, Berkeley, have written several books that involve collecting and selling Native American artifacts. Miller has also written a book that describes how to tell the difference between fakes, replicas and real artifacts. In addition to collecting and selling Indian collectibles for more than 50 years, Miller has a degree in history from Millersville University in Pennsylvania.
“You won’t find my stuff replicated in China because what I do takes more time and effort,” Miller explained. “My store is more like an old time store because it’s all old Indian style, granted it’s not all done by Indians.”
Miller explained he has an appreciation for beadwork, crafts and artwork done everywhere in the world. He often had many Africans who stopped by his store selling old beads that were traded during the slave trade. These beads now hang in his store next to Native American beadwork and beads. Miller said he does not see the African bead sellers very often because the economy has also impacted their business.
Miller worries his lifetime effort of collecting Native American artifacts and history will vanish after he dies.
“That’s a disappointment,” he said, explaining he does not like the idea of his collection ending up in a museum because he said most items end up being stored and not displayed.
“This is worth saving for future generations,” Miller said.
The lifelong collector likes the idea of letting his possessions go back into the market if he can’t preserve his trading post as a historical site.
“I would like it to stay here in Montana, but with no children to carry on the business, I would rather let it go back into the market and let other people have fun collecting like I did,” he said.
