The Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives will continue its Brown Bag Lunch series on Wednesday, October 9, with a presentation by Anne Millbrooke called “Joseph T. Pardee, a Biography in Progress.” Born in 1871, Joe Pardee moved in 1874 with his parents to Philipsburg, Montana. He grew up in Philipsburg, studied at the nearby College of Montana in Deer Lodge, then at the University of California in Berkeley. He opened an assay office, invested in mines, mined. He married a young woman from Philipsburg, and they had a daughter born in Stevensville. He became a government geologist employed by the U.S. Geological Survey. He spent field seasons in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and elsewhere. His work on glacial Lake Missoula changed the way geologists around the world think about regional flooding. He retired to Philipsburg, where he died in 1960. Many interesting stories fall between the lines of that brief chronological summary. The challenge is not only to find the stories but also to document the stories with sufficient detail and sound sources.

Anne Millbrooke was born in western Oregon and raised on the coast of Washington state. She went east to college, first to Boise State College in Idaho for a bachelor’s degree, then to the University of Wisconsin at Madison for a master’s degree, and finally to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia for her doctorate. She studied history. She directed the Archive and Historical Resource Center at United Technologies Corporation, and thereby served as the historian for Pratt & Whitney, Hamilton Standard, Sikorsky, and other divisions of the corporation. She taught history at universities in Alaska, Connecticut, and Montana, and online for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. She wrote the award-winning Jeppesen textbook Aviation History book and a 700-page reference book of Abbreviations, Alphabets and Acronyms of Aviation. Along the way, she has won Smithsonian, National Science Foundation, and NASA fellowships.

The presentation will begin at noon and run about an hour at the Archives, 17 W. Quartz. Guests are encouraged to bring a sack lunch. Coffee and water will be provided.

Brown Bag Lunches are held the second and fourth Wednesdays of every month. Upcoming lectures will focus on topics of local interest. For more information, contact the Archives at 782-3280.