Pardee's Lens

If you've worked as a geologist in the West, it's a fairly safe bet that J.T. Pardee visited your field area decades before you arrived. Pardee, a geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, traveled as far as his little Ford Model T could take him—to hard rock mines in the Rockies, phosphate seams in Montana, fault scarps in the Basin and Range, and the desolate coulees of the Channeled Scablands. For more than 30 years, the government man journeyed along lonesome roads, traversed ridges, and slept under the open sky (with the obligatory stay at a hot spring resort on occasion). He moved through a rugged, mostly undeveloped Western landscape with remarkable style and grace—always in a collar and jacket, always working, continually revisiting his own interpretations. Between 1910 and 1940, Pardee seemed to be everywhere, dedicating a few weeks to one project before moving on to the next. Fellow geologists who crossed paths with him were often gifted his thoughts, notes, and maps. It seems he routinely handed over whatever he had on hand to colleagues, professors, and students who showed interest and a passion for fieldwork. Many of these beneficiaries would go on to write dissertations, amass fortunes, or build entire careers based on Pardee's tips and encouragement. A proud and generous Montanan, Pardee was one of this country's greatest field geologists. While his writings and influence are well known, his photography remains largely unrecognized. With this post, I hope to change that. He had a good eye. Please enjoy this selection of images by Joseph Thomas Pardee, photographer.

1918 - A prospector working in the Stonehouse Quadrangle near Golconda, NV resembles rough characters such as James Arnold Ross from Upton Sinclair's book 'Oil!' and Daniel Plainview from Paul Thomas Anderson's film 'There Will Be Blood'. Just a hint of the rock hammer is seen in his right hand.

1917 - Osoyoos Lake, WA.

1917 - Steamboat Rock and Upper Grand Coulee, WA.

1921 - Rathdrum Prairie, WA.

1921 - Years before J Harlan Bretz arrived, Pardee was documenting channeled "scab rock" coulees scoured clean by a great "Pleistocene river".

1918 - Haystack boulders on the Waterville Plateau near Mansfield, WA.

1922 - Pilot Rock erratic northwest of Coulee City in Upper Grand Coulee, WA.

1922 - Outburst flood gravels at Ewan, WA, located some 40 miles south of Spokane, were interpreted by Pardee (and several others) as pre-Wisconsin drift.

1918 - Weathered erratics in the Anaconda Quadrangle, MT.

1921 - Moraine of an alpine glacier rests on the gravelly fan at the mouth of Big Knife Creek, Jocko Valley east of Arlee, MT.

1921 - Flat meadow along Finley Creek occupies a conspicuous drainage divide between the Jocko River and Clark Fork River at Evaro, MT. Point Six is the high peak in the distance, where the Montana Snowbowl Ski Area is today.

1921 - Cliffs of the Belt Formation along the Flathead River at Perma, MT.

1921 - Chief Cliff above the village of Elmo, MT on the Big Arm of Flathead Lake.

1912 - From Brian Atwater's notes, "Old Keller, Wash. was perched beside the Sanpoil River on the Colville Indian Reservation. Since 1940, the reservoir behind Grand Coulee Dam has flooded the old town site; modern Keller is 5 km upvalley." Nearby Mount Tolman holds a rich, but still unmined molybdenum-bearing ore body.

1917 - Pogue Flat near Omak, WA where I lived for five years in a house no nicer than this one.

1910 - Ice-transported basalt boulder resting on a gravelly plain near Buffalo Lake, Colville Indian Reservation, WA.

1910 - Haystack rock, Little Nespelem River Valley, Colville Indian Reservation, WA.

1910 - Granite boulder perched on a 2-foot tall pedestal of monzonite porrphyry, Stepstone Ck, Colville Indian Reservation, WA.

1910 - Keller & Indiana Consolidated Smelting Company, Sanpoil Valley, Colville Indian Reservation, WA.

1910 - Whitestone Creek survey camp, Colville Indian Reservation, WA.

1910 - Barney the horse. One in a series of horse portraits that included Brownie, Cricket, Dollie, Baldy, Flaxie, Mollie, and Roan.

1910 - Once exposed boulder bars at the Columbia River-Spokane River confluence, Colville Indian Reservation, WA.

1910 - Town of Nespelem situated on a moraine near the Little Nespelem River, Colville Indian Reservation, WA.

1910 - Columbia River Valley near mouth of Whitestone Creek, Colville Indian Reservation, WA.

1910 - Moraine-dammed South Twin Lake from Wynecoop Rd, Colville Indian Reservation, WA.

1910 - Sanpoil Volcanics fill the down-dropped Republic Graben occupied by the Sanpoil River. Photo taken at the intersection of West Fork Sanpoil Rd and Gold Creek Rd, Colville Indian Reservation, WA.

1910 - Distinctive layered volcanics of Mt. Ki-ki-yis in the Sanpoil Valley near the mouth of Bridge Creek, Colville Indian Reservation, WA.

1910 - Falls of Hall Creek near Inchelium, Colville Indian Reservation, WA.

1933 - Near the Wilhelm cabin north of Douglas Creek, MT.

Well into the 1930s, captions on official USGS photos reflect Pardee's hesitation in interpreting scoured bedrock, perched bars, elevated gravel deltas, mega ripples, and scablands in Idaho and Montana as flood-formed. His field notes record dozens of such observations in the Clark Fork River Valley and Flathead River Valley as well as at Camas Prairie and Markel Pass. He instead invoked an ancient "Dog Lake river" to explain the ambiguous deposits of a vast Pleistocene river-lake system that drained west (Glacial Lake Missoula).

1937 - Clark Fork River at White Pine, MT.

1935 - USGS topographer surveying gold prospects at the Brewer Mine, Chesterfield County, SC.

1931 - Columbia River Basalts in the Grand Ronde Valley near Ray's Ferry bridge, WA.

1932 - Granite erratic in outwash on ridge northeast of Boulder Creek, Granite County, MT. At left, Pardee's long-time field assistant.

1931 - Toe of the Nisqually glacier in Mt. Rainier National Park, WA.

1931 - Thick pile of volcanic ash along the Enterprise-Lewiston Road, ID-WA border.

1924 - Roosevelt Highway near Lake Quinault, Olympic Peninsula, WA.

Henry Creek Rd southeast of Plains, MT.

1932 - Above the Ivor Johnson Ranch and the Flint Creek Valley between Maxville and Stone, MT.

1921 - Glacially-steepened(?) walls of Belt bedrock along the Clark Fork River between Eddy and Weeksville, MT.

1918 - Distinctive profiles of Canyon Creek and Blodgett Creek Valleys in the Bitterroot Mountains as seen from the irrigation canal serving Marcus Daly's 22,000-acre Bitter Root Stock Farm. Photo taken along Skalkaho Creek (Hwy 38) south of the Hamilton Golf Club, MT.

1921 - Field assistant in his university sweater atop a quartzite erratic at Butler Creek near Missoula, MT.

1918 - Blackfoot Valley at Helmville, MT.

1909 - Valley of Chimney Creek near Helmville, MT.

1909 - Dixon Bench on the Flathead Indian Reservation, MT.

1917 - Eldorado Peak in the North Cascades above the Cascade River Valley, WA. Photo taken from the south flank of Lookout Mountain.

1909 - Tuscor Hill near Trout Creek, MT.

1918 - Brick furnace near Bonner, MT.

1921 - "Durkin for Gin", Sunset Highway west of Spokane, WA.

1921 - Rogers Pass, MT.

1935 - Windy Hill, MT.

1921 - Western flank of the Mission Range and the canyon of Post Creek, where McDonald Lake reservoir resides. The formerly glaciated valley floor is the outwash plain of the Flathead Lobe, riddled with hundreds of pingo-pothole lakes. The summit of Mt. McDonald is in the clouds at right. Photo taken from near Hillside Road and the Kickinghorse Feeder Canal.

1921 - Flathead River near Dixon, MT.

1918 - Contorted bedding in sediments overridden by glacial ice at Lake Cushman west of Hoodsport, WA.

1923 - Basalt columns along Sunset Highway west of Spokane, WA.

1918 - Hwy 101 along Hood Canal at Hoodsport, WA.

1909 - Gravel lenses interfinger with varved beds of Glacial Lake Missoula west of Missoula at DeSmet, MT.

1921 - Buffalo Rapids below Polson on the Lower Flathead River, MT.

1921 - Great Northern Railway near Libby, MT.

1917 - Bagged-up diatomite ready for transport. American Mineral Products Company mine located a few miles south of Quincy, WA.

1921 - Alden and Pardee in Cascade County, MT.

1917 - Potholes Coulee, WA.

1921 - Pike's Peak ridge in the distance seen from Robinson Ridge west of Deer Lodge, MT.

1918 - Future site of the legendary Stillwater Mine which still produces palladium and other platinum group metals (PGM) from the Johns-Manville Reef at Nye, MT.

1918 - Field assistant(?) and weathered erratic near Deer Lodge, MT.

1909 - Hellgate Coal Company's incline and coal bunkers at Missoula, MT.

1921 - Snowy summits of Mt. Calowahcan (9065') and McDonald Peak (9820') in the Mission Range southeast of Ronan, MT.

1926 - Continental Divide at Priest Pass west of Helena, MT.

1918 - North Fork hydraulic mining for gold near Sumpter, OR.

1924 - Oil drillers in a swamp east of Monticello, FL.

1934 - Charles B. Johnson's homemade gold mill near Rozzelle Bridge, NC.

1918 - Geologist at the Rainier Quicksilver Mine in the Meadows District near Sumpter, OR.

1921 - Glacier Park Lodge at the east entrance to Glacier National Park, MT.

1918 - This half-buried erratic still pokes up through the grass of the quad outside University Hall at the University of Montana in Missoula.

1937 - Dean Stone Peak, Council Hill, and the confluence of the Clark Fork and Bitterroot Rivers as seen from McCauley Butte west of Fort Missoula, MT.

1918 - Was then and remains today the grubbiest town in the West - Cooke City, MT.

1924 - Pardee with plane table at Philipsburg, MT.

1940 - Glacial Lake Missoula shorelines above Camas Prairie, MT.

1936 - Fault scarp cuts young alluvium at Lima, MT.

1924 - Summit of Stewart Mountain above the Flint Creek Valley, MT.

1924 - Gallatin Valley, MT along South Fork Ross Creek with Ross Peak (9,008') and the Bridger Range. Photo taken from McGuire Road.

1927 - South Fork of the Flathead River prior to the construction of Hungry Horse Dam, Flathead County, MT.

1928 - Avalanche Gulch, Broadwater County, MT.

1924 - Algonquin manganese mine at Philipsburg, MT.

1934 - Survey geologists with hand bells or maybe candles(?) at Battle Branch gold mine near Dahlonega, GA.

1934 - Gold-bearing quartz veins at Pine Hill quarry, NC.

1936 - Zortman, MT is still a remote outpost in the Little Rocky Mountains.

1938 - Dredge spoils of the Pioneer Mining Company in Gold Creek Valley, northwest of Deer Lodge, MT.

1930 - The old road over Markel Pass, MT still exists. It parallels the modern highway, MT 382. Photo taken near Milepost 14.

1936 - Town of Grand Coulee, WA during construction of the Grand Coulee Dam. The two basalt blocks in the foreground resemble the two at Grand Coulee City Park (Shane Proctor Park) along Hwy 174.

1929 - Beacon Rock in the Columbia Gorge, WA/OR.

1935 - Placer gold processing, Powell County, MT.

1938 - Fishing fleet and Indian village at Neah Bay, Olympic Peninsula, WA.

1938 - Bluffs of glacial till, outwash gravels, and varved silts along the Flathead River at Sloan's Bridge, MT. Ice of the Flathead Lobe occupied Mission Valley to at least Crow Dam, well south of the Polson moraine. Pardee and many others incorrectly place its terminus at Polson, MT.

1937 - Morainal deposits and haystack rocks at Del Rio west of Grand Coulee, WA.

1937 - Little Bitterroot Valley west of Hotsprings, MT.

1936 - Town of Metaline Falls in the Pend Oreille Valley, WA with historic Lehigh Portland Cement Company building in the foreground and gabled Washington Hotel a few blocks behind.

1939 - Perched gravel bar ("gulch fill") along the Flathead River southeast of Paradise, MT.

1938 - Boulder toppled from Ribbon Cliff near Entiat, WA.

1938 - Volcanic ash exposed in roadcut south of Entiat, WA.

1940 - Flathead River at the future site of the Hwy 382 bridge at Perma, MT taken from hill above a stone quarry.

1940 - High level gravel deposit at Markel Pass, MT.

1936 - Earth flow failure in an enormous spoils pile of Nespelem Silt during excavation work at Grand Coulee, WA.

1926 - Ferry over the Skagit River, WA.

1918 - Black Bear Claim near Green River, UT.

Joseph T. Pardee, Field Geologist

I selected the photos above from 8 digital photo albums hosted online by USGS/ScienceBase. I've cropped, sharpened, and adjusted the contrast on each. Dates on some photos appear to reflect the year the film was processed. Unless otherwise noted, most were taken in the prior year. Many can be tied directly to specific pages in Pardee's fieldbooks, many of which have been scanned and also reside in the USGS archives. Pardee often wrote "Photo" next to fieldbook entries.