Archives West Finding Aid

Christmas Gift Evans was born on Christmas Day, 1840, at Deerfield in Oneida County, New York, the son of Owen and Catherine (Morris) Evans. In 1862 he traveled to San Francisco by way of Panama. After a year of placer mining he returned home. In April 1864 he again headed west, this time across the plains to Montana. En route he met John B. Sanford, who would be his lifetime business partner. The partners settled in Helena and initially mined along Ten Mile Creek and Nelson Gulch. In partnership with J.W. Hartwell and others they built a ditch bringing water from Ten Mile Creek to Helena. Hartwell, Evans, and Sanford also established a lumber mill on Ten Mile Creek. In 1867 they established the first grist mill in the area, located 11 miles northeast of Helena at the entrance to the canyon on Prickly Pear Creek. The mill originally operated under the name Hartwell, Jurgens and Company and was also known as the Standard Flour Mills. Under the name Sanford and Evans, the partners were involved in a lumber, coal, feed, flour and farm implement business; various mining enterprises; a steam sawmill in Lump Gulch; and Helena real estate. After the death of the partners, the business continued as Sanford-Evans Inc. C.G. Evans married Margaret Graham in 1880. She died in 1894. On May 23, 1896, he married Bertha Bellis, a native of Liverpool, England. They had two children: Margaret Carlisle Evans (b. 1897) and Lewis C. Evans (b. 1901). Margaret married William D. Scott in 1921. Lewis married a woman named Agnes. After Evans' death, Bertha continued to be involved with a number of his enterprises, especially the real estate.