On the west wall of the St. Anthony Post Office...

On the west wall of the St. Anthony Post Office is an oil painting that has hung there since the Depression.

The mural was commissioned during the Franklin Roosevelt administration’s New Deal and painted in 1939 by a mountain artist who was later adopted by the Blackfoot Tribe — Elizabeth Davey Lochrie, a native of Deer Lodge, Montana.

She was commissioned to paint several murals, including the St. Anthony Post Office.

Mrs. Lochrie’s mural, “The Fur Traders,” depicts a frontier trading post with buckskin-clad traders dealing with Native Americans, trading cloth and utensils for furs. The traders stand watch with cradled muskets as the bargaining takes place.

The painting was done in oil on heavy woven canvas attached to the masonry wall. The edges of the painting are covered by varnished wood molding.

Mrs. Lochrie submitted preliminary sketches for the painting to the Section of Painting and Sculpture, later called the Section of Fine Arts. It was established in 1934 within the procurement division of the Treasury Department, the agency responsible for constructing and decorating federal buildings.

Her competition designs for the painting are now in a collection in the National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution.

The above text was taken from the "1998 Summer Guide to Recreation Unlimited," published by the Fremont Current. Text by Will Rhea.

This is part of the online edition of Henry's Fork Country.

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