Robert McIntosh Trafton
Blaine County
History of Montana, Sanders, 1913

Robert Trafton, the pioneer merchant of Malta, has been 
identified with the state of Montana since 1886, and 
during the intervening years has built up a most 
substantial and profitable business in this place.  
Mr. Trafton was born in New Brunswick, May 5, 1847, 
and is the son of Charles and Julia Ann (McIntosh) 
Trafton.  The father was a farmer in New Brunswick 
and he came to Brainerd, Minnesota in 1892, his death 
taking place there in the following year.  The mother 
died at an early age in the New Brunswick home.  Of the 
nine children born to these parensts, seven are deceaed, 
the remaining member besides Robert M. of this review, 
being Isabelle, the wife of George Jenkins of Brainerd 
Minnesota.

As a boy at home, Mr. Trafton received the usual 
country schooling in the typical log schoolhouse 
of his day and he continued to live with his parents 
in their home until he was thirty two.  When he left 
home he made his way to Minneapolis, Minnesota and 
his first work in that section of the country was 
about the lumber camps on the St. Croix River in 
which work he was occupied for a year.  He then 
went to Bartlett North Dakota, a new town on a 
new branch of the railroad which penetrated that 
section of the country.  The surrounding country 
was filled with people who anticipated settling 
thereabouts and Mr. Trafton was persuaded to purchase 
a hotel at Bartlett for which e paid fifteen hundred 
dollars.  The threatened boom failed to materialize 
and the buddy town was effectually killed.  Mr. 
Trafton was left with a hotel on his hands and no 
apparent use for it, but nothing daunted, he set 
about to remove the hotel to the people since it 
was apparent that the people would come to his 
hotel.  He tore the structure down and moved it 
overland twenty miles to Devil's Lake  then shipped 
the material across the lake to the town of 
Minnewanken where he rebuilt the hotel and 
operated it for five years with much success 
and profit.  In  1886 he came to Exeter, 
Montana and building him a log house, started 
a trading post.  After remaining there in 
business for two years he came to Malta and 
it was he who built the first store and 
dwelling in this place, several years before 
the town was laid out.  He erected his 
building from railroad timbers which he 
purchased from the Great Northern.  The 
structure was forty-two feet square and 
he used half for the store and the remainder for the 
dwelling.

Mr. Trafton's business for a time consisted chiefly in 
the buying and shipping of buffalo bones.  The first 
year he was located at Malta he shipped over thirteen 
hundred tons and the second year his shipments 
aggregated over twelve hundred tons.  For this 
beginning Mr. Trafton has built up a mercantile 
business second to none in the city of Malta. 
 His present store is a large brick structure, 
entirely modern in every way.  In addition to his 
mercantile interests Mr. Trafton is also a large 
ranch owner and cattle raiser to which business 
he gives considerable attention.  He was the first 
president of the First State Bank of Malta, and is 
the owner of a quantity of valuable city property 
as well as being the proprietor of a branch store 
at Coburg, carrying a stock of eight to ten 
thousand dollars.

Mr. Trafton is regarded as one of the leading business 
men of this district.  He has never used intoxicants or 
tobacco in any form and his general integrity is of a 
most unimpeachable character.

In 1880 Mr. Trafton was united in marriage with Marion 
Rankin Knolton, daughter of Edward Knolton, a farmer of 
Carlton County, New Brunswick, now deceased.