Joseph A. Edge
Flathead County
History of Montana, Sanders, 1913

Joseph A. Edge has gained prominence in Kalispell and 
in Flathead County, not alone as a rancher of prominence 
and a man of influence for as a county official who has 
done as much for the development of the Flathead district 
as any other man who might be mentioned.  In his capacity 
as county commissioner he was directly instrumental in 
the building of a road system which gives the county a 
high standing in the northwest, owning as it does twelve 
hundred miles of made road.

Mr. Edge was born in Ottawa Canada, on March 11, 1874, 
and is the son of Peter N. and Margaret (McAlinder) 
Edge.  The father was a native born Canadian who came 
to the States on April 11, 1886, settling on a tract 
of homestead land located one mile from Kalispell.  
He has lived there continuously since that time, 
improving his land and prospering in true western 
fashion, devoting his time in later years principally 
to stock raising.  The mother, also a native of 
Canada, is of Scotch-Irish ancestry and was born 
in 1842 in the vicinity of Ottawa, Canada.  She 
was there reared and there married Peter Edge in 
1867.  They were the parents of three sons, Joseph 
A. of this review being the eldest of the three.  
Lenox P., the second was born in Ottawa in 1878.  
He is now a resident of Flathead County and is 
engaged in contracting and construction work, 
where he is a man of some prominence; Lester P. 
born in Ottawa in 1881 is a resident of Spokane 
Washington and is engaged in the practice of law.

Joseph A. Edge received his primary educational 
training in the schools of his native county.  
When the family removed to Flathead County in 
1886 Joseph Edge was but twelve years of age.  
He thereafter attended the common schools of 
Ashley up to the age of fifteen and it is worthy 
of mention that he attended in these years the 
second school to be built in the Flathead 
district--a fact most eloquent of the phenomenal 
growth of the  district.  Up to the age of 
eighteen the boy remained on his father's farm, 
but after that he engaged in freighting between 
DeMarsville and Libby, the time being particularly 
appropriate for such work, as the Great Northern 
Railway was then in course of construction.  
After the completion of the new road he changed 
his route and freighted from Kalispell to Fort 
Steele and carried on the work for a period of 
five years.  He then took up agricultural business, 
seeing the enormous possibilities in the work and 
located in the lower valley where he is now 
farming more than a thousand acres of fertile 
land and is known throughout the district for 
raising some of the most abundant crops in the 
Flathead region.  He has extended his interests 
to include various other enterprises and is 
identified prominently with many of the more 
important commercial enterprises in the county.  
He has gone into politics in the county solely 
that he might be in a position to do for the 
county in an official capacity that which as a 
mere voter he would not be privileged to perform 
and his work as a member of the board of county 
commissioners and as highway commissioner of 
Flathead County stands forth preeminently in 
the records of the county.

On February 16, 1898 Mr. Edge married Miss Mary E. 
O'Toole, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Michael O'Toole, 
a native of England, of Irish parentage.  He came to 
America in 1878, locating in Butte in 1885 and in the 
Flathead district in the following years.  He died in 
Kalispell in 1910 at the age of seventy.  The mother 
of Mrs. Edge is now living on her farm near Somers.

Mr. and Mrs. Edge are the parents of two children: 
Leonard J. born in the Flathead Valley on August 5, 
1900 and Alice born on May 13, 1902.  The family 
residence is now maintained in Kalispell where 
they have a beautiful residence at 405 Third 
Avenue, East, erected there in 1911.