SILVER BOW COUNTY, MONTANA
Judge Geo. M. Bourquin
Transcribed by:  Lorene Frigaard

Extracted from A History of Montana, by Helen Fitzgerald 
Sanders, Volume I, Illustrated, the Lewis Publishing Company 
(not incorporated),  Chicago and New York, 1913,  p. 1270.

Judge Geo. M. Bourquin, United States district judge for 
Montana, appointed thereto by President Taft, executed 
the oath and assumed the duties of the office on the 
9th day of March, 1912.  Judge Bourquin was born on the 
24th day of June, 1863, on the banks of the Allegheny 
river, near Tidionte, Warren county, Pennsylvania.  He 
is of French ancestry, his father, Justin Bourquin, 
having been born in Switzerland, and his mother Celestine 
Bourquin, nee Ducray, born in France.  In their youth they 
came to America, met and married in the United States and 
became the parents of ten children of whom George was the 
ninth.

Justin Bourquin was by vocation a blacksmith and farmer. 
 As a boy Judge Bourquin attended the country schools of 
Warren and Crawford counties in Pennsylvania; at the age 
of seventeen he taught therein, and at eighteen, in 1881, 
he went to Aspen, Colorado, where several of his brothers 
had already located.  In that vicinity and at Leadville 
he was alternately engaged as a cowboy, miner and 
smelterman, until in June, 1884, he came to Butte, 
Montana.  He first worked in the silver mills at 
Walkerville, a suburb of Butte, then was employed 
as a hoisting engineer at various Butte mines.  
Republican in politics, in 1888 he was the candidate 
of his party for the office of county clerk and 
recorder of Silver Bow county, but was defeated,--
his first essay in politics.  Active in the state 
campaign of that and the next year, in June, 1890, 
he was appointed by President Harrison receiver of 
the public money in the United States land office 
at Helena, Montana.  This office he held four years.

Having commenced the study of law in 1889, in 1894 he 
was admitted to the bar of Montana, first practicing 
in Helena, and then, after 1899, in Butte.  In 1904 he 
was elected judge of the district court of the state 
for Silver Bow county and served therein four years, 
then resumed law practice in Butte, in which he 
continued until his appointment to the Federal bench, 
as before stated.

In 1891 Judge Bourquin was married to Miss Mary M. 
Ratigan, of Butte, Montana, and three sons have been 
born to them:  George R., Marion M. and Justin J., 
all of whom are living.  They reside in Butte, which 
city represents the official residence of the Judge.  
Of fraternal orders the Judge is a member of the 
Knights of Pythias and of the Woodmen of the World.

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