Levi S. Wild
Silver Bow County
History of Montana, Sanders, 1913

An essentially representative citizen and business man of 
Butte is Levi S. Wild who has resided here since 1886 and 
who for the past twenty years has been the general manager 
of the Butte office of Western Union.  Mr. Wild has traveled 
extensively throughout the United States and has lived in 
many of the most important metropolitan centers yet we have 
his word for it that Montana is the "Peerless" state.  A 
native of the old Wolverine State, Levi S. was born in 
Albion, Michigan, March 10, 1846.  His parents came from 
old Revolutionary stock in Massachusetts and were Michigan 
pioneers having traveled by team from New York State to 
Michigan in 1834. John E. Wild was born in the state of 
Massachusetts in 1810 and his wife, whose maiden name was 
Hutch was a native of Elmira, New York, where her birth 
occurred in 1813.  Mr. Wild erected the first frame house 
on a farm just beyond the outskirts of Albion Michigan and 
he was the first president of that town after its 
incorporation.  He was also member of the Board of 
Trustees of Albion Female College and a charger member 
of the first Masonic Lodge of Albion.  Mr. and Mrs. 
Wild removed to St. Joseph Missouri where they passed 
the residue of their lives, their deaths having 
occurred in 1870 and 1891 respectively.

The last born in a family of five, Levi S. received his 
educational training in his native place, where he attended 
Albion College for a period of two terms, just prior to the 
outbreak of the Civil War.  He learned telegraphy in 1861 
on the Michigan Central Railroad and in the following year 
went to Chicago where he accepted a position with the 
Western Union Telegraph Company on the corner of Lake and 
Clark Streets.  He remained in Chicago until the autumn 
of 1865 when he removed to St. Joseph Missouri whither his 
parents had removed from the old Michigan home.  In 1866 
he went to St. Louis to fill a position in the offices of 
Weston Union.  The spring of 1867 found him back in St. 
Joseph and in may of that year he started out on 
horseback across the plains for California.  

Arriving at Salt Lake City early in September 1867, Mr. 
Wild left the horseback route and took the Wells Fargo 
stage for San Francisco, via Austin and Virginia City 
Nevada.  The Central Pacific Railroad was completed and 
had trains running to Cisco California, near the summit 
of the Sierras, where Mr. Wild took the steam cars to 
Sacramento, thence by boat down the Sacramento River and 
the bay to San Francisco.  The roving propensity was not 
long in check.  In October he was back in Salt Lake City 
and in November of the same year took the stage for 
Virginia City Montana arriving in the then capital city 
on November 10 and at once assuming charge of the Western 
Union Telegraph office there.  He remained in Virginia 
City until the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad, 
in 1869 when he returned to Utah.  In 1870 he was again 
in San Francisco.  In March 1871 he accepted a position 
as paymaster for Ben Holladay on his railroad 
construction work in Oregon and Washington, with 
headquarters in Portland.  He filled the latter 
position until Jay Cooke's memorable financial
 smash in the autumn of 1871 when he returned to 
San Francisco whence he later went to Virginia 
City Nevada.  In 1873 he made a jump to Alabama, 
Tennessee an other southern states and in 1874 he 
was in Denver and later at Ogden Utah.  On the 
10th of November 1886 he returned to Montana and 
located at Butte where he again entered the 
services of the Western Union.

On December 26, 1886 Mr. Wild married Miss Pauline Bryan 
of St. Joseph Missouri.  She is a sister of Mrs. Bryan 
Irvine who came to Butte in the early '70s and married 
Mr. Bryan Irvine, the well known pioneer who made 
twenty two locations of mines on Butte Hill.  Mr. 
Irvine died in Butte, November 17, 1902.  Mr. and 
Mrs. Wild have one son, John Edgerton Wild who was 
born October 8, 1888 and who is now a member of the 
class of 1912 in the agricultural department of the 
University of Wisconsin at Madison.

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