Missoula (MT) Daily Missoulian
May 8, 1909
page 6

NOTE: The item below was abbreviated from the original as noted by the ellipsis.

Washington, May 7–In response to the urgent request of the treasury department that a collector of customs at Great Falls be named immediately to succeed Charles M. Webster, deceased, the Montana senators today recommended the appointment of John G. Bair of Teton County.

J. G. Bair, the leading attorney of Choteau, Teton County, has attained an enviable position in legal circles not only of his home city but of Montana...

A native of Berkeley County, West Virginia, he was born on December 4, 1860, the son of William and Eleanor (Griffith) Bair. The father was born in 1831 in Perry County, Pennsylvania, removing when a young man to Virginia and then to Lawrence County, Indiana, where he died in 1881. His wife, the mother of Mr. Bair, was born near Winchester, Va., in 1834, and is now living at Bedford, Ind., at the age of 75 years. J. G. Bair was finely educated in the schools of Gerrardstown, Va., and Lawrence County, Indiana, the male and female college of Bedford, Ind., and the Southern Indiana Normal College of Mitchell, Ind. Following his career at the latter institution, Mr. Bair studied law in the office of Newton Crook of Bedford and was admitted to the bar of Indiana in that city in 1886 with a good standing.

In the fall of 1889, Mr. Bair came to Great Falls, Mont., and the next summer was city editor of the Great Falls Leader, filling this responsible position efficiently. He then removed to Choteau where he became principal of the public schools, continuing in this office three years. Upon the creation of Teton County he was appointed county superintendent of schools.

Typed and donated by Randi Richardson.