The Wildest Hill Child - Walter Hill

James J. Hill and his wife, Mary had 10 children. Any family that large is bound to have a black sheep and in the Hills’ case, it was their youngest: Walter.

Walter wasn’t raised the same way his older siblings were. Maybe because he had not only one, but two older brothers and he wouldn’t be the “heir” to the railroads. Maybe because his mother suffered from tuberculosis and just didn’t have the same energy she had had when she was younger. Instead of being tutored at home, Walter was sent to boarding schools. He wasn’t even allowed to come home for his sister, Charlotte’s wedding.

After graduation he joined his brothers and got in on the ground floor at the railroads. If he had any illusions that the rules didn’t apply to the boss’ son, they didn’t last long. He was fired and it made headlines in the newspapers. He was hired back, but he was on thin ice.

When he was a teen, Walter had convinced his parents to buy an automobile. In 1905, they gave in and apparently Walter had a need for speed.

Crash #1

When Walter’s friend, Walter Lindeke married, Walter pranked the newlyweds by taking the reigns of their “getaway carriage”. He thought it would be fun to surprise them with the switch when they reached their destination. Instead, the horses got out of his control as they rounded a sharp turn. They crashed and the groom was thrown out out of the carriage. Luckily, no one was seriously injured. (There’s no official record regarding the bride forgiving Walter for ruining her wedding day).

Crash #2

When driving his buggy back to the city after a visit to the family farm, North Oaks, he got into another crash at a street crossing. He was bruised, but able to walk away.

Crash #3

Walter wasn’t as lucky in 1907 when he was driving his automobile on Summit Avenue and his passenger, a friend and liveryman named Fred Schroeder, was thrown from the car and died at the scene. Hill immediately turned himself in to the police, but public suspicion was mounting. The county coroner called for him to be charged for speeding. After further investigation, it was believed that Schroeder had an unknown illness that caused him to have “fits of paralysis” (perhaps seizures or a stroke) and it was one of these fits that caused him to be thrown from the open vehicle. Walter wasn’t charged.

Crash #4 and Marriage #1

I’m sure his parents had hopes that his marriage to Dorothy Barrows in 1908 would help him settle down. Instead, they read newspaper reports that he was involved in another automobile accident on Summit Avenue that ran down a doctor and his wife. Thankfully, it soon came out that the newspapers had jumped to the wrong conclusion. Walter had only witnessed the accident and gone to the police station to report what he had seen, but wasn’t actually involved.

Crash #5

But, the next year, he backed his car into a cart, turning it over and injuring two boys.

Time for a change

Probably for everyone’s safety, Walter was sent to manage the 50,000 acre farm at Northcote in northwest Minnesota. His father set him and Dorothy up with everything they would need to be successful and comfortable. Instead, Walter became well known in the local saloons. After his father’s death in 1916, Walter left the farm and never looked back.

Instead, he took over his father’s Goat Mountain ranch in Montana (the ranch had inspired the mountain goat on the Great Northern logo). Walter seemed to find his passion in breeding livestock but he still couldn’t settle down in one place. He bought a large part of Midway City, California and also built homes in Florida and New York.

Marriage #2

Dorothy and Walter divorced in 1919 and they managed to do so quietly, until Dorothy was sued for failing to pay the private investigator she had hired to build a case against Walter. Still, the sorted details didn’t hold Walter back from his second wedding. This time he married his eldest brother’s (James Norman’s) sister-in-law, Pauline. That honeymoon ended when Walter was caught up in lawsuits with a former girlfriend who claimed Walter had promised to marry HER. The problem was that she was already married when they became involved and it was his promises that led her to leave her marriage. He was also sued by the cuckolded husband for ruining his marriage. They settled out of court, but it cost Walter hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Marriage #3

His marriage to Pauline didn’t survive the lawsuits. The day Walter finalized his 2nd divorce, he signed the papers and then walked across the courthouse hall to marry his third wife, a former Follies show girl named Mildred. They had a tumultuous relationship with lots of separations and reconciliations and eventually another divorce.

Marriage #4

Walter’s fourth marriage - to his first wife’s sister, no less - also ended in divorce, just a year before he died of a sudden heart attack in Montana in 1944.

Walter’s only child, Dorothy (from his first marriage and whose wedding he had not attended) inherited his estate. Dorothy had married a member of the extended Pillsbury family and had a life in New York, but she moved to Montana and took over the ranch. She became much loved in the area and respected in the ranching community. Unfortunately, it was also the end of her marriage. She and Arthur Lord divorced in 1947.