Leggat, Alexander, 1876-1961

Alexander Leggat was a Butte, Montana mining engineer, hotel owner, and collector of western Americana. He was born in Owasso, Michigan, on December 22, 1876, to John A. Leggat and his wife, Claribel Ament Leggat. He came to Butte, Montana with his mother in 1880 and attended public schools in Butte, graduating from the Butte High School in 1894. He next attended the college of Montana at Deer Lodge, and also the Michigan School of Mines in Houghton. He worked as a mining engineer in Montana and served in many Butte civic organizations. Leggat purchased a hotel in Butte in the early twentieth century and became active in the Montana Hotel Association in 1923. He began collecting books and manuscripts pertaining to Montana and the West in the 1920s and eventually compiled an impressive private library. Following his death in 1961, his widow began negotiations with Montana State College for the sale of the collection.

From the guide to the Alexander Leggat Collection, 1864-1964, (Montana State University-Bozeman Library, Merrill G Burlingame Special Collections)

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