John Minton Clifton was born in Ohio on February 4, 1883. By the early 1900s Clifton worked as a railroad contractor in Montana. He married Nora M. Toole in 1908. (Nora Toole Clifton was the daughter of John R. Toole, a Montana pioneer, who came to Montana in 1863 and was associated with Marcus Daly in his Montana enterprises. Her mother was Anna Hardenbrook of another Montana pioneer family. Nora was born in 1883 at Challis, Idaho. She attended Montana State University in Missoula in 1902 and graduated from Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio.). The family lived in Missoula for years before moving to Spokane, Washington, where the contracting firm Clifton worked with established a headquarters. The couple had three daughters, including Thula, and two sons.
From the guide to the John M. Clifton photograph album, 1909-1913, (University of Montana--Missoula Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library K. Ross Toole Archives)
