Author Archives: carrollvanwest

Tower Rock State Park

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Since my initial survey of Montana historic places in 1984-1985, Montana state parks has established several small but significant historic parks. One of these, Tower Rock State Park, is viewed by hundreds of drivers daily, as it is located directly on Interstate I-15 along the Missouri River Canyon in southern Cascade County.

Native Americans traveling from their Rocky Mountain homelands into the game-rich high plains, used the rock formation, over 400 feet high, as a landmark between the two regions. The Bitterroot Salish, Lower Kootenay, and the Piegan Blackfeet are all associated with the place. For the Piegan Blackfeet it was and is a sacred place. Groups camped in the vicinity between the Rock and Missouri River.

When on July 16, 1805 Capt. Meriwether Lewis of the famous Corps of Discovery encountered the Rock on his journey west, he noted the presence of what he called an “Indian road” around the Rock. He then decided to name the place and wrote in his journal: “this rock I called the tower. it may be ascended with some difficulty nearly to its summit, and from it there is a most pleasing view of the country we are now about to leave. from it I saw this evening immence herds of buffaloe in the plains below.”

The surrounding region’s development took place in the late 19th century, accelerated by the decision of the Manitoba Road to built through the canyon a rail link connecting Great Falls, Helena and Butte. This line became known as the Montana Central Railroad.

In the early 20th century came an automobile route, U.S. Highway 91, and then the interstate highway in 1968. Interestingly, the property’s official designation as a historic site came much later. Tower Rock was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. Two years later, it became a state park of about 140 acres.

The park is day-use only but there is adequate public interpretation. There is also a maintained trail to the Rock’s base, allowing for a more direct experience with landscape and some mitigation of the noise from the highway. The importance of the place deserves a more robust treatment but perhaps more can come in the future ( and the adjacent disposal center can be moved to a more appropriate location).

Big Timber and suburban aesthetics

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Readers of this blog on Montana’s historic places will see that, clearly, Big Timber is one of my favorite railroad towns of the Yellowstone Valley. Its classic T-plan is one reason why. The top of the “T” runs roughly along the river and railroad tracks, facing the Crazy Mountains, while the stem of the “T” becomes the town’s Main Street, as you can see above.

Big Timber school in 2014

Distinguished one and two-story historic buildings along Main Street and scattered throughout the town are among the other reasons I enjoy Big Timber. The fate of of one of those places is the theme of today’s post.

I have earlier talked about the town’s three primary public spaces (the courthouse, the school/library, and the Sweet Grass Mill park at the south end of Main Street.) The second oldest space is defined by its historic school and the adjacent Civic Center (which also served as the school’s gym) and the Carnegie Library, which was expanded last decade.

Civic Center in 2014. Note the rear of the school in the far right side of the image
Expanded Carnegie Library, 2021
School after fire, taken in 2018

After the disastrous fire of 2017 that destroyed the school, the future of this public space was left in doubt. Here at the end of 2025 an answer has been presented—a new outdoor space called Sheepherder Square, designed by a Bozeman-based architectural firm. A foundation has been established to support the project and fundraising is underway.

The square will be an open space with an amphitheater and other amenities that link the library and civic center. The rendering above, from the Helena Independent Record website, shows a lot of concrete walkways, perhaps too much of a suburban aesthetic for a western railroad town. Will it compete with/ replace the Sweet Grass mill park? How will it blend with pedestrian traffic at the library and the Main Street business district?

This envisioned transformation of an empty lot will be interesting to monitor over the next year or two. Is the look and feel of Big Timber headed in the right direction?

Revisiting Nashua in Valley County in 2025

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It had been over a decade since I last stopped in late September 2025 at the tiny railroad town of Nashua in Valley County. Recently in the state and regional press, there have been stories about the uptick in tourism in northern Montana. It’s about time, especially for intrepid heritage tourists. As my posts from over ten years ago emphasized, an amazing array of stories and places await those who venture beyond Havre on U.S. Highway 2.

Even tiny Nashua (probably less than 300 residents today) reflects virtues worth exploring—community pride especially as reflected at the recently renovated Nashua High School, above. Since the town had lost population since my last visit, I had wondered if the school was still there as an anchor. Indeed it was, and looked almost modern as its 1935 core from the New Deal had been layered over with a new facade.

The railroad was the dominant influence in the town’s history—save for the 1930s boom during the construction of nearby Fort Peck Dam—and the town’s rail corridor is still defined by its grain elevators.

Queen of Angels Catholic Church

Competing for the Big Sky line of Nashua is the tall Gothic style bell tower of the Catholic Church. Established in 1917, Queen of Angeles Catholic Church began as a mission church. The Sisters of Charity worked with the diocese to establish an adjacent one-room school, below, as a way of growing and maintaining the congregation after the end of the Fort Peck Dam boom.

Then in 1953 Rev A. J. Schuh wrote an appeal to The Catholic Worker, a major newspaper, asking for the support for the construction of a rectory so that a more permanent foundation for the church’s work in Nashua could be laid. I had no idea if the appeal worked or not—but something happened. Queen of Angels Catholic Church was in great condition, and a major town landmark.

Front Street, Nashua

Along the old highway route was another landmark, of a quite different purpose: Vic’s Bar and Bowling Alley. Here is the private social center for the town. Great rural Montana towns always have at least one traditional watering hole. Vic’s is that place in Nashua.

Victor Dostert (1886-1961) homesteaded south of the town along the Milk River during the boom of the 1910s but when the bust came in the 1920s Dostert, his wife Anna, and their three sons stayed, making their mark with construction projects (from a theater to the Catholic Church) and taking advantage of the thousands of construction workers passing through by building and operating Vick’s Bar in 1935. He added the bowling alley in the 1950s—a decade when the bowling craze as a community institution reached its peak across the nation.

Dostert as Nashua’s town official had already been instrumental a few years earlier in the creation of the Nashua Civic Center, the public community center for this part of Valley County still today.

These places and brief stories hint at the richness of heritage experiences in Valley County. I’m glad I stopped at Nashua again (just too bad that it was early in the morning and Vic’s Bar was not yet opened). But give the residents much credit—they hung through another tough decade through commitment, community spirit, determination and faith.

Greenwood Cemetery in Wolf Point

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Municipal cemeteries are key public spaces in the Hi-Line towns of Montana. As they mostly date from the 1890s to 1910s, the cemeteries are part of the region’s progressive-era history. New settlers sought to replicate their prior homes—building permanent schools, new churches, town blocks, and homes while also establishing cemeteries.

In 1915 settlers formally incorporated Wolf Point as a municipality. A year later, mortician L.M. Clayton opened a funeral business, which would operate until 2005. On a hill several blocks north of the town’s railroad tracks, Clayton established Greenwood Cemetery by 1917. The name came from his wife, Nora May Greenwood. The Greenwood Cemetery Association was organized to administer the property, and its beautification was ensured by the town’s Woman’s Club when it worked with Wolf Point leaders and the cemetery association to extend water to the place. It became a green oasis of rest and tranquility within the often brown, water starved landscape. It remains an impressive landmark of civic pride today.

There are two ceremonial areas that immediately capture your attention. Two veterans circles have been installed to honor the many from Roosevelt County who have served the nation from World War I forward.

Scattered through the cemetery are other veteran burials, including ones from the Civil War and the Spanish-American War.

Civil War veteran
Spanish-American war veteran

The second ceremonial area is more subtle in appearance but unique in its own way.

Seehaler Chapel

Father Benedict Seehaler established and led Wolf Point’s Immaculate Conception Catholic Church from 1917 to 1931. After his death, parishioners built a tiny memorial chapel in his memory. It was built over his grave.

The chapel has an altar and a carved depiction of Christ. The church on Memorial Day holds a memorial mass is held (weather permitting) at the Father Benedict Seehaler Memorial Chapel in Greenwood Cemetery.

There are many impressive grave markers at the cemetery, whether they are unadorned crosses of early settlers to ones that through the materials used help to tell a story.

Gabriel Beauchman (d. 1940)
Jesse W. Baker, Sr (d. 1994)

Two of the most unique, however, are pedestal sculptures in memory of a husband and wife, Floyd and Bea Dewitt. Floyd passed away in 1980, Bea followed three years later. Floyd’s sculpture is a likeness while Bea’s pedestal sculpture is more symbolic, with the interpretation left to the visitor, until you learn she was a beloved nurse.

Historian Patty Dean found the DeWitt’s obituaries published in the Billings Gazette, see below, and graciously shared them:

There are many more observations you can make about Greenwood Cemetery but this is enough for the posting (I reserve the right to revisit this place in the future. It is simply one of the most significant municipal cemeteries of northern Montana.

Comet, Montana: A 1985 Flashback

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As I wrapped up the 1984-85 survey of Montana, I made a few specific visits to classic Montana ghost towns. Comet in Jefferson County was one of those stops and here I share for the first time the images from 1985.

In 1883, the Helena and Livingston Smelting and Reduction Company established the Comet mine, around which the town of Comet developed. Like many of the late 19th century mining towns, Comet boomed briefly until the economic crash of the 1890s.

But Comet had a second life in the 20th century. In 1900, interest in reopening the mine for copper and other base metals led to the establishment of the Montana Consolidated Copper Company. This company managed the property for a generation until 1927 when the Basin Montana Tunnel Company acquired the property.

Note the lone brick chimney to the right

The new operators built a processing center, and the town’s population reached new highs, although always remaining in the low hundreds.

Large scale operations at Comet ended in 1941 but scattered work remained for years—there was still activity at the site in 1985.

I found Comet to be an interesting combination of log buildings and balloon-frame one story buildings. So it spoke to me as both a historical place but also a surviving laboratory for studying the vernacular architecture of 20th mining camps.

I need to revisit Comet and see what’s left after 40 years. Perhaps in the new year!

The Helena Trail Riders Club House

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Preserve Montana makes many wonderful contributions to Montana, from history to trades education to heritage tourism. In late September 2025 I had the opportunity to attend its fun fall event, the Hidden Helena tour.

Helena trail riders club house

There were many jewels to explore that day but my favorite was certainly the Helena Trail Riders club house at what was once the State Fairgrounds but now the Lewis and Clark County Fairgrounds.

The group began in 1939 and within a decade it had built a loyal membership and a strong regional following through its annual riding competitions. It is recognized as the state’s oldest saddle club.

The first president was the Montana artist Shorty Shope, whose imaginative depictions of the Old West became known to millions of visitors through the decorative frames on Montana Highway Historical Markers that he developed for the state department of transportation in the 1940s and 1950s.

Original Shope frame design, 1983

The Club house preserves several of Shope’s works, from metal castings to the covers of scrapbooks.

The most impressive work by far is the mural Shope created for the clubhouse wall. What an expressive example of his eye as an artist!

This clubhouse confirms my bias about most things Montana—you find the best stuff in the most unassuming places.

Changes at Sleeping Buffalo Hot Springs

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In 2013 I last visited Sleeping Rock Hot Springs, just north of U.S. Highway 2 in Phillips County. The following year I posted about the obvious changes then underway to put this once vibrant mid-20th century recreational area back to greater prominence.

I returned in late September 2025 to find that, indeed, lots of improvements were made in the last ten years. A large bar/restaurant had been built, the grounds expanded and modernized, and the pool greatly enlarged.

But the hot springs’ New Deal roots were still apparent because attached to the pool facility was the pergola of the early 1930s.

This hipped roof stone structure came about due to the joint efforts of local residents and government officials. An exhibit at the Phillips County Museum in Malta (more on that place later) points out that a rancher Elbert Davison first saw the mineral springs as having medicinal qualities. He built a small pool that brought relief to his son who had polio. That effort convinced the Saco American Legion to do more and soon a local effort to gain control of the spot for public use met its success in 1931. Later that year the American Legion Hot Springs was in operation, quite a feat in Depression-era northeast Montana.

That effort caught the attention of county agent H.L. Lantz to work with the New Deal’s Resettlement Administration, then active in the Milk River Project area, to get the Public Works Administration to fund the pergola. That story is told in the marker (above) still at the pergola today.

Bruno Partzsch was the stone mason for the buildings, and some of his work is still visible in the expanded and modernized pool building of today (2025). I wonder if Partzsch is also the crafter behind the stone building at Zurich Park in Blaine County since both places have ties with the Milk River Project.

Sleeping Buffalo Hot Springs is on the market in the fall of 2025. Business is tough—actually way beyond tough—in this part of Montana’s Hi-Line. I only hope that new owners who can keep the momentum going can be found and this jewel of a historic place—shaped by a partnership between locals and government—will survive well beyond its 100th anniversary in 2031.

Glasgow’s amazing Federal building

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One of my favorite, if not #1 itself, Depression-era buildings in Montana is the amazing Federal building in Glasgow. First, this triumph of New Deal design from 1939 is a powerful statement in the public architecture of northeast Montana.

As you may know, Glasgow embraces its reputation as the most isolated place in the nation, that it is the definition of the middle of nowhere (a reputation however that I really challenge). But the restrained classicism of the building is refined and tasteful, perfect of the region.

Second, I really admire the building because it is so intact after 86 years of use. Yes, there are some alterations, but when you step into the post office lobby, you do feel like you stepped back in the 1930s.

Then there is the wonderful mural, “Montana’s Progress,” by Forest Hill. Completed in 1942, as the county’s other major, and huge, New Deal project, Fort Peck Dam and powerhouse, was gearing up to maximum production for World War II.

The left side speaks to the Native American past and the nearby presence of Fort Peck Reservation. There’s even a reference to gold panning, which never happened along this section of the Missouri. Then the right side reference the coming of settlers and the parceling of once open land into regular measured surveys.

The center section speaks to the Progress, predicted to come, centered on railroads, agriculture (cattle, wheat, hay, sheep), and industry, with the commanding image of the amazing Fort Peck spillway ( already world famous to an earlier feature story in Life magazine) and in the top corner, a sugar beet refinery.

The bomber flying above it all of course spoke to the immediate present , of World War II, but it also correctly predicted the future. The town and county would have its greatest period of prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s with the Glasgow Air Force Base.

What a historic document of its time and what an amazing building, still serving the community almost 90 years later.

Great Falls’ Historic Jewish Cemetery

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Over the past couple of years, I have documented several historic cemeteries in Great Falls. But I had missed one, the city’s Jewish Cemetery, and it too is on Highland Road south of the city, and east of the older Highland Cemetery. It’s a bit difficult to find as there are no signs but a metal entrance “gate” shows you the way.

The Jewish community in Great Falls established the cemetery in 1916, a few years after the establishment of the much larger and nearby Highland Cemetery. The Great Falls Hebrew Association owns the property, which according to tax records has ten acres. A 2003 story in the Great Falls Tribune estimated 20 burials but no number is certain. The majority of the intact grave markers are clustered in a row in the western end of the cemetery.

But other markers are scattered across the top half of the cemetery while other family plots had been damaged before the efforts at restoration over the last ten years.

A low metal, open fence marks a family plot erected for Anna and Abraam [is it a misspelling and should be Abraham as newspaper stories suggest?] Bass, probably installed 1931-1932.

Abraam “Abe” Bass was “well known in sporting circles” and identified as a gambler, according to the Great Falls Tribune of May 10, 1931. He had earlier in 1931 been forced to end a lottery that he operated from the Star cigar store in Great Falls. He left the town looking for opportunities in Nevada but died in an automobile accident about 30 miles from Reno, Nevada. His wife Anna had died earlier.

Years of neglect mean that some markers have been damaged. Or perhaps moved, as in the case of the Baby Grossman marker of 1927.

The year 1940 appears to mark the end of the cemetery’s first generation of burials. Max Gold, a retired carpenter, was born in Russia. He lived in Cut Bank for 15 years but as his death in late 1949, the family buried him in Great Falls.

In the 21st century families again began to bury their dead here, with Irving Greenfield in 2000 and Allan Bruce Silverstein in 2012. Perhaps those burials encouraged the Association to begin regular oversight of the property, following its restoration by Max Daniel Weissman as his Eagle Scout service project in 2015.

The Great Falls Jewish Cemetery is an important but once forgotten historic place in Cascade County. We can hope that the good efforts of maintenance continue and that more research is directed to the histories of those buried there.

The new state history exhibit: looking to the future but feet planted firmly in the present.

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Like hundreds of others who crowded into the new wing of the Montana Historical Society to get a sneak peek of the new state history exhibit, titled Montana Homeland, I expected to be dazzled. After all it had been 40 years since MHS had last updated its primary history exhibit.

The architects gave the exhibit designers a huge lofty space and there are tipis galore, their height dominating everything around them, challenged only by a reproduction headframe.

The headframe is in a corner and fades into the background unlike the tips which literally command most views within the exhibit, even at the end.

The message of the exhibit team is not subtle—Indigenous people dominate the past of the lands that today comprise Montana—but the hand of people in the last 100 years also dominate the built environment. The exhibit is missing the one lofty structure that is still found everywhere, representing a property type that also ties together so much of the state’s history—the Grain Elevator. Wish there was one in these lofty spaces. It helps to explain the impact of agriculture, the homesteading era, railroad lines, and town creation.

20th century Montana is thus far greatly underrepresented in the exhibit, almost as if the attitude was that nothing matters that much after the homesteaders—let’s wrap this baby up!

But by so doing you downplay the huge impact of the engineered landscape on the homeland, especially the federal irrigation programs that produced mammoth structures that reoriented entire places—Gibson Dam comes right to mind, and then there’s Fort Peck.

Irrigation also is central because of the diversity of peoples who came in the wake of the canals and ditches. Not just the Indigenous, not just the miners but the farmers and ranchers added to the Montana mosaic. A working headgate—would that help propel the story?

Right now the answer is no. There are many, many words in this exhibit, and, as people seem to want to do nowadays, the words are often preachy. I wondered about the so 2020s final section, where visitors are implored to live better together by accepting diverse peoples.

Montana is nothing but a melding of diverse peoples, from 14 tribes, the 17-18 ethic groups at Butte, the Danes of the northeast, the Finns of the Clark’s fork, and the Mennonites of the central plains, etc etc. if they had started challenging character of the actual Montana landscape had been front and center, then let history unfold to show how many people of all sorts of origins and motives tried to carve a life from it—you would have a different exhibit and one not so preachy.

Let’s hope the Final Cut has many less words, many more objects and a greater embrace of the state’s 20th century transformations.