A delightful story in the Great Falls Tribune this week told of a trip in Blaine County, traveling south from Chinook to the Bear Paws Battlefield and onto the almost ghost towns of Cleveland, Lloyd, and Warrick in Chouteau County. In my 2013 survey I went along part of this route and it brought back fond memories. I posted a few images from Cleveland in an earlier post about the Bear’s Paw National Battlefield and its improvements in interpretation in the last 30 years. Today I will merely post a few additional images from Cleveland–yes, Cleveland, Montana–and my travels from six years ago.
The Tribune writers are certainly correct–it really is a beautiful drive, passing historic ranches, early 20th century abandoned log homes like the one above, and various buttes and outcroppings punctuating the landscape. I actually made the drive hoping that the Cleveland Bar would be open, and I could grab a brew and a burger.
Alas, it was shut down, but still there, and its crossroads on Peoples Creek Road was still the primary mail delivery spot for the scattered ranches of the county’s southern end.
Across the intersection of Cleveland Road and Peoples Creek Road was the community school, with its teacher dwelling. I always think how interesting but also how challenging it would be to teach and live at the same place. Should these types of buildings, located in rural communities across the northern plains, be better recognized for their unique contributions to American education and culture?
But of course the real attraction to Cleveland was the stories I heard in Montana in the 1980s about the Cleveland rodeo, and sure enough the rodeo grounds were a mere stones throw from the back of the bar.
Another traveler has posted a wonderful montage of the July 4, 2011 rodeo at Cleveland–truly a community affair. I wish that one day soon I can return when the chutes and corral are teeming with livestock and ranch families from miles around gather for an annual event, whose origins stretches back to the early settlement of Blaine County.
metal like Thunder jack in the Shields Valley on U.S. 89 north of Livingston. There’s always a wave and friendly greeting!
and consider those who have passed before with the many historical markers.
The vastness and diversity of the Big Sky Country is amazing, with so many bridges to
The county library, above, is small but busy, a reminder of how important these public buildings can be. About 5 years ago, the time of my last visit, Scobey still had its own medical center, below, as well as a distinctive post office, different from many in the region due to its modernist style.
But like most travelers I roar down the highway, perhaps noting the tall grain elevators facing the town proper, and pay little attention to anything else. In a post of four years ago, I spoke of Golden Valley County and its historic landmarks, highlighting the grain elevators, the Golden Valley Courthouse, the Sims-Garfield historic ranch, and the historic town bar in Ryegate. But like the other eastern Montana county seats, Ryegate deserves a closer look.
Ryegate received one of the standardized “modern” post office designs from the federal government in the 1970s–the town’s fortunes have remained basically frozen after the Milwaukee Road declared bankruptcy and shut down the tracks in 1980.
Another new financial services building since my 1980s visit to Circle is the McCone County Credit Union building, shown below to the left of the landmark McCone County Memorial building.
The new year will mark 35 years since I began my systematic exploration of Montana for the state historic preservation office. I am using that loose anniversary (actually I started in Toole County in February) as an excuse to share some of my favorite images from a time that seems like yesterday but certainly belongs to another era. The image of a winter morning in McCabe in the northeast corner of Montana is still perhaps my favorite of all. The idea of a town being merely a handful of unadorned buildings fascinated me, and the primacy of the post office also struck me.
The imprint of the metropolitan corridor of great railroad corporations crossing the northern plains with their trains speeding between Seattle and St Paul never left my memory— as four decades of my graduate students will sadly attest. The image of Hoagland in northern Blaine County recorded what happened to the spur lines of the main corridors by the end of the century. The image below of Joplin along US Highway 2 is what I always think of when someone mentions the Hi-Line.
Small-town Montana is also defined by its local bars and taverns, as I have repeatedly emphasized in this blog. Swede’s Place in Drummond just said a lot to me in 1984. But I wasn’t sure which door to use— the one between the glass block windows did the trick.
Some places I considered small town landmarks have disappeared in the last third of a century. The Antler Hotel and bar in Melstone on US Highway 12 is one I still miss.
Rural schools were everywhere even though some had been abandoned for a generation. The Boston Coulee School still had its New Deal privy. The New Deal also built the modernist styled Shawmut School. I haven’t been that way in awhile—I wonder if it still serves that tiny town.
The towns defined only by their community centers also fascinated me. Loring was bigger than Eden for what that’s worth but these comparatively substantial and obviously valued buildings told me that community meant something perhaps more profound in the Montana plains.
I will always remember Saco fondly for the town tour that residents gave me—it ranged from an old homesteader hotel (no longer there) to a Sears Roebuck kit bungalow, which is still a family home in Saco although Sears Roebuck has largely closed up shop.
These images are merely a beginning of my reconsideration of what I saw, heard and experienced 35 years ago but I know they represent places that still bring meaning to me today.
Montana's Historic Landscapes 