The Missoulian a few days ago had a splendid article about the demonstration of a beaverslide hay stacker at the Grant-Kohrs National Historic Site in Deer Lodge.
Grant Kohrs Ranch
The Deer Lodge Valley is a good place to find these ingenious machines, invented in the early years of the 20th century. Indeed in my 1984 work on the state historic preservation plan I encountered my first beaverslide near Galen, as shown below.
Near Galen, 1984
But to see the biggest concentration go to the Big Hole Valley in Beaverhead County. They were invented there in 1908. It takes two teams of horses to pull the hay up the slide and then drop it into the squarish pen, creating the hay stack.
Just outside of Wisdom Two beaverslides along highway 278
You can find great examples along the county’s historic roads.
Lemhi RoadBannock Pass Road
Powell County along the Blackfoot also has a scattering of the hay stackers.
Orphir Creek Road, Powell County Orphir Creek Road, Powell County A marker along US highway 12 interprets the region’s hay stackers
40 years ago I was certain that the beaverslides were not long for this world. Several folks at community meetings spoke of how many had disappeared. Yet ranch families were not ready to let them go, for tradition’s sake and the fact that loose stacked hay keeps better than modern machine baled hay. Beaverslide hay stackers remain part of the rural landscape of western Montana.
I last visited Whitetail ten years ago. Established along the Canadian-based Soo Railroad line a century earlier, the town was in a free fall, from a height of 500 c. 1920 to a handful of families in 2010. Then the Canadian, then the U.S. government closed the border crossing between 2011 and 2013. Now the town is down to a population of nine in 2020. God bless those still there, doing what they can.
The school building tells much of the story. Built when hopes for the town were high in the 1920s, it’s two-story height and bell cupola made it a landmark in the flat open terrain. I hope when I visit next, the school is there, a silent statement of the dreams with which our high plains were settled.
Secure in its concrete base, the old school bell, removed 50 years ago, is still there to ring, or so I can hope.
The community church, still a gathering place or has it gone the way of the Catholic Church, moved to the Daniels County Museum in Scobey?
Grain Company BuildingGas station and Garage, 2013Abandoned businesses, 2013A metal facade and open door marked what was left of the Whitetail Theater.
Businesses were largely gone ten years ago. But the post office and grain elevators remained. I bet the elevators are still there serving ranch families but you wonder about the post office.
Whitetail in Montana’s northeast corner is as far removed from Whitefish in Montana’s northwest corner as two places could ever be. They both began as railroad towns. One didn’t make it; the other thrives.
Abandoned home at Whitetail
But what’s been lost at Whitetail tells as much about history as what has been gained in Whitefish. You cannot understand Montana history without both.
In doing the photography for the 1984-85 survey for the State Historic Preservation Office, everything was in Black and White, both for the stability of black and white negatives but also for the cost—color slides were expensive. Thirty plus years later, it’s totally different. Everything is digital and only a few places will even process black and white film.
But I have continued to take a few rolls of black and white film on my recent work in Montana. Here are a few images to share.
The older US 2 route into Cut Bank features this wonderful piece of roadside sculpture. And back in 1984 the Glacier Gateway Inn was the place to stay.Frank Little Grave in Butte. The starkness and shadows of black and white film is perfect for cemetery work, as this famous grave at Mountain View Cemetery shows.The same is true for Anaconda’s historic cemetery. As I have said in earlier posts, this place is one of the state’s most compelling places. I can explore there all day long. Love the decorative iron work on the gate and entrance to the Knights section at AnacondaGhost towns from either the mining or homestead eras always leave buildings that just seem to say more in black and white. Here we are at Barber on US Highway 12 in central Montana.Abandoned schools that become lonely landmarks of hopes crushed: Buffalo, Montana
In 2024 I began to see media accounts, both regionally and nationally, of how Glasgow, the seat of Valley County, was the most isolated place you can imagine, truly in the Middle of nowhere.
Historic Great Northern Railroad corridor in Glasgow
I’m not one to argue with geographers and economists. I’m sure from their perspective, they got it right. But I never thought of Glasgow as isolated: it is on the Great Northern mainline, and part of the famed Empire Builder Amtrak route, and on U.S. Highway 2.
Great Northern depot, Glasgow
Then the town has always shown a great deal of pride and ambition, conveyed so effectively by its many historic buildings, starting with the First National Bank, built c. 1884 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
1st National Bank building, Glasgow
When you enter the town from the underpass of the railroad, the bank is the first landmark to catch your eye, appropriate too for the impact of local banks on a town’s economic prospects during the homesteading boom and bust of the 1910s and 1920s, respectively.
Rundle Hotel, during renovation in 2013
Another landmark from the homesteading era is the Rundle Building, once the Glasgow Hotel and restored in the last ten years as an upscale hotel in the heart of downtown. Built c. 1916 and designed by the important Billings firm of Link and Haire, the Rundle is a captivating statement of an Arts and Crafts-infused Mediterranean Revival style. I have been trying to get back to Glasgow to stay here for the last four years—maybe I will make it in 2025.
The 1930s transformed Valley County through the construction of the mammoth Fort Peck Dam on the Missouri River. Glasgow too has a major New Deal landmark in its U.S. post office and courthouse, built c. 1939 and designed by federal architect Louis A. Simon.
Post office/federal courthouse, Glasgow
Its understated New Deal Deco exterior obscures a jewel of an interior, highlighted by its New Deal-funded 1942 mural depicting local history and the changes brought about by the Fort Peck Dam by artist Forest Hill. This building too is listed in the National Register.
Glasgow post office mural
Another important New Deal supported building was all about the community, and providing new opportunities: the Glasgow Civic Center. It too has a New Deal Deco style, and its large public space has been used for almost every type of event or gathering you can imagine.
Glasgow Civic Center
Glasgow’s sense of itself today still respects it past, brilliantly conveyed by its large and expansive museum. When I first visited Glasgow 40 years
Valley County Museum
ago, I held a public meeting on the state historic preservation plan here, and the next morning residents gave me a detailed tour of the recently established museum. I was impressed with its collection then, now it sprawls through the building to the adjoining grounds.
Veterans section of the museumThe high school band sectionLewis and Clark mural, 2095, by Jessie Henderson, a Chippewa/Cree artistThe back bar at saloon exhibit
Indeed, the saloon exhibit underscores another fun part of Glasgow—across from the depot in the original route of Highway 2 is an amazing collection of bars, stores, and eateries, right out of the early 1900s.
Glasgow bars at depot
But back to the museum, and its important Montana decorative arts collection of the work of modern craftsman Thomas Molesworth, once in the town’s Carnegie library.
The newer exterior exhibits led the museum to move entire building to the property, including examples of the homestead shacks of the early 1900s that were followed by permanent homes such as this white painted bungalow.
Representative ranch house from homesteading boom
Pride of place, pride of the past. Glasgow might be in the middle but it is far from being nowhere as this small sampling of properties demonstrates.
The “new” UMW cemetery refers to the southern section of the cemetery, nestled in the bluffs of the Bull Mountains outside of the historic coal mining town of Klein. The UMW local 2866 operated from 1919 to 1973. The northern section contains early burials of members.
The “new cemetery” has numerous burials from the late 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s but most of the internments date to the second half of the 20th century.
The cemetery faces west (US Highway 87) and is centered on a long driveway that ends at a flagpole. Then the rows of graves on either side are roughly equal in size, giving the “new” cemetery a sense of symmetry not apparent in the earlier north section.
Looking northwest from the center drivewayLooking northwest from the center drivewayLooking south from the center drivewayLooking southwest from the center driveway.
The cemetery’s rocky bluff setting, combined with colorful fall trees, is beautiful in September and October. It’s use of foliage and shade is another difference with the northern section of the UMW Cemetery.
South section facing eastSouth section facing southeast
There are several interesting grave markers. Anna Tomko (d. 1944) was born in Croatia in 1866. She arrived in the United States in 1901 and was leaving in Roundup by 1920 where she became known as Annie Tomko.
The beautiful cut and polished stone marker for Carl Eldon Rorick dates to 1941. Rorick was a native of Klein and only 17 years old at the time of his death.
The large grave marker for Mary (b. 1872) and David Murphy (b. 1870) dates to 1942; she died in January while he died in December.
David was a native of Scotland, who was working as a coal miner at Klein at least by 1920. He married his wife Maggie (Margaret) McCann Murphy in about 1892.
When I lived in Helena from 1981 to 1985 one of my favorite jaunts was along U.S. Highway 12 from Townsend to Roundup. It remains so today, 40 years later. My initial interest centered on railroad corridors. Helena to Townsend followed the Northern Pacific Railroad and a good bit of the Missouri River (now Canyon Ferry Lake).
Northern Pacific bridge over Missouri River near TownsendMissouri River and Canyon Ferry valley near TownsendMissouri River campground near Townsend
It was a brilliant day with fall colors just popping as we left US 287 and turned into the heart of Townsend.
As soon as you leave town to the east you encounter a lovely mix of ranches and irrigated fields until you thread your way through a national forest along Deep Creek.
Fall colors along Deep Creek
We decided to continue east by briefly jumping off US 12 and go to Montana 284 so we could follow the Milwaukee Road corridor from Lennep to Martinsdale where we would reconnect with US 12. Two of my travelers had never been to the Milwaukee Road “ghost town” of Lennep. It was a beautiful morning to be there.
Milwaukee Road powerhouse
You first realize that this abandoned railroad corridor is different when you encounter an electric powerhouse—the Milwaukee Road’s tracks were electrified from Harlowton Montana west to Idaho.
Lennep
At Lennep the landmarks remain—the Trinity Lutheran Church, the store, the school, a teacher’s cottage and an early notched log house—but all were a little worse for the wear compared to my last visit 10 years earlier.
As we traveled east that morning we quickly moved through the county seats of Harlowton and Ryegate to get to Roundup by lunch. The Musselshell Valley was brilliant even as signs of the old railroad almost disappeared.
Near Ryegate Near Lavina
Roundup continues its renaissance with new businesses and restored buildings. The town core, clustered around the intersection of US highways 12 and 87, was busy on a fall weekend.
A mural on the great cattle drive of 1989The Backporch—great bbqNew mural at the KegArt studio doing wellAwaiting its renovation Community green spot
As I observed a few years ago Roundup residents worked together and created a plan—and the place continues to work the plan, from the adaptive reuse of its historic stone school to the careful stewardship of its historic fairgrounds. It’s impressive.
After Roundup we stopped at two county seats on the return to Helena. Harlowton was rocked by the closing of the Milwaukee Road over 40 years ago. It has struggled to reach the economic comeback achieved at Roundup. But the historic stone buildings have great potential. Three of them are now part of a large museum complex.
Then there’s the newcomer: the Gally’s microbrewery and pub, housed in the 1913 Montana Block.
It’s a great place for local beer and good conversation—and maybe the start of something good for the town.
US Highway 12 was torn up for major repairs when I last visited White Sulphur Springs last decade. The improvement along its population growth and the ever expanding hot springs gives the place a new look, reflected in new catchy fronts to local bars along with new businesses such as a huge Town Pump.
But historic White Sulphur Springs is doing ok too: the New Deal constructed Meagher County Courthouse is still a roadside landmark while the old railroad corridor, just west of the Hot Springs, remains, awaiting its rebirth.
These places are mere highlights along a historic route that’s worth a drive anytime in the fall.
When I last explored Bonner and Milltown in 2015, the effort to reclaim the river landscape created at the confluence of the Blackfoot and Clark’s Fork rivers—but long hidden by past industrial uses—was underway but far from finished. At the end of September 2023 I was able to return to the park and see the transformation myself. It is a quite remarkable super-fund project that restored a natural landmark but also told a significant historical story.
At the confluence section of the park, the removal of the dam is now 15 years old and while you can still visualize its location, to many it must look like a place that hasn’t changed in decades.
The interpretation kiosk relates the changes well but I like how the park is not inundated with markers. Paved trails take you everywhere, and give you an up close but safe way to view the steel bridge of the Northern Pacific Railroad’s mainline along with the nearby but now abandoned tunnel for the Milwaukee Road.
Talk about a transportation crossroads for the Mountain West—still a great site from the Milltown Bridge where you have bridges for Montana 200, the Interstate and the two railroad lines easily viewable from the pedestrian bridge.
Trails that link the pedestrian bridge to the river were not complete in 2014 but now they are finished and give you another opportunity to go to the Blackfoot river bank.
Milltown State Park is a remarkable historical landscape, whether you explore by hiking, biking or by boat.
My exploration of historic town cemeteries in Montana over the last two years ends at one of my favorite county seats, Harlowton, the seat of Wheatland County. Located on bluffs overlooking the Musselshell River, Harlowton is a classic railroad town, full of interesting and architecturally compelling buildings.
The two cemeteries share that significance. The city cemetery dates to c. 1907 and coincides with the construction of the Milwaukee Road through the valley.
A key focus of the cemetery is its veterans memorial, built with local stone in 1927 by the Al-Be-Dad Shrine Club. The stone pillar is topped with a gold American eagle, similar to other war memorials across the state from the 1920s. It is dedicated to all veterans of American wars.
The distinctive metal marker for June Adeline Ehler Vezey dates to 1997.
There are over 2000 burials at the Harlowton Cemetery. The Harlowton Catholic Cemetery is much smaller. The first burials took place in late 1907.
The prominent cross marker for Leopold Labrie is dated 1884 but probably represents a memorial. Other family members are buried nearby.
The rectangular shape of the cemetery is defined by a high hedge that surrounds it.
Both cemeteries are irrigated and well maintained, a reflection of the deep respect for their past held by residents of Harlowtown and Wheatland County.
For almost 50 years the Sun River Valley Historical Society has undertaken the preservation and restoration of Fort Shaw (1867-1891), one of the most important federal sites in the west. When I first met and talked with the group in 1984 during the state historic preservation planning process, efforts were just underway, focused on the officers duplex, the wash house, and bakery.
Officers duplex
Now I would like to focus on achievements of the last 10 years since the last visit in 2013. I have posted earlier about how the society has restored the cemetery. This post is about the regimental officers quarters, where restoration began with repairing the historic adobe walls in 2014 and continued with a comprehensive interior restoration over the next several years.
Commanding Officers quarters
While the first restored building serves as a general history exhibit about the fort and immediate region, the society restored the Commanding Officers quarters as a period historic building.
Dining roomParlor
Within the period objects found in each room, the society also empathizes a “First Lady” theme, adding a strong historic textiles collection to the museum.
Restored interior doors and floorsRestored staircase and flooring
The society took care with the kitchen and also addressed the presence of Chinese cooks at the property. The federal census of 1880 records 5 Chinese men at Fort Shaw. A letter from 1887 documents that Ah Wai was employed as a cook for the private company that operated the post’s mess hall and store. The Fort Shaw Indian School superintendent, who may have resided in this building, hired Joe Ling as a cook in 1898.
A bedstead for an unidentified Chinese cook at Fort Shaw is located within the pantry of the building Bedrooms arranged in the second floor—note the massive chimney flue of adobe brick.Desk within officer’s bedroomCentral hall restoration, first floor
My initial impression is that the many period objects are both a blessing and a curse. A blessing is that the furnishings make the place “come alive” and creates ample opportunities for storytelling about the inhabitants. It reinforces the Victorian era that the fort was part of—and the storyline of military families in the west. The curse is that the rooms may have too many objects—and few that are directly tied to the property. Do overfurnished interiors overwhelm the visitors visually—it is too much to take in?
Such is the challenge of the period room historic house museum. If the past here is any indication, the preservation of Fort Shaw is far from over—I look forward to future visits.
This week Chico Hot Springs and 500-plus acres were sold—shocking news for many but really not surprising, considering what happened earlier in the year at Izaak Walton Inn in Essex. A big development company that operates high end hotels and resorts from California to New York purchased the property and surrounding acreage for $33 million.
First I am glad the long-term owners got “paid.” They deserved it. They have been successful and effective stewards of this special place, a property I first documented during the historic preservation plan survey in 1984.
Chico Hot Springs in 1984
Let’s hope the new owners “get it” and respect the history and traditions of the place. After all it is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. (You can read my earlier 2016 blog “Chico Hot Springs” on the place for more on the history).
Detail of one-story wing in 1984
The place has changed in my 40 years of visiting. By the 21st century, the one-story side wing had grown to two stories and a small conference center had been built.
2011 view from second story windowConvention center in 2006
However these changes left the historic barn and stables intact. My children loved to pet the horses at the barn.
Barn in 2006
Over the last 40 years other buildings were added: cabins, wagons, separate spa and more—but the historic lodge remained at the center and the heart of the experience. From 1984 to today, Chico had evolved into a destination not just a hot springs pool with an absolute killer bar and restaurant. (In fact the restaurant has been legendary for almost 50 years and was highlighted in the classic western movie “Rancho Deluxe” from 1975.)
Sazerac 75Prime rib—a house special for over 40 years.
Throughout the changes the rustic feel, the early 20th century aura of the place remained. The lobby had the same lumpy chairs, the same heavy tables, well worn. If you had to have more modem facilities, they had it. But if you wanted a taste of the west from decades ago, you had the lobby—the perfect place to have a great cup of coffee and watch people in way too big of a hurry.
And you have the plain, no air conditioner third floor rooms—a bed, sink, and common bathroom down the hall. I have heard now for years that visitors complain about the third floor. I really hope the renovation leave these plain but comfortable rooms as they are.
Chico has many character defining nooks and crannies that could disappear in an over-wrought renovation. There’s no need to make every room a $300 “suite”. Do that in the modern additions of the last 30 years; respect the old historic inn and the pool. Keep Chico accessible to all, not just the few.
Montana's Historic Landscapes 