Custer County Cemetery in Miles City

Posted on September 7, 2026 by carrollvanwest

Located south of town on Montana Highway 59, the Custer County Cemetery dates to the first years of settlement in the 1880s.

However its current look of rows of trees and well manicured grounds dates to the mid-twentieth century and a rather unique New Deal project. In the summer of 1940 the Works Projects Administration gave the county $4,302 to “beautify and improve” the county cemetery.

WPA crews added stone retaining walls, new driveways, and a three-arch stone gateway to the property as part of its “public improvements.”

The family of Roy Montgomery who died 9 months old in 1895 purchased a metal Victorian designed grave marker.

Another Victorian style marker built from granite was placed to memorialize the Milligan family. Miles Howard Milligan (b. 1897) died in 1918. The Miles City Star of October 6, 1918 reported that Milligan died from the Spanish flu at the army training school at Boulder, Colorado. His funeral was a major community event, “with full military honors.” Later generations, including his wife Mary and son Miles, are also buried in this family plot.

Veteran graves may be found throughout the cemetery. For example, Joseph Taliaferro Brown (1849-1908) served in the Confederate Calvary from Mississippi under the command of Gen. Nathan B. Forrest during the Civil War then served in as a captain in the U.S. Calvary after the war. He came to Custer County in 1886 and established a cattle ranch along the Tongue River near Birney. A tall white obelisk marks his resting place.

Two other Civil War veterans buried at the cemetery fought for the United States during the Civil War and then served in the Sioux campaign of 1876. Lyman Smith (1846-1930) served in the 5th Wisconsin Infantry. In the summer of 1876 he was a civilian employee at the Tongue River cantonment, the precursor to Fort Keogh. At the cantonment and fort, Smith was “a wagon master, a hay cutter, and [had] various other occupations,” according to the Miles City Star, October 29, 1930.

Tom McFadden (1845-1896) served in the 2nd Kansas Cavalry and then as an “Indian scout” for Gen. Nelson Miles in 1896. He died at his powderville ranch after taking his own life once he had been kicked by a horse and knew he had no chance of surviving the accident. This story appeared in the Livingston Enterprise of September 5, 1896.

Most veteran graves are arranged in rows in a separate section of the cemetery, which is graced by the American flag. This section is a precursor to the much later Eastern Montana State Veterans Cemetery which is south of the Custer County Cemetery.

The cemetery is a beautiful spot and there are many stories within its boundaries. Older grave markers predominate but several more recently erected grave markers tell stories of the late 20th and 21st centuries.

I’m grateful that the WPA spent the money and time on this cemetery in 1940. New Deal agencies typically appropriated funds for other projects but this “public improvement” project certainly brings meaning and value to Miles City today.

Riverside Cemetery, Fort Benton

Posted on July 31, 2023 by carrollvanwest

Riverside Cemetery dates to 1883, a time of considerable change and expansion in Fort Benton’s history. Just 2 years earlier, summer 1881, the U.S. Army left the fort, and it began a rapid decline. In the following winter of 1881-1882 the town began a building boom that led to the construction of the Grand Union Hotel by the end of 1882.

Freight traffic on the Missouri River also boomed and the River Press, the city’s leading newspaper for the next 100 plus years, published its first edition. 1882 also witnessed the city’s first electric lights and the construction of many new residences. And by the year resident had formed the Riverside Cemetery Association.

The loss of the Chouteau County Courthouse to fire in early 1883 didn’t seem to slow momentum at all. That spring voters incorporated Fort Benton—what had been a trading and military town was now a formally established town. Soon thereafter Riverside Cemetery was established on the Missouri River bluffs northeast of town.

The new town cemetery had approximately 40 fenced acres and was ready for use by Decoration Day (now known as Memorial Day) in 1883. The cemetery also had reinterred graves from earlier in-town cemeteries at approximately the location of First Christian Church and behind Haas and Associates and Farmers Union Oil Company.

Today the gap between the initial cemetery and burials in the 20th century is noticeable. The early burials are on the east side while the modern section is on the east side clustered near a row of trees m. Clearly early tombstones have been lost—the number of grave depressions indicate that there are many additional burials that lack a grave marker.

Central section with the west section in the background among the trees. In general the west section dates to mid 20th century and later

The remaining grave markers from the late 19th century tell powerful stories. The Charles Fish (d. 1890) obelisk with urn marker below honored a Canadian native who served as a drummer boy with the 38th Wisconsin Infantry in the Civil War; he was only 15 years old when he joined.

The Patterson family section is one of the cemetery’s oldest, with the earliest tombstone dating to 1886.

Tombstones with cross themes mark the graves of Jane Jackson (d. 1885) and Edward Kelly (d. 1890).

This image of the Jackson tombstone is another visual example of the number of empty spaces in the east side of the cemetery. Existing depressions indicate that many burials without grave markers are in the section.

In 1891 the cemetery received its first U.S. military veterans markers. The one below was for Patrik (the spelling used on the tombstone) Fallon, a Civil War veteran. By now Fort Benton had grown to the point that its Decoration Day ceremony involved hundreds, led by the cemetery association, camps of the Grand Army of the Republic and soldiers from Fort Assiniboine.

While the graves of many pioneers are unmarked, the Sullivan family located its graves near the edge of the bluff, truly an awe-inspiring setting overlooking the town, river, and railroad tracks.

Impressive tombstone art is scattered throughout the cemetery. The unique yet beautiful pressed metal crosses for brothers Julius (d. 1923) and Henry (d. 1924) Bogner belong, stylistically to the Victorian era, but were commissioned and installed in the Jazz Age.

The Winfred and Margaret Stocking marker (c. 1910-12) is unusual in that a sizable base supports a triangular rock Boulder. Margaret Stocking upon her death in 1812 was identified as the first white woman to settle in Fort Benton in 1865.

The marker for Bessie Bright (d. 1917) has an open Bible motif, typically found in tombstones of the 19th century

Riverside Cemetery has an impressive veterans section, known as the Military Plot. Veterans from the Spanish American War of the 1890s to the conflicts of the 21st century are buried here.

The majestic flag pole was added in 2916.

“Old” Highland Cemetery in Great Falls

Posted on July 25, 2023 by carrollvanwest

There are two Highland cemeteries in Great Falls, and for my money, the first Highland, now known as “old” Highland, is the more interesting and compelling funerary landscape. In fact, in its range of markers and the stories conveyed by the markers, Old Highland is one of the most interesting cemeteries in the state.

A paved drive divides the old from the new, but just exploring the grave markers themselves and their earlier dates separates the two cemeteries. The markers are so diverse in materials and form that it difficult to convey the place in a post of moderate length. But here goes.

Martha Cunningham’s 1912 cast-iron marker was the first, of several, that I encountered. The marker reads: “She did what she could. Now at Rest in that city where the streets are pure gold.” Sarcasm in your marker–Martha I bet was an original.

Ralph Jones, a mason from England, died while constructing the tower of the Anaconda Smelter in 1908. His friends erected the cross, with the words Safe Home, in his honor. Jones’ story is also told at annual cemetery tours.

Old Highland also has several Civil War veterans buried throughout the cemetery.

Barbara Harper’s metal marker is also noteworthy, but the most interesting metal marker by far is a small one in a corner of the cemetery. Alexander Leistiko died in 1906. His marker is pressed metal of two people at a cemetery, with the metal sculpture, complete with a skull motif, resting on a metal pedestal. I am a long ways from seeing every cemetery in Montana but this marker, thus far, is unique, and fascinating.

The artistic treasures of this cemetery just don’t end there. There is the grand obelisk for Robert Vaughn, a famous Cascade County rancher, dominating a low stone wall family plot.

Indeed, a few steps away from the Vaughn family plot, you can look to the north and see the treed landscape of “new” Highland Cemetery, and then look to the south and see the edge of the initial Highland cemetery.

You would expect to find a more Victorian presence in the Old Highland markers since the place began in the late 19th century, The Delaney family plot, even with its overgrown ornamental planting, is an impressive statement of Victorian sensibility. The John Wilson marker of a decorated scroll over stones is just as impressive.

The heavy obelisk of Scottish immigrant James Stewart Tod (d. 1891). Tod lived with his family in Glasgow as late as 1891, being listed in a Scottish census for that year. But in the summer of 1891 he was in Montana as a merchant but died soon after arrival. The local Board of Trade (the precursor to the chamber of commerce) praised Tod for his character and service.

The Caulfield family plot also memorized service, in this case to the Great War.

There is no such to see and say about Old Highland Cemetery. I will revisit this place, hopefully soon.

Choteau Cemetery, Teton County

Posted on June 6, 2023 by carrollvanwest

Choteau Cemetery is one of the oldest public spaces in Teton County as it dates to the platting of the town itself in 1883.

The beautiful, well manicured grounds of today did not always exist. For the first four decades the county “kept” the cemetery but merely as a burial ground for residents and the poor (the county bought 10 plots for indigent burials in 1895).

In 1927, during a decade of beautification efforts happening in towns, schools, and ranches across the country, city officials decided to introduce a levy to pay for the irrigation of the cemetery and the planting of a beautiful grove of trees to further dignify this community place.

A sign reminds everyone not to drive over the pipes, which can be clearly seen throughout the cemetery (see below).

In 1928 the city purchased lawn seed and acquired the first set of saplings to plant. Thoughtfully maintained ever since, even when with some controversy cemetery leaders removed 70 diseased trees in 2015, the Choteau Cemetery is an impressive sight, and worth a thorough investigation as it approaches its 100th year as an irrigated public property.

There is a range of fraternal markers from the early 20th century.

Woodmen of the World marker for Harry Haynes

Women of Woodcraft marker for Amelia Armstrong

Masonic marker for former sheriff Kenneth McKenzie

There are delicately carved stones in Victorian themes reflective of the Civil War era.

And as you expect there are veterans of the US Army from the Civil War and all subsequent wars buried here.

Then there are those markers that hint at a bigger story and you miss you knew more, such as this blending of the pillow and heart motifs for Mary McDonough and erected by Minnie Reese.

The cemetery is large but not overwhelming. Its straight forward linear design and rectangular shape are common. But the evident care and commitment of today’s residents to the past is commendable and worthy of note.

Livingston’s Mountain View Cemetery

Posted on January 11, 2017 by carrollvanwest

On the northwestern outskirts of Livingston is Mountain View Cemetery, another of the historic properties that certainly existed when I carried out the 1984-1985 fieldwork for the Montana state historic preservation plan, but since it was a cemetery, we as a field gave it, or any cemetery for that matter, little consideration thirty years ago.

As soon as you get past the 1966 entrance gates, you find a cemetery that is certainly historic–established as the town was beginning in the 1880s and still used by community over 125 years later. Mountain View is also aesthetically interesting in its overall plan, with its intricate pattern of curvilinear drives and well-ordered arrangement of graves, then several of the grave markers themselves are impressive Victorian statements, of grief, of family, and of pride of accomplishment.

The section set aside for Union veterans of the Civil War was the most interesting historic feature to me. As explored in other posts over the last three years, Montana has many reminders of the Civil War era within its built environment. Clearly in the early decades of the cemetery, this section with its separate flag pole and government-issued grave markers was very similar to what a national cemetery might be. The generation that established the cemetery also wished to remember and signal out for praise the veterans of the great war that had just consumed the nation.

Within this section of Mountain View are also grave markers that are not government issued slabs of marble but that are more expressed of the sense of loss felt by the family. Below is the granite pulpit, with a bible resting on top, for Frank Baker, who died in 1896 but, as the marker notes, was a veteran of Company I of the 49th New York Infantry.

The David K. Buchanan marker, of the stone masonry type associated with the Woodmen of the World in other Yellowstone Valley cemeteries, dates to 1907, and records the calvary career of this Union veteran from Pennsylvania in the “civel war.” (original spelling)

Mountain View has several impressive examples of these Woodmen of the World grave markers that have a floral tree motif, with limbs sawn off to suggest how the body of society was lessened by the individual’s death.

Of particular interest is the marker for the Rickard family where the two trees, one for each spouse and one child , are linked together, symbolizing a family tightly intertwined in death as they were in life.

The George Gannon grave marker is a variation on the Woodmen trees, where a logs carved in stone serve as a base for an open book that tells his story. Victorian era cemeteries are often very expressive, and the Mountain View Cemetery in Livingston has many other

interesting grave markers scattered throughout its grounds. The cemetery, with its beautiful setting, well-kept grounds, and expressive memorials, give night to the historic people of Livingston in a way that streetscapes and historic houses rarely capture.

Fracking Roosevelt County: The Boom Seeps into the Montana Hi-Line

Posted on November 12, 2016 by carrollvanwest

The 21st century boom in the Williston Basin has significantly reshaped western North Dakota, and as that region “fills up,” the boom has spread into far eastern Montana, especially along the Hi-Line corridor of U.S. Highway 2 and the historic Great Northern Railway. The photo above is along U.S. 2 on the outskirts of the tiny town of Bainville, the first place of any size you encounter as you travel west along the highway, or railroad, into Roosevelt County.

When I visited Bainville in early 1984 I recorded a town in decline. True, its 1950s modernist passenger depot was still there, but there had been a steady drop in population for decades. Thirty years later, the remnants of that decline were still there: abandoned brick neoclassical-styled bank; an elevator complex on the verge of collapse.

But signs of new growth were there as well in 2013. The recently expanded public school was one thing while the large man camp then under construction just east of the town was another–and a project that really concerned local residents since the camp’s population would be larger than the town itself.

The next town west on the Hi-Line is Culbertson, where the impact of the Williston Basin was even more noticeable. A modern school complex had replaced one that dated to the New Deal. Indeed the New Deal’s once profound impact on Culbertson–a public office building and armory–had been eclipsed not only by the modern school but also a new county office building all shiny and bright.

The 1930s armory in Culbertson MT

New county office building in Culbertson

The man camps were already taking available land, even becoming a village in itself between the town’s historic cemetery and the railroad tracks. To capture the burial site of Civil War veteran Marcus A. Denney of the 6th Minnesota Infantry in the foreground and the man camp in the background by the elevators creates a snapshot, literally, of the periods of change in Culbertson over 150 years.

Truckers and workers flying along U.S. Highway 2 in past decades would have spied the metal sculptures of Lewis and Clark near the local museum–but these iconic figures are no longer what immediately captures your eyes as you speed along the corridor.

What you notice is everyone lined up for that human fuel that powers the commute between man camp and tracking well: the Frackin’ Java coffee stand. A true sign of the times along the eastern gateway of U.S. 2 in Montana.

Bannack: Boom Town to Ghost Town to State Park

Posted on April 30, 2016 by carrollvanwest

My first trip to Beaverhead County in 1981 had two primary goals–and the first was to explore Bannack, the roots of Montana Territory, and one of its best connections to Civil War America. As this simple wooden sign below remarks, here in 1862 the first gold strike in what became Montana Territory occurred.

The road into Bannack passes through sparsely populated country, and you wonder what the miners, and then the families, who passed this way thought as they approached the town by foot or by horse, if they were lucky. The “road” then of course was not more than

a path because the glistening bits of metal loose in the sands of the creek had never interested the Native Americans but news of the find was enough to drive easterners, many of them southerners, away from the landscape of war and into a wholly different place, crested by beautiful mountains.Grasshopper Creek was not much of place then, and even now, but this stream of water became the source of a boom that eventually reshaped the boundaries of the northern Rockies and nearby its banks grew the town of Bannack, a name taken in part from the Bannock Indians who had used this landscape in far different ways for many years.

The story of the preservation of Bannock begins with local land owners, who protected the site, and kept most of the buildings from being scattered across the region. There was little official interest in the place at first. The state Daughters of American Revolution

marked it in 1925, otherwise the buildings remained, some in use as residences or for public purposes, others melting away in the demanding climate. The Boveys moved the Goodrich Hotel to their preservation project at Virginia City and transformed it into the Fairweather Inn, which is still in use as lodging.

Fairweather Inn in Virginia City.

The old Goodrich Hotel is not the only thing that Virginia City got from Bannack. Bannack was the first territorial capital of Montana, but then in early 1865 the territorial offices moved to Virginia City. Bannack’s boom had already started to decline, and the boom seemed never ending to the east in Madison County.

In 1954, the Beaverhead County Historical Society transferred about 1/3 of the present property to the state for protection and development as a state park. Not until 1961 did the National Park Service recognize the town as a National Historic Landmark.

Ever since the state has repaired buildings and structures as necessary but decided long ago to preserve the town as a ghost town–last residents outside of park rangers left in the 1970s–and not to “restore” it like a Colonial Williamsburg treatment. Thus, it is very

much a rough, open experience for visitors at the town. Doors are open, nooks and crannies can be explored. Public interpretation, outside of the small visitor center, is scant, although more than what I found in 1984, as this back room of old interpretive markers reminded me.

Gritty, dusty, forlorn: yes, Bannack is the real deal for anyone wanting to explore ground zero of the gold rush era in Montana, and to think about how in the midst of the great Civil War, federal officials found time to support adventurous citizens to launch a new territory in forgotten expanses of the northern Rockies.

I thought that 30 years ago I “got” Bannack–there wasn’t much that I missed here. I was wrong. Probably like thousands of other visitors who fly into the town, and leave just as quickly, I missed what is still called the “new” town cemetery. Almost hidden in the sagebrush along Bannack Road, the “new” cemetery is not Boot Hill–where is Plummer

buried people still want to know–but it is a remarkable place of hand-carved tombstones, others rich with Victorian imagery, and a few that are poignant reminders of the Civil War veterans who came here and stayed.

Bannack is one of the great rural cemeteries in Montana. Don’t make my mistake from 1984–stop here and explore.

Montana’s Civil War Veterans: Dillon’s Mountain View Cemetery

Posted on November 5, 2013 by carrollvanwest

As a series of feature articles in the Great Falls Tribune have emphasized for the past 3 years, Montana does have a Civil War story, just one that has been forgotten, even neglected over the decades. To be sure like most people exploring the Montana landscape, I too had trouble seeing those elements–outside of General Thomas Meagher’s commanding statue in front of the State Capitol in Helena. But as I have been back in the Big Sky Country the last three years, I have found many places that help tell the state’s story in the years that transformed the United States into the country we know today. It is more than the the Civil War Sesquicentennial that drove my greater attention–in Tennessee I am the co-chair of the state’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission, and here in the Volunteer State it is often all about the Civil War.

To mark Montana’s Civil War landscape, and to honor the many veterans who have served their communities, their state, and their country in this week before Veteran’s Day, I want to draw your attention to a truly exceptional place–the Mountain View Cemetery in Dillon, Montana.

The cemetery contains a wealth of grave markers and statuary from the late 19th and into the 20th centuries. The view from the cemetery is truly inspiring as well–it is among the best maintained community cemeteries in western Montana.

What is most striking about Mountain View Cemetery is its attention to veterans and the number of former Union soldiers buried within the cemetery. The standardized U.S. Army shield grave marker, with the soldier’s name and his unit listed, is found in abundance at Mountain View throughout the older parts of the cemetery.

Here is just a sampling of the Civil War veterans memorialized at the cemetery:

The most remarkable tribute to the veterans at Mountain View Cemetery comes from the mid-20th century: a somber tree-lined path to veterans from more recent wars, heralded by a statue calling for freedom, honor, and justice, values that drove those federal soldiers in the Civil War and values that our veterans today take into fields of conflict across the

the world. Thank you all veterans for your service to our nation.

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