Livingston: seeing the obvious but missing the big picture

Posted on December 23, 2015 by carrollvanwest

In my work on the state historic preservation plan in 1983-1994, I was excited about the new insight I could bring to the state’s landscape–the impact of the transcontinental railroads and the transportation and settlement corridors that they established in the late 19th and early 20th century. Railroads were of course not a new theme then–books abounded on the railroad barons and the romance of the rails. But as a built environment–that was new, reflecting current scholarship from John Hudson, John Stilgoe, and Roger Grant. So whenever I hit a major railroad division point–like Livingston–I only saw the rails and what happened around them.

That was certainly easy enough to do coming into Livingston from the west on old U.S. 10. The railroad tracks were directly to the north, as well older elements of the town’s roadside architecture, like the exquisite Art Deco-styled radio station, KPRK, now closed for broadcasting (the station’s signal comes from Bozeman) but listed in the National Register. William Fox, a Missoula architect, designed this jewel in 1946.

Continuing west you soon encounter post-World War II service stations and motels, some updated, some much like they were, on the outskirts of town and then, boom, you are in the heart of Livingston, facing the commanding presence of the Northern Pacific depot complex with warehouses–some now converted to new uses–coming first and then

massive passenger station itself. Opened in 1902, the passenger station was an architectural marvel for the new state, designed by Reed and Stem, who would continue on to great fame as the architects of Grand Central Station in New York City. The station, interestingly, is not Classical Revival in style–certainly the choice of most architects for their grand gateways along the nation’s rail line–but a more restrained interpretation of Renaissance Revival style, completed in red brick.

The building is not particularly inviting for locals coming from the business district to the depot–that was not its primary audience. Rather the grand entrance is track side, where passengers headed to Yellowstone National Park could depart for food, fun, frivolity, whatever they needed before the journey into the wildness of Yellowstone.

Travelers were welcome to use the grand covered walkways to enter the depot proper, or to take a side visit to the railroad’s cafe, Martin’s as I

knew it back in the day, a place that rarely slept and always had good pie. The cafe changed its orientation from the railroad to the road as automobile travelers on U.S. 10 began to dominate the tourist market. Now it has been restored as a local brew pub.

The interior of the passenger station once held large public spaces for travelers and then more intimate spaces themed to either men or women.

MT 2007 Park County Livingston NPRR depot 6 - Version 2

MT 2007 Park County Livingston NPRR depot 5 - Version 2

Upstairs were spaces for offices, company lodging, and other company business. The station was the railroad’s urban outpost was what was then still the Montana frontier–its statement of taste and sophistication still reverberates today even as the depot no longer serves passengers (except for occasion excursion trains Amtrak doesn’t run here anymore) and serves as a railroad and Park County museum.

Thirty years ago, the overwhelming imprint of the Northern Pacific on the surrounding built environment was all I could see. At one corner was one of the first local historic preservation projects, an adaptive reuse effort to create the Livingston Bar and Grille (once popular with the valley’s Hollywood crowd).

Directly facing the center of the passenger station was the mammoth Murray Hotel–a flea bag operation in the 1980s but now recently restored as a hipster place to be, especially its signature bar.

Park Co Livingston Murray Hotel and depot

My throwback place back in the 1980s, however, was Gil’s. It was next to the Murray and the place to get the cheesy souvenirs you equate with western travel in the second half of the 20th century.

Imagine my pleasant surprise last year when I found that Gil’s still existed but now had been converted into a decidedly up-scale establishment, far removed from the 1980s.

I don’t know if I have encountered a more fundamentally changed place–cheap trinkets gone, let the wood-fired pizzas come on.

I was not so blinded in 1984 by the concept of the “metropolitan corridor” that I ignored the distinctive Victorian storefronts of Livingston–how could I since they all, in a way, fed into the tracks. But when I got to the end of that distinctive business district and watched the town, in my

mind, fade into the Rockies, I had captured the obvious but had missed the bigger picture–that’s the next story.

Eastern Park County and the Yellowstone River

Posted on December 23, 2015 by carrollvanwest

Traveling south of Clyde Park on U.S. 89, you pass by the turn-off for Horse Thief Trail, where a historic steel bridge still allows for one-lane traffic over the Shields River; this bridge and snippet of road is part of the original route of U.S 89. That means you are nearing the confluence of the Yellowstone and Shields rivers, and where U.S. Highway 89 crosses the Yellowstone River and takes you into the heart of Park County. Paralleling the modern concrete bridge is a c. 1897 steel Pratt through truss bridge, to serve the Northern Pacific Railroad spur that runs north to Clyde Park then Wilsall. The Northern Pacific called this the Third Crossing of the Yellowstone bridge; the Phoenix Bridge Company constructed it.

Before jogging slightly to the west to head to Livingston, the county seat, two places east of the Shields River confluence are worth a look. First is the site of Fort Parker, established as the first Crow Agency in 1869 or the first federal facility in the valley. It operated from this location until 1875.

Interstate I-90 traffic passes directly by the fort site, which was on a low bluff overlooking the Yellowstone

In conducting the 1983-1984 survey for the state historic preservation plan, the location of Fort Parker was understood, but not explored and certainly not interpreted. Here was a very important story of how the Crow Indians initially interacted with federal agents within 4 years of the end of the Civil War and 7 years before the battle of Little Big Horn. Nothing was marked; it was in danger of becoming a forgotten place.

Gladly all of that changed in the 21st century. As a result of another innovative state partnership with land owners, there is an interpretive center for the Fort Parker story, easily accessible from the interstate, which also does not intrude into the potentially rich archaeological remains of the fort. The story told by the historical markers is accurate and comprehensive, from the agency’s beginnings to the land today.

I really like how the metal tipi poles not only make the site easy to locate but it gives it a Native American centeredness, a presence, that otherwise is missing when all that the visitor finds is an interpretive marker. After all the story of Fort Parker is very much the story of the Crow Indians, and how they resisted, accommodated, and came to terms with the increasing white presence in the Yellowstone Valley in the 1870s.

Few remnants of that early white settlement remain today; you can find some just north of Springdale, at Park County’s eastern border, on the north side of the Yellowstone River. Hunter’s Hot Springs was the first attraction, established by Andrew Jackson Hunter in the 1870s, and receiving its last update in the early years of automobile tourism in the 1920s, as shown below in this postcard from my collection. Today, as the Google image below also shows, there are just scattered stones and fences from what had been a showplace for the valley.

The disappearance of Hunter’s Hot Springs from the valley landscape is also reflected in marked decline at Springdale, the railroad town south of the river that provided access to the resort, over the last 30 years. One of the Yellowstone’s famous early 20th century highway bridges once crossed here; remnants are all that remain now.

Commercial businesses once lined the town side of the Northern Pacific tracks. Nothing is open today although trains rumbled down this historic main line every day. What does survive is impressive and worthy of

landmark status in my opinion: the Springdale school. Once nestled on the edge of town (what was then the least valuable land since everything was focused on the tracks) but now easily found from the interstate exit, this school may be the most accessible rural school in the state. Built in 1918, it is still the town’s focus almost 100 years later.

U. S. Highway 89 heading south

Posted on December 20, 2015 by carrollvanwest

After taking a long look at the depth of nationally significant heritage stories and historic places in and around Great Falls, I want to change regions, to the Upper Yellowstone valley and get there by one of my favorite western highways, U. S. Highway 89.

As the highway leaves the central plains east of Great Falls, it heads east through coal country (see the earlier post on Belt) and south into the Little Belt Mountains and the old mining towns of Monarch and Neihart (above). Both Cascade County towns are proud of their heritage, a story embodied in the Monarch-Neihart School, a wonderful bit of log craftsmanship from the New Deal era, a WPA project finished in 1940 that is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Another point of pride is the ongoing renovation of Neihart’s Great Northern Railroad depot, a mark of the town’s beginnings, which also serves the greater Monarch-Neihart area as the local museum and heritage center. While on the other side of the road, another turn of the century historic building has been converted into a self-described junk shop where you can acquire bits and pieces of the past.

After traversing through the mountains, by a sky resort, you suddenly drop back into the central Montana plains, a landscape shaped by the Smith River, one of the state’s most compelling natural and historic landscapes. You are now in Meagher County, discussed in an earlier post, where the town of White Sulphur Springs is the county seat. It too has its New Deal landmark, the Classical Moderne styled county courthouse.

When I last visited there in 2015 the combined route of U.S. 89 and 12, which passes in front of the courthouse and the center of town, was being rebuilt, giving the historic business district the look of a ghost town.

The Fort Logan Road, on the east side of town, was not under construction, allowing for easy access to the other significant transportation link, the railroad, and the still surviving White Sulphur Springs depot, a place certainly worth of listing in the National Register.

U.S. Highway 89 continues south, crossing the historic corridor of the Milwaukee Road at Ringling, another Meagher County town discussed in an earlier post, marked by the landmark St. John’s Catholic Church.

Travelers continuing south soon find themselves in Park County, entering the Shields River Valley just north of Wilsall, where highway markers and monuments, like that for “Thunder Jack” (2006) by sculptor Gary Kerby, convey the significance of the place.

Wilsall was not much a place 30 years ago, a small trade town on the edge of a Northern Pacific Railroad spur line, a past still recalled by the tall elevator and old railroad corridor.

But the growing popularity of the Shields River Valley has led to a new boom in Walsall, with old banks converted into bars and old general stores

Park Co US 89 wilsall store old post office

being revived and expanded. The town has its own museum now, in a converted gas station from the 1920s that served travelers and locals. The stories preserved there, along with the mural of Walsall over 100 years ago, show the residents’ sense of place and the past.

The next town down the old Northern Pacific line, Clyde Park, has a similar story of revival from 30 years ago. Glenn’s Shopping Center is still going strong, as is the town community hall across the street, and the town park is neatly kept and in regular use.

Clyde Park Tavern is still the place to go for an adult beverage, or two. Historic grain elevators still serve local ranchers, marking the railroad line that defined the town’s landscape until the impact of the highway in the early 20th century.

The sojourn to the Yellowstone Valley will stop here, on the edge before we cross bridges, backtrack to Springdale and Fort Parker, before we explore in some depth Livingston, Montana’s gateway to Yellowstone National Park.

Bridger: Northern Pacific Railroad Hub in the Clark’s Fork Valley

Posted on October 11, 2015 by carrollvanwest

As you head north into Montana from Wyoming on U. S. 310, the first substantial place you encounter is Bridger, named for famed fur trader and early Yellowstone traveler Jim Bridger. Like its neighbor to the north in Fromberg, Bridger is another turn of the 20th century Northern Pacific Railroad town in the Clark’s Fork River Valley that was much the same from my initial visit 31 years ago. Its population had remained steady–a tad over 700, about the same as in 1984, and only 150 or so less than its height in 1950.

The town’s grain elevators speak to the formative impact of the railroad. Here back in the late 1890s engineers followed a well worn and recognized Indian trail–a similar route to what Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians chose a generation earlier as he tried to find safety for his people, traveling from Wyoming into the Clark’s Fork Valley.

The town’s commercial district retains much of its early 20th century look. Old bank buildings dominate the town center, while substantial 2-story commercial buildings (including properties listed in the National Register) remain, showing how quickly merchants came to Bridger and launched businesses to attract the growing number of homesteaders in the Clark’s Fork River valley in the 1910s.

That first generation of settlers did their part to build lasting community institutions. The Bridger United Methodist Church is an impressive example of vernacular Gothic design. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The town library is almost a picture perfect example of what this institution should look like in a small town setting.

The irrigation ditch drifting through the town park is a reminder of how the engineered landscape of irrigated fields provided much of Bridger’s early wealth and development. The park itself was a creation of the Works Progress Administration in the late 1930s.

Within the park is a ceramic and brick arch, one of the town’s many examples of public art. The mural on a side of a store seen earlier in this post is another example while creative metal statues of wild horses grazing or the imposing figure of Jim Bridger himself welcoming visitors at the southern end of the town underscores a local tradition of public art not often seen in Montana’s small towns.

Other historic statements of the town’s sense of community include the 1930s Civic Center, a bit worn today but a center for community gatherings and social events for decades.

Bridger’s schools from the 1960s introduce Montana modernism to the townscape, almost like spaceships landing within the middle of the Clark’s Fork River Valley. Modernism 1960s style also characterize Sacred Heart Catholic Church, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, and the Bridger Seventh Day Adventist Church, constructed in 1965.

St. Paul Lutheran Church Sacred Heart Catholic Church

These community anchors date from 50 years ago, so obviously growth has been stagnant, or stable, pick your terms, since the boom introduced in the valley through expanded irrigation projects in the post-World War II era. But all of the buildings are well maintained, and are part of the sense of overall sense of pride you get from a visit to Bridger.

Bridger has reminders, both in monuments and in businesses, of the deep past of the Clark’s Fork River Valley. It is an interesting place of strong institutions, several National Register-listed historic homes, and local business, and a significant part of the often ignored history of the Clark’s Fork Valley.

Railroad Towns of the Clark’s Fork Valley

Posted on October 10, 2015 by carrollvanwest

The name Carbon County seemingly says it all–here is a Montana place that is mining country, and coal mining at all. As earlier posts have discussed, coal mining is vitally important to the county’s history. The county seat of Red Lodge was a major coal mining town. But even Red Lodge’s historic built environment speaks of another side of Carbon County’s history. Its tall shiny grain elevator along the railroad tracks remind us that Carbon County was also agricultural country, especially in the Clark’s Fork River Valley.

The next couple of posts will explore this part of Carbon County–the towns and places many tourists roar by as they seek out Red Lodge and the mountains beyond. Some places were, and are, tiny but still changes over 30 years are apparent. Boyd, for instance. In 1984 I caught this iconic view of past and present at the historic Boyd store. The building is still there but the facade is changed, to a rustic western style, one more to the liking of fast-moving tourists.

Edgar is a place that admittedly I gave little attention to in 1984. That was a mistake. I missed a very interesting modernist-styled school, probably part of the county-wide WPA projects for schools in the late 1930s, along with another 1960s styled addition. The school closed in 2009.

Edgar still has its bar, located in a fine one-story brick building–but not much else from the decades when it mattered in the 20th century.

Fromberg is a different story. Unlike so many country railroad towns in Montana, Fromberg has a strong sense of itself, both in the present and in the past. Part of that has to be a reflection of its comparative stability. Its population height came in 1940, with mover 500 residents. Today the population remains over 400, just about a 100 person decrease over 70 years. For Montana rural towns that is exceptional. Indeed, from my first visit in 1984 to my last in 2015, the town had only lost a few families.

Fromberg has its own museum; the centerpiece of which is its restored railroad depot, part of the old Northern Pacific spur line. In true northern plains fashion, other historic buildings have been moved onto the museum grounds. It’s not quite a building zoo but the buildings give the place enough presence to attract visitors speeding along the highway.

Fromberg is a t-plan town, and all of the patterns of that type of town planning are apparent. From the depot, running west, is the primary commercial street, with brick and fame buildings on either side.

The historic Odd Fellows hall dominates the commercial district–its conversion into the town’s post office, rather than a historic building being lost so a modern standardized design post office could be put in its place, is an excellent example of historic preservation done right. Indeed, Fromberg residents have embraced the possibilities of preservation and multiple buildings are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The mural about overland travel on the front of the Clark’s Fork Bank adds a touch of public interpretation. If you want first-person stories, a stop at the Little Cowboy Bar (and “museum”, located at where the commercial district intersects with the highway, will be worth it. It is one of the region’s classic watering holes.

Fromberg also has documented its historic domestic architecture, raining from vernacular styled early 20th century homes to more stylish bungalows and even a couple of good examples of Dutch Colonial Revival style.

The homes are clustered around two historic churches, the brick St. Joseph Catholic church and the frame Gothic-styled and National Register-listed Methodist Church, built in 1907-1908 by contractor Charles Darnell and the community.

The historic Fromberg school, like its counterpart in Edgar, was part of the countywide program of building modern schools by the WPA during the New Deal. Its still impressive facade conveys well the WPA’s sense of modernism, and it remains the town’s primary community center today.

Red Lodge: Coal Town of the Clark’s Fork Valley

Posted on September 19, 2015 by carrollvanwest

Clark's Fork River, off U.S. 212, Carbon County, MT

When the Northern Pacific Railroad entered the Yellowstone Valley in the 1880s, officials and investors immediately began the search to find and acquire locally available deposits of coal. First there came the Klein mines north of Billings and then by the end of the decade, the first move toward mines to the south, in the Clark’s Fork Valley, at what would become Carbon County with its major town of Red Lodge on Rock Creek. Development began slowly, with the Depression of 1893 intervening, but as the era’s financial and railroad magnates combined the Great Northern, the Burlington Route, and the Northern Pacific into one huge co-operative venture, they selected a new place in the Yellowstone Valley, a town called Laurel at the confluence of the Clark’s Fork and Yellowstone rivers, to connect the three railroads. In short order, a Northern Pacific Railroad spur line was built down the Clark’s Fork Valley to the place called Red Lodge–U.S. Highway 212 follows this route–and the boom was on.

Entering Red Lodge from the north via U.S. 212 you encounter immediately the town’s roots as a railroad town, as the historic Northern Pacific depot remains rooted at the head of the town. Here is where my long-interest with the Red Lodge story began in 1984 when

I met with a small group of local historians, preservationists, and civic leaders determined to keep Red Lodge and its still intact historic environment together. The group’s vision for the depot was for it to be a visitor center, an arts center, but more than anything a community center, a visible sign of the turnaround that could happen. Already, at the head of town artist Peter Toth had begun the new tradition with his mammoth wood sculpture, “In Honor of a Proud and Noble People,” installed in 1979, a theme of the region’s

Native American history and proximity to the Crow Indian Reservation that also was captured in a much more commercial way by the neon sign of the Red Lodge Cafe then, and still to my mind, the best place in town. The neon, like Toth’s sculpture, was designed

to attention of the one course of heritage tourism income that locals recognized: that summer traffic coming out of Billings and off the interstate heading to Yellowstone National Park via U.S. 212 and the Beartooth Pass, one of the true highway wonders of the United States. How to get people to stop, and how to restore pride and hope for the town itself: those motivated the group I met in 1984 moreso than any well meaning goal of merely preserving history and pretty buildings.

To say that the initial depot project was successful would be an understatement. Thirty years later the depot is a public space that includes a gazebo, outdoor art, and a setting of history and culture rarely rivaled in the region. As you move south from the depot, you also immediately encounter several of the dreams the groups discussed in 1984: a National Register of Historic Places historic district (there are now more than one); restored and treasured public buildings such as the Carnegie Library and Carbon County Courthouse;

and their biggest goal of all in 1984, the acquisition, preservation, and transformation of iconic Labor Temple into a history museum and heritage center for the Carbon County Historical Society.

The group understood the power of the Labor Temple: they could tell a story not just of railroad magnates and economic development but could look at this history from those who came and labored in the mines, and built the town. The building dated to the decade of Red Lodge’s height, 1910-1920, when the town’s population reached 5,000 but especially once the Northern Pacfic opened new mines at Colstrip to the east in the 1920s, the town had been in a decades long period of population decline, where less than 2,000 people lived in 1980. Many had given up, obviously, but those who stayed saw the bones of a possible community renaissance–and preservation was a big part of that. That more recent story comes next.

South of the Yellowstone in Stillwater County

Posted on September 16, 2015 by carrollvanwest

The Yellowstone River, along with the parallel tracks of the Northern Pacific Railroad, divides Stillwater County, with the south side of the county more mountainous but with the rich Stillwater River Valley coming out of the mountains to meet the Yellowstone at Columbus, the county seat. Let’s talk about two towns along the river valley that were once down but now more vibrant than 30 years ago due to the population growth in the southern end of the county.

Absorkee began in the mid-1890s after another taking of lands from the Crow Reservation. The Oliver Hovda house, a Classical Revival-styled residence on the main artery of Woodard Street, dates to c. 1900 and was built by local carpenter Jacob Wagner. Listed in the National Register, the big yellow house, as it is known locally, remains the town’s primary domestic architecture landmark.

Just steps away are an array of masonry commercial buildings, not finished to the degree that you find north in Columbus but still substantial buildings from c. 1910-1920 that reflect the determination of town boosters to show permanence and seriousness in this small country town. The 5 Spot is the town’s iconic bar, just as welcoming in 2014 as it had been in 1984.

The town’s school is its pride and joy (I apologize for the distance images with fences but school was in session when I visited in May). Among the historic school buildings is a 1903 two-room section, see below, and then what is known as the Cobblestone School, a more modern building constructed in 1921 with river cobblestones as the primary exterior wall treatment. W. R. Plew, an engineer at Montana State University, promoted good rural school designed and is credited with this striking building.

Historic churches also define Absorkee’s built environment, no more so than the historic Emmanuel Lutheran Church, with its soaring Gothic steeple but also its modern c. 1970 concrete block screen, an unusual but effective combination of styles and materials.

Further south along the Stillwater River is Fishtail, a place that in 1984 I noticed more for its sleepy general store (c. 1900) but now a town that is much more alive with residents and visitors. The re-energized store, who got new owners in 2000, is a large part of that as is the general boom in recreational opportunities and offerings in the Fishtail to Nye section of the Stillwater River Valley.

The rustic-styled front to the Community Hall speaks to the permanent residents while the sprawling Cowboy Bar attracts visitors and locals. The south side of Stillwater County may be cut off from the mainstream of Montana life since the railroad and interstate are north of the Yellowstone River, but in the last 30 years its sense of itself has grown and is embodied by the care shown many of its community landmarks.

Sandstone Masonry and Historic Landmarks in Columbus, Montana

Posted on September 15, 2015 by carrollvanwest

Columbus, the seat of Stillwater County, has long served as an architectural and settlement landmark in the Yellowstone Valley. Today when you drive down old U.S. highway 10 (Pike Street) next to the very active tracks of the Northern Pacific Railroad, two patterns stand out. First, the town retains its historic depot and a well-defined railroad corridor–reminding everyone that here is one of the valley’s original railroad towns, from 1882-1883. In a state where so many small town depots have been lost in the last 30 years, I always stop in Columbus just to see if its depot remains.

This historic NP caboose is part of the displays at the Stillwater County Museum, which sits in a new building near the schools in the north end of town.

The second feature is the striking stone masonry, found not only along the primary commercial blocks of the town but also throughout the residential neighborhood. This beautiful turn-of-the-20th-century work is largely attributed to Michael Jacobs, a native of Italy who anglicized her name from the original Jacobucci. Jacobs was a principal in the Montana Sandstone Company, a firm that not only built Columbus’s historic buildings but also took on commissions in Billings and Butte and its most famous project, the Montana State Capitol in Helena. Jacobs’ imprint on the town was part of its recovery from the

Depression of 1893, which had rocked towns all along the Northern Pacific line. But Colubmus recovered and rebuilt frame buildings in stone from c. 1900 to 1920 as the homesteading boom spread through the region. in Italy, the Montana Sandstone Company provided facing stone to numerous buildings in Butte, but it was the contract for the Montana State Capitol that put the company on the map and established Jacobs’ fame and fortune.

My favorite Jacobs building is the New Atlas Bar, which I first visited in 1982 and then made it tradition to introduce this special place to anyone traveling through the valley with me on fieldwork. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the bar dates to 1915-1916, and was designed by Curtis Oehme. For almost all of the 20th century it was operated by the same family who opened it, the Mulvihill family. Known in the 1980s as the “See ‘Em Dead Zoo,” the historic interior features dozens of stuffed trophies, of all sorts of animals from the region.

But its historic interior of back bars and ladies lounge is intact, and although the place doesn’t quite have the vibe of 20 years ago, it is still a community gathering spot along historic Pike Street.

Michael Jacobs’ stately Victorian residence is another example of the firm’s craftsmanship as are a series of remarkable tombstones in the town’s Mountain View Cemetery. The carvers of these monuments are either Jacobs or another firm employee Pasqual Petosa.

The county courthouse, however, is not of sandstone, but still it is an impressive Classical Revival statement in its porticoed Ionic entrance and symmetrical facade. Located in the north end of town, the courthouse, designed by Warren Dedrick, remains an anchor for the county’s history during the homesteading boom. It first opened its doors in 1921.

Unfortunately the courthouse faces an uncertain future. This year proposals have come forth to replace the building, or to modify it significantly with additions, due largely to the county’s population growth and need for greater public space in the last 15 years. The local preservation commission called for discussions and full consideration before the town, and county, loses such a heritage asset as this striking historic landmark.

The High Prairie of Stillwater County

Posted on August 30, 2015 by carrollvanwest

Stillwater County is one of the most beautiful spots in all of the Yellowstone Valley. The parallel routes of the Yelllowstone River, the c. 1882 corridor of the Northern Pacific Railroad, the c. 1920 route of old U.S. Highway 10 and the modern marvel of Interstate I-90, shown above, define the county’s historic landscape for most residents, and travelers.

But running directly north from the county seat of Columbus is a two-lane Montana highway that takes you to a totally different landscape, that of the high prairie of thousands of acres of wheat fields. The road ends about 20 or so miles away at the town of Rapelje, a promising trade center when it was first established as a railroad branch in 1913

during the homesteading boom but now one of the region’s small country towns, defined by its school, its church, its cafe, and its grain elevators. Its set of four early 20th century elevators, standing as sentinels of settlement but also as just man-made landmarks in a vast landscape of seemingly nothingness, is a remarkable statement of the built environment of Montana’s homesteading era.

Businesses are few and far between–the handful of local residents and scattered ranch families take their business to Columbus, or a bit farther to Laurel and Billings. There is still a town cafe–the Stockman Cafe–which is run as a volunteer cooperative for those passing through. The past few summers a June bike race has become a popular fund-raiser for the cafe.

The town has retained two public buildings–its post office and its school, the pride of the community, which was built in 1920 and has since been renovated and expanded with a new wing to the rear of the historic building. The school is home to the Rapelje Rockets.

With less than 100 residents in Rapelje, the school educates ranch kids living throughout the county’s high prairie, a role similar to the local post office, which despite threats last decade to close many of the state’s rural post offices, still serves this farming community.

The loss of population means that Rapelje has just two primary sacred places: the Gothic-styled community church, built during the initial decade of settlement, and the town

cemetery, which is located south of the village on a rise that overlooks the open prairie in all four directions. Of course, as Rapelje fades into the past, the cemetery grows in its number of headstones–a sign of what limits the future holds for this high prairie town.

The Sweet Grass of the Yellowstone Valley

Posted on August 22, 2015 by carrollvanwest

Sweet Grass County has one of the most spectacular landscapes of the entire state of Montana. Located in the middle of the Yellowstone Valley, the county has long been a significant crossroads, from the prehistoric era to today. At the county seat of Big Timber, Interstate Highway 90 (along with the historic route of old U.S. Highway 10) parallels the Yellowstone River. The town is also the southern point of origin for U.S. Highway 191,

The Lazy J, near the intersection of U.S. 191 and old U.S. 10, is a classic bit of mid-20th century roadside architecture.

which strikes northward cutting across Central Montana and continuing until the highway ends at the Canadian border, north of Malta.

Established by the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1882-1883, Big Timber has the classic T-Plan town plat found on so many Northern Pacific towns. But one reason I have long liked this place is the quirkiness of its town plan. The depot and the elevators are where they

should be, forming the top of the “T,” but the beautiful early 20th century stone masonry Sweet Grass County Courthouse is neither on McLeod Street (the stem of the T) nor at the end of the T, dividing the town’s commercial area from its residential neighborhood. No, it is a block west of the intersection of McLeod Street and old U.S. Highway 10–an uncommon arrangement of public space in northern plains railroad towns. A public park

effectively marks the end of the historic town. When I first surveyed the town in 1984, I found that an old 1946 highway marker for the Lewis and Clark Expedition had been moved to the park a year prior to my visit, and the interpretive sign told me that the town had a sense of its place in history. In the decades since, residents have added a monument to the town’s early wool industry along with a bronze sculpture, titled “Free Spirit” by Dave Hodges, linking the place to the open spaces and cowboy culture of the valley. Coming soon will be the new headquarters for the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame, an institution that searched high and long for a home until finding Big Timber.

Public interpretation through art is another change I encountered in Big Timber. The most striking dates to the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial at the start of this century. On the walls of the local grocery store are three panels telling the story of the expedition in Sweet Grass County as the men encountered the confluence of the Boulder and Yellowstone rivers. On another commercial building near the intersection of U.S. 191 and old U.S. 10 was an unexpected surprise: a mural recreating–or is it reinterpreting–the famed Milwaukee Road promotional poster from the turn of the 20th century that encouraged homesteaders

to head to Montana. Oddly the reproduction mural gives the Northern Pacific corporate emblem but the route shown is the Milwaukee’s route, admittedly also showing where the two lines ran side by side in parts of the Yellowstone Valley.

Public interpretation has not extended into an intensive involvement with the National Register of Historic Places. In 1984, only one property–a segment of the Bozeman Trail where it crossed the Yellowstone–in the county was listed, and that stood on Sweet Grass’s far western border to Park County. Then, right after I had finished the project, the iconic western hotel, The Grand, was listed in the National Register. In the 30 years, a handful of Big Timber landmarks also have been designated on the National Register: the Classical Revival-styled Carnegie Library, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, and the Big

Timber City Hall. Little doubt these landmarks are cherished–when more library space was necessary this century the expansion of the historic building was done appropriately, keeping this landmark in service for decades.

But when you consider just how intact the town’s historic environment from the 1880s to the 1950s is today, you think a National Register historic district nomination in order, or at least one for the historic commercial district, which has a wonderful array of building types, designs, and, luckily for Big Timber, open businesses, including one of my favorite bars in all of the state–at least favorite bar signs–the Timber Bar.

The next post will look deeper in the historic buildings of Big Timber, and then stretch north to a real jewel, the Melville Lutheran Church.

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Montana's Historic Landscapes

35 Years in the Big Sky Country

Tag Archives: Northern Pacific Railroad