Our room was the Carnegie Suite, which, in addition to a handsome kitchen, living room, and two full bathrooms (one featuring a luxurious walk-in shower), also featured two bedrooms, each with its own television.
At the end of our conversation, Ty said, “I've walked this path many times in my career and I'm smiling through the buck offs and mild pain because I know what being disciplined will lead to. Not to mention I'm thankful to be able to walk this path at nearly 51.”
Many, about to embark on the wilderness, therefore chose to seek lodging in Livingston. H. F. Sanders wrote in his three-volume History of Montana (1913) that visitors "will usually find themselves directed to the Grabow Hotel, one of the finest hostelries in the state..."
Cabin Creek today is home to the Williston Basin Interstate Pipeline gas compressor station. It lost its post office in 1931. Ollie, near the North Dakota line, is another railroad town—this time the Northern Pacific. Its post office was open from 1911 to 1955.
They longed for a way of life that no longer existed and in some cases never had, a Montana more mythical than Disney's Davey Crockett TV show and John Wayne matinees. They smoked their Marlboros and repeated their mantra: any day now I will get a call, and then I'll know it's my turn to go.
Alas, that site indicates that it has no information on Crackerville but does mention Gregson being two miles away. Gregson I’ve heard of. There is even an I-90 exit for Gregson, which takes you to Fairmont Hot Springs.
The Powder River Kid was quick to temper and drew his gun with lightning speed and accuracy and down his adversary would go. He knew many outlaws and fast guns in his lifetime, and called them by their first names.
Joe was raised along Post Creek, north of Saint Ignatius, bordering historic Fort Connah on the Flathead Reservation. He was the great-grandson of Angus McDonald, a Scottish fur trapper who settled in the Mission Valley and established Fort Connah in 1846
It feels like the sort of place where scenes from Norman Rockwell play out behind every closed door. There’s street after street of adorable homes nested in beautifully maintained yards, watched over by lovely old neighborhood churches.
They stand solemnly alongside the state’s highways and interstates, flashing by with no particular cadence—one cross here, another six miles down the road, a cluster of five attached to a single post 50 miles later.
The Good Roads advocates wanted better, smoother roads for the popular new craze sweeping the nation: the bicycle. At the forefront of this effort was the League of American Wheelmen (LAW), which had been lobbying for better roads since 1880.
Daly spent about $2.5 million on the Anaconda campaign, while Clark spent $500,000 on his own campaign for Helena. Helena won the second referendum, helped out by 40% of the Butte vote and overwhelming support from eastern Montana.
Over in Glendive, GiGi’s Café makes the list. So does Shellie's Country Café in Helena, open 24 hours. Jordan has its Summit Corral. Even tiny Lima, Montana has Jan’s Café. And though there is not a tree anywhere nearby, Denton boasts its Shade Tree Café.
If Dempsey had it made, then Shelby, Montana was on the make. The little Hi-Line railroad town had been on the map since the late 19th century, but had fallen on hard times when homesteading in the region went bust. But in 1921, oil was discovered north of Shelby. Within months, the town filled with oil field workers, geologists, and drillers.
Of special note is the Chouteau County Court House. Built in 1883, to replace the original court house destroyed by fire that year, today the building is the second oldest court house still serving that function in the state of Montana.
When someone ordered a whiskey ditch at the bar, the "ditch" part was almost literal: the water was collected from a small spring running through the scene in between small trees (cut from the very tops of junipers and then treated with glycerine and formaldehyde).
One could be forgiven for thinking that a city so drenched in decadence wouldn't have hosted one of North America's earliest saints. Yet in the midst of this hedonism and chaos, an Orthodox Christian priest named Sebastian Dabovich played a significant role in Butte, and the fruits of his labors have endured for generations.
In the end, Shaw had his gun and badge taken away. But the worst insult was yet to come: Hoover transferred Shaw to Butte, Montana—as close to Siberia as he could muster.
Bobby's leg broke, and for the first time, but certainly not the last time, Bobby was lucky to be alive. Unrepentant, perversely obstinant in the way that only Butte can be, Bobby bought another bike as soon as he could and took to racing the police around the town, popping wheelies and raising hell.
Carbon County has sixty-six listings on the National Register of Historic Places, including eleven in Red Lodge. The county courthouse and the former Carbon County Hospital and Sanitorium are both part of the Red Lodge Historic Commercial District.
