We are going to thread our way through a number of mountain islands in central Montana, heading east down the Musselshell River Valley before making a U-turn as the mountains meet the prairie and then heading back west up McDonald Creek Valley up and over the Judith Mountains into the Judith Basin on our way to the Missouri River.
The Musselshell Valley is broad as it stretches east between the Crazy and Bull Mountains to the south and the Little Belt/Little Snowy Mountains on the north. Smoke from the nearby forest fire spotted yesterday outside of White Sulphur Springs fills the valley.
Agriculture is the name of the game here in the valley and few do it better than the Hutterites. Hutterites are a 16th century break-away Christian group that believe in communal living and pacifism. Faith, family and hard work make up the core values of the Hutterites. In 1873 two “scouts” came to North America in search of a refuge from the religious persecution prevalent in Europe at the time. Canada offered a government more willing to provide exemptions to military drafts but a worse climate and poorer land than the United States. A Hutterite migration began, and while most chose to live in Canada, a significant number settled in the United States. Montana has approximately 39 colonies being found across the state. Hutterites embrace all of the modern technology but keep to themselves, living in communal colonies and wearing distinctive clothes. A couple of colonies are within a couple of hours of Billings and it is not unusual to see Hutterites in local stores, the men wearing black trousers, often a white shirt with suspenders, and flat-brimmed black hat while the women and girls where long skirts or dresses and scarfs made from colorful prints. The colonies are very successful agribusinesses, known for producing nearly 60% of the state’s pork, half of the eggs and garden produce. I myself buy Mountainview Colony eggs at the local Walmart. About ten miles northeast of the Bair Museum the Martinsdale Colony spreads north of the highway. The communal housing complex is hidden in trees south of the highway.
Continuing down the valley we come to Harlowton, county seat of Wheatland County.
Harlowton
Harlowton was founded in 1900 as a station stop on the Montana Railroad, predecessor to the Chicago, Milwaukee, St Paul and Pacific Railroad (names seemed to get longer as consolidation of smaller rail lines took place!) The railyard at Harlowton was particularly important because it was here the railroad changed from the steam or diesel locomotives used to cross the plains to electric locomotives used to cross the 438 mile trip over the Rocky Mountains into Idaho. As we continue to see in Central Montana, the area boomed during the first decade of the 1900’s. Harlowton marked the decade with the grand opening of the Graves Hotel in 1909 on the edge of the small town center overlooking the Musselshell Valley. Today it stands in disheveled splendor, testimony to times gone by.’’
A number of buildings around town are built of the distinctive stone blocks.
Dominating the western edge of town is the Wheatland County Courthouse, built in 1910 as a school and converted to the county courthouse in 1938.
The railroad ended operation in Harlowton in 1974 and a gentle decline ensued. Leaving Harlowton and heading due east continuing down the Musselshell Valley the view is of a wide open valley with the low Bull Mountains framing the southeastern horizon. The valley narrows about 50 miles north of Billings as we near the town of Roundup.
Roundup served as place for cattlemen from the Musselshell Valley to “roundup” their cattle and load them onto boxcars for shipping to the slaughter houses back east. In addition a number of coal mines dot the surround Bull Mountains, which, combined with agriculture, built the local economy. The commercial growth of Billings, just an hour south, and the gradual decline of the mines has made for a struggling economy in the Roundup area. I zoom past the Musselshell County Courthouse on my way through town.
Now heading due north past the eastern tip of the Little Snowy Mountains, the prairie touches the base of the mountains and vast spaces open up to the east.
The land is not flat, but has texture, rising and falling in waves of sagebrush and grass. This is harsh country with weather extremes year round, only the hardy struggle to make a living. Petroleum County (named for oil found near Cat Creek) is home to only about 500 people (that’s not a typo, only about five hundred people in the entire county.) Winnett, the county seat, has a population of about 200 and hunkers down in a grove of trees on the horizon.
Water is scarce and the land parched this fall, there’s not much green to be found in Winnett. Really, there’s not much of anything else to be found either. A bar, the general store, a gas station, school and an old building housing the county courthouse is about it. The courthouse started life as the Winnett Block storefront, built in 1918. The first floor housed the Montana Lumber Company on the left, Winnett Times newspaper in the middle, and First State Bank of Winnett on the right. The second floor was used as office space and the basement was home to a restaurant. The county purchased the building in 1929 for use as a courthouse and it remains the only building of any consequence in Winnett.
After a brief stop in Winnett we hit the road again and this time head due west, having made the turn around the end of the Little Snowy Mountains.
Farther west the road starts to wind through the Little Belt Mountains to the south (still enrobed in smoke from the forest fire we saw while in White Sulphur Springs.
Up and over a low pass between the Little Belts to the south and the Judith Mountains to the north we descend into the Judith Basin and the hub of central Montana, Lewistown.
Lewistown, MT
Lewistown sits along Big Spring Creek at the southeastern edge of the Judith Basin, an enormous cone-shaped geographic area bounded by mountains on the south, east and northeast but open to the northwest. A trading post was established in the general area of Lewistown in 1873 along the Carroll Trail, a path between the Missouri River steamboats to the north and the gold rush town of Helena southeast. Camp Lewis was established nearby in order to protect the trading post. A second trading post was built about a half mile away and during the early 1880’s two settlements, Reedsfort and Janeaux’s, slowly grew around each trading post. In 1883 Janeaux gained a post office and the settlement was renamed Lewistown. The settlement quickly grew, mostly because of its’ strategic position in the center of Montana at the intersection of trade routes in all directions. Gold had been discovered in the surrounding mountains and the town prospered. The railroad reached Lewistown in 1903. The gold quickly played out but Lewistown’s location ensured a steady economy based upon agriculture, which is still the case today. The county seat of Fergus County, Lewistown is home to more than 6,000 people today. Downtown Lewis town is a collection of substantial buildings, most constructed in the early 1900’s.
The six story Montana Building was built in 1916 towards the end of the town’s period of greatest growth. The building originally housed the Bank of Fergus County and the Montana Hardware Company, and in 1924 became the home of the First National Bank.
West of the Montana Building is the TC Power Mercantile Building, constructed in 1901, and now becoming home to controversy. The building is being remodeled to be the home of the American Prairie Reserve, a non-profit dedicated to the purchase and collection of property throughout central Montana with the goal of preserving the prairie and wild life. Ranchers in particular are concerned about the potential loss of ranch land to the preserve as well as an increase in land prices due to the reserve bidding on ranches as they come on the market. The tension is palpable and throughout the Judith Basin the following sign can be seen nailed to fence posts along the highway.
Across the street from the Montana Building to the south is the Judith Theatre, built in 1914 and in continuous use ever since.
Dominating the skyline along Big Spring Creek one block north of the main street is the bell tower of St. Leo’s Catholic Church, built in 1915.
A block further north from St. Leo’s is the “Silk Stocking District” where the wealthy of the area built homes around the same time as the construction of the church.
Standing proudly atop the rise at the west end of the downtown area the dome of the 1907 Fergus County Courthouse pierces the sky.
Just west of the courthouse is the 1890 Lehman Bunkhouse, first built in the 1890’s and later expanded in 1908. Charles Lehman originally constructed the bunkhouse as a rooming house for his unmarried male employees but it also served rural male students who boarded there while attending the county high school. In 1977 the carriage house of local district judge Rudolph Von Tobel was moved and attached to the bunkhouse and the entire complex is now home to the Fergus County Attorney’s Office.
Across the street to the south from the courthouse is the 1905 Carnegie Library.
The view east from the street between the courthouse and the library takes in all of downtown Lewistown and the Judith Mountains beyond.
North and west of the courthouse is another area of substantial homes from the early 1900’s.
Seven miles southeast of Lewistown is the source of Big Spring Creek, one of the world’s largest freshwater springs. 50,000 to 60,000 gallons of 52 degree water comes forth from the spring every day. Just outside of the springs Big Spring Creek begins to flow towards Lewistown under a beautiful fall sky. Note how clear the water is.
Up out of the Big Spring Creek Valley and the town of Lewistown our path now runs directly across the open prairie of the Judith Basin towards the Missouri River. The view southwest is of the Big Belt Mountains, to the north is the seemingly endless prairie punctuated by a distant freight train.
The wheat harvest has just been completed and two combines rest in well-deserved peace in the corner of a field.
This is Judith Basin County, first settled in 1880 when Calvin and Edward Bower acquired 100,000 acres to run sheep on. A station on the Fort Benton-Billings stage route was established and named Stanford after the Bowers old home town back in New York, Stanfordville. A small town grew up around the stage stop and became the county seat. Today around 500 people inhabit the town, the short main street runs perpendicular from the county courthouse northeast out onto the prairie.
The stately Judith County Courthouse sits in an island of green punctuated by an homage to the local cowboy.
Beyond Stanford the prairie undulates north and west.
The Big Belt Mountains that have been marking the horizon to the south have now been replaced by the Highwood Mountains. The Highwoods end with one of the landmarks of the Judith Basin, Square Butte.
Our path takes us around Square Butte on the north side as we cross the prairie towards our goal, Fort Benton on the Missouri River.
Suddenly the highway drops down into a broad valley and the line of trees in the distance denotes the mighty Missouri River.
Next up: The Falls of the Missouri
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