Prickly Pear Canyon ...

Back in the days before the Interstate Highway system, old US 91 was unquestionably one of the great drives in Montana. Between Butte and Great Falls, the route crossed the Continental Divide and wandered through a series of lovely mountain canyons, evocative of the best of Montana.

One of the narrowest and most spectacular stretches of road was along Prickly Pear Creek, north of Helena. Prickly Pear Canyon was narrow and steep-walled and scenic, with barely enough room for the creek, the road, and the tracks of the Great Northern Railway.

Today's photo is an old postcard view of the canyon, probably shot in the 1920s or early 1930s. (The road through the canyon was paved in 1931.) The photo has been retouched a bit and heavily hand-colored, but it's a great view of a scenic spot and a vanished age of travel.

Joshua Spotted Dog ...

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Montana's Native American peoples received a surprising amount of attention from artists and photographers ... people who were presumably enchanted by the romance of the vanishing Indian lifestyle, and who hoped to document it in their own way before it was too late.

An intriguing but lesser-known person in this category was a woman named Olga Ross Hannon, an Midwestern transplant who taught art at the college in Bozeman from 1921 until her death in 1947. Hannon's paintings and other work explored a variety of Montana themes, including explorations of Native Native American art and culture. (Hannon Hall on the MSU campus is named for her.)

The evocative image below is credited to Hannon ... it's a portrait of a man named Joshua Spotted Dog, taken at Poplar on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation.

Fifty Mountain Camp ...

This is an historic photo of a spot called "Fifty Mountain" ... easily one of Montana's most evocative place names. Fifty Mountain is high in the backcountry of Glacier Park, a dozen miles from the nearest road, and it's a spectacular location. That's Mount Kipp in the background.

This image, reportedly by the noted park photographer T.J. Hileman, dates from the 1920s or 1930s. Back then, the fashionable way to see Glacier was on a guided, multi-day horseback trip, and Fifty Mountain was an overnight stop for horse parties doing a popular route called the North Circle. For a few weeks every summer, the horse concessionaire operated "Fifty Mountain Camp," a collection of heavy canvas wall tents that provided hot meals and beds to the travelers. You can see the camp nestled in the trees near the bottom of the photo.

It's been over 70 years since Fifty Mountain Camp closed for the last time, but the park still maintains a small backcountry campground in the area. I recall camping there on the night of August 1 a number of years ago, and waking up to find the campground buried in new snow.

Family histories ...

Among the most common local history books are those that consist primarily of individual or family biographies, usually self-written.  Many of the recent ones are commemorative volumes produced by local museums and history committees, and they're often great resources; sometimes, they're the only substantive published histories ever prepared for an area.  Earlier volumes were typically "vanity histories," where individuals paid to have their biography included.  Some of the latter were published way back in the nineteenth century, when Montana was still considered part of the frontier.

Most of the biographies in those volumes are pretty dry, but every once in a while you come across a gem.  Here's an evocative entry I discovered yesterday ... it's from a book called History of Montana, published in 1885:

GEORGE E. RAMSAY, P. O. Sheridan, came to Montana in 1863, and bought a claim in Bannack in which he sank his last dollar. He then had to do something. His wife being equal to the trials of a frontier woman, went by coach alone to Virginia City. He followed with a sore backed cayuse, leading her most of the way. Mrs. Ramsay paid the fare, which was $10, and took the last ten they had. The stage driver left her in the street alone, and a Mr. Knox, one of the pioneers of 1862, escorted her to the Virginia Hotel, kept by Miles W. Brown (now of Radersburg). Only the walls of the building were up, and she slept on gravel in the rear of the establishment. The kitchen had a roof of canvas. Mrs. Ramsay went to work in the kitchen and Mr. Ramsay in the dining room. After awhile they went to Summit and here made something keeping boarders. In the fall our subject was offered a fine team and wagon and harness for his house, but refused to trade. Afterward sold a door for what the knob cost, and lost all the balance. From Summit Mr. Ramsay moved to Cold Spring ranch that had once been the home of road agents; from here they moved to Silver Spring and built a residence. This is one of the finest springs in the Territory, boiling out of the earth through pebbles. This spring furnishes the water power to run Silver Springs grist mill. Mr. and Mrs Ramsay have one child, a son—Frank A., born in Helena, March 27, 1871.

Mid-century Billings ...

Here's an interesting postcard view of Billings, shot to advertise a downtown motel in the late 1960s or so. Both the motel and its adjoining restaurant are great examples of mid-twentieth century roadside architecture, and the classic advertising signs add to the period feel.

Lurking in the background, though, are two other major examples of mid-twentieth century design. The staid, tan-and-cream office tower is the Yellowstone County Courthouse, built in 1957 to replace a far smaller (and more imposing) building. The extraordinarily ugly building off to the right is the federal courthouse, which was completed in 1963.

Most of the buildings in this view still survive today, although a new federal courthouse was completed in Billings hast year. The motel and restaurant lost their classic looks in later remodeling projects ... and of course the Sambo's restaurant chain went bankrupt over 30 years ago, following a backlash against the perecived political incorrectness of the business's name.

Not of London ...

If you get off the freeway in Butte looking for a place to eat, one of the first options you see might be an older, nondescript building on South Montana Street ... part restaurant, part casino, and not really recommended.  But a couple of generations ago, the place was something of a landmark, and one with a memorable name:  Lloyd's of Butte.

I don't know much about the history of the restaurant ... it was opened by a man named J. M. Lloyd in the 1940s or so,  and it was in business under that name into the 60s.  But it would have been a great place to visit just because of its advertising slogan:  "Lloyd's of Butte -- not of London."  Can't beat that!

This is an old postcard view of Lloyd's, probably from the late 1940s or early 1950s.

Gallatin Gateway ...

One more post today about the Milwaukee Road, and its Montana passenger service.

 All of Montana's transcontinental railroad routes heavily advertised the state as a summer vacation destination in the early twentieth century, evoking Old West images of cowboys and Indians, along with the more contemporary lure of Montana's great National Parks. The Milwaukee was at a definite disadvantage in the latter category, since its mainline route was over 100 miles away from Yellowstone, while its competitors both served one of the parks directly. But that didn't stop them from trying.

Attempting to compete in the Yellowstone travel market, the Milwaukee in 1927 constructed a handsome railroad hotel in a little branch line town named Salesville, in the Gallatin Valley southwest of Bozeman. The hotel was named the "Gallatin Gateway Inn," and the town supported the venture by renaming itself Gallatin Gateway, too. Passengers could travel to the Inn on Milwaukee trains, and then board buses for the long, scenic drive up the Gallatin Canyon to West Yellowstone.

As a finishing touch to this massive promotional effort, the Milwaukee also constructed an actual Gateway, south of their hotel near the mouth of Gallatin Canyon. The imposing, pergola-like structure was a local landmark, and gave the Milwaukee's passengers a sense of arrival on their vacation.

Unfortunately, the Milwaukee's Gallatin Gateway venture was less than successful overall, and the log "gateway" itself apparently survived only a few years. I know that nowadays the Montana DOT would never approve of such a thing, but wouldn't it be cool if a big log gateway still spanned US 191 at the mouth of Gallatin Canyon?

Hiawatha ...

Yesterday's post noted that 2011 was the centennial year of the Olympian, a great Montana passenger train. The Olympian traveled the state for 36 years, but in 1947 the Milwaukee Road replaced it with a beautiful new streamliner called the Olympian Hiawatha. The orange-and-maroon train was noted for its modern equipment, created by the famed industrial designer Brooks Stevens. The Hiawatha's sleek "Skytop" observation car was unique among America's long-distance trains.

This is one of several advertising posters created by the Milwaukee in the early 1950s to promote the train. The location of the view is unspecified, but the cowboy hats suggest that the railroad was working to evoke the image of Montana. Sixteen Mile Canyon was one of the scenic highlights of the Milwaukee route, and was frequently a setting for promotional photographs and artwork.

Unfortunately, the Olympian Hiawatha's sojourn in Montana was brief. The western segment of the train was discontinued in May 1961, a bit less than fifty years after the first Olympian traveled across the state.

The Olympian ...

For much of the twentieth century, three of America's great transcontinental railroads traversed Montana east to west, and all three companies served the state with luxurious long-haul passenger trains.  The Empire Builder still operates today, the longest-lived and best-known of Montana's trains, but the state's most exotic and memorable passenger trains were operated by the Milwaukee Road.

The year 2011 marked the hundredth anniversary of the first of those trains, the Olympian.  This old postcard view show's the train's inaugural run, pausing at the depot in Deer Lodge.  Even one of the town dogs has come down to see what all the excitement was about!

The Olympian was a fairly conventional-looking train in 1911, but within a few years the Milwaukee electrified its main line across western Montana.  The electric locomotives combined with the railroad's bright-orange paint scheme to give the Olympian a sleek, futuristic style that no other Montana railroad could match.

Picture-postcard view ...

There's no doubt that as a state, Montana is overrun with postcard-worthy views. I've always thought, though, that the very best of those scenes were of Lake McDonald, up in Glacier Park. Most postcard photos of Lake McDonald are shot from the Apgar area, looking down the full length of the lake at the impossibly-beautiful mountains that frame the opposite shore. But I like this closer view even better, taken from the boat dock at what is now Lake McDonald Lodge.

This photo is probably from the first decade of the twentieth century, when visits to the lake were becoming more popular but before Glacier Park itself was formally established ... the caption makes no mention of a national park, but simply says "Lake McDonald, Northern Montana."

Prairie Sunrise ...

The famed artist Maynard Dixon is best known for his paintings of the American Southwest, but his work was also influenced by a 1917 visit to northwestern Montana. Sponsored by the Great Northern Railway, Dixon's Montana trip included time in Glacier Park, as well as the Blackfeet Indian reservation nearby. In the years that followed Dixon translated his Montana memories into a number of paintings and several poems, including an evocative but slightly over-the-top verse called "Prairie Sunrise":

Ascendent over the world grows the saffron dawn.
Still and dim is the prairie, -- dark is the sod,
And dewy the cool curling blades of the buffalo grass,
And low and faint in the glow the smoke-spirits rise,
Revealing the camp; and here by a mute-solid boulder
An empty buffalo skull, deep-staring and old;
Little birds twitter and flit in the rusty-stemmed willows,
As over the rim comes tremendous ascending day --
The day! The marvelous day, exalting and vast! --
And there as the sun flares up, life-lit in its glory
The red-naked Indian rides, free-chanting his trail song.

Wigwam Cafe ...

Here's a great old postcard from Browning: the "Wigwam Cafe and Service Station." I won't pass judgement on the political correctness of the design, but architecturally this is about as cool as it gets.

The old cafe has of course been closed for decades, but the old teepee-shaped building is still a landmark on the east end of Browning's little main street. Last time I was in town, someone had opened up an espresso stand in the place.

There's a similar building down in Busby, too ... that one looking much the worse for wear.

Evans Hotel ...

Here's a great old photo, probably taken in about 1910 or so. We're in the little northeast Montana town of Culbertson, looking north up Broadway Avenue. The Evans Hotel looks like it was quite the place.

The Evans apparently didn't last too long, though. A 1930 map of Culbertson shows a completely different building on the site, called the "New Evans Hotel" ... so probably, there had been a fire. As for the New Evans, the building is still there today, though its no longer a hotel and most of the first floor has long since been boarded up. It would be a great restoration project for someone who wanted to return a bit of style to poor old Culbertson.

Fur-bearing fish ...

I'm kind of surprised I didn't upload one of these postcards sooner ... after all, this is a true Montana legend.

People have been telling stories about fur-bearing fish in this part of the world for at least 80 years, and taxidermists have been encouraging the legend for just as long, by creating examples of the species. They're almost always trout, and the local version of the myth has them coming from Iceberg Lake up in Glacier Park. Other states have their own fur-bearing trout stories, too.

All in all, not quite as iconic as the Wyoming Jackalope, but still not bad. :)

Springtime rain ...

There's no doubt about it: Montana's weather definitely feels like it's been getting weirder lately. This spring, the story has been all about moisture ... lots of snow, and lots of rain. It's a year for flooding.

The situation is unsettling enough that it's got people thinking about similar times in Montana's past -- particularly the great flood of June 1964, which hit north-central Montana and the Glacier Park country with amazing force. Here's a classic photo from the 1964 flood: the Middle Fork bridge leading to the west entrance of Glacier Park, its trusses broken by the raging water.

This photo is one of many flood images captured my Mel Ruder, the legendary owner/editor of the Hungry Horse News. Ruder's reportage of the 1964 floods earned him the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded to a Montana journalist.

Monarchs of the Past ...

Here's another great old postcard photo: "Monarchs of the Past," by T. J. Hileman. The image probably dates from the 1920s, when Hileman was an official photographer for the Great Northern Railway, capturing views of the Glacier Park country for use in the GN's promotional efforts. The shot is highly reflective of the GN's traditional use of Blackfeet imagery in its advertising materials ... and in a broader sense, it typifies the period's popular romantic nostalgia for the rapidly-vanishing traditions of Native American life.

Largest lumber mill ...

This is an old postcard view from about 1960 or so, with the caption, "the largest pine lumber mill in the world." The photo shows a part of the old J. Neils Lumber Company complex just outside of Libby, by then owned by St. Regis Paper. Neils Lumber was the economic lifeblood of Libby for decades, harvesting timber with a sustainable-use philosophy that both kept the company strong and sustained local forests. After the company was sold, though, absentee owners increased production to the point where the forests could no longer keep up ... and before long the whole thing collapsed. The mill closed in 2002, devastating the local economy, and a spectacular fire last year destroyed much of what was left of the place.

Lonesome Prairie ...

Here's a clipping from another old topographic map, with a place name and a look that's the quintessence of big chunks of eastern Montana. The location is a little northwest of Big Sandy, and the map is from 1906 ... and I bet the country is even more lonesome today.

Gallup City ...

As someone with an incurable case of wanderlust, I've long maintained that a good map is the greatest recreational reading there is. Topo maps are especially fascinating for someone enamored of a place as vast as Montana, in part because they reveal so many obscure place names that few of us have ever heard of.

I was looking through a list of old Montana topos recently, for example, and came across one titled "Gallup City" ... a name I didn't recognize at all, though it sounded it at least had the potential to be a fairly big deal. So I downloaded the map and took a look, and there it was, far off the beaten track between Conrad and Choteau. The map was from 1938, and just showed a small maze of random dirt roads and a few buildings ... pretty obviously an old oilfield camp.

And from the looks of things there's absolutely nothing left of Gallup City today ... but now I still want to drive up there and check the place out sometime.

Campbell Lodge ...

I'm sure that if one's starting a business in a town named Glasgow, there can be an almost-irrestible temptation to market the enterprise using a Scottish theme. Hence the Campbell Lodge in Glasgow, Montana ... complete with a huge signboard featuring an improbable kilt.

The building itself is a standard piece of 1960s architecture -- something that Glasgow has in abundance, thanks to the short-lived boom caused by the brief life of Glasgow Air Force Base. And that's another story worthy of exploration someday ...