Oscar's Dreamland ...

It always fascinates me, the things that people remember and the things people forget. It's particularly intriguing for travelers ... because often, the grand museums and spectacular natural wonders one visits take a back seat in memory to places that are far more obscure.

A couple of decades ago, an out-of-state friend of mine took a long roadtrip across the American west, spending a fair amount of time in Montana. Whenever he mentions the trip to me, though, he doesn't talk about his days of hiking through Glacier ... instead, he tells me how very cool Oscar's Dreamland was.

What was Oscar's Dreamland? Well, it was a tourist attraction out between Billings and Laurel, just south of the Interstate. The place was the creation of a retired gentleman named Oscar Cooke, who started collecting old farm tractors and then got carried away. Eventually he had several old buildings, hundreds of pieces of antique farm equipment, and countless other cool old things, and he displayed it all in an amazing, odd museum that he opened to the public every summer.

Places like that seldom last, though. Oscar died back in 1995, and though his family initially promised to keep Dreamland going, they auctioned nearly all the stuff off three years later. So my friend's great memory will never be repeated.

Here's an old postcard of Oscar's, probably from the late 1970s or so.

Two Medicine ...

Anyone who's explored Glacier Park knows that its east and west halves are very different places... the east side is higher and windier and with fewer trees, while the west side has deeper valleys and great forests and lakes. I much prefer the west side of the park, overall ... it feels far more like Montana to me, and its easier to get away from the mobs of tourists, too.

I make an exception when it comes to Two Medicine, though ... it's my very favorite part of Glacier's east side. It's quiet, and the scenery and the hikes are lovely. I took this view of Two Medicine Lake last fall, the same day I photographed East Glacier's purple spoon.

Roadside oddities ...

For years now, I've been a member of a very fun organization called the Society for Commercial Archeology. The SCA is devoted to the history of the American roadside ... things like old diners, drive-in theatres, neon signs, Mom-and-pop motels, souvenir stands, and so on. And always, the quirkier the better!

I absolutely love stuff like that ... which is why I had to stop and take a photo while driving through East Glacier Park last October. It's not every day you get to see the World's Largest Purple Spoon.

Lost states ...

One of the books I picked up last fall was a heavily-promoted volume called "Lost States," supposedly a chronicle of proposed U.S. states that never quite came to be. It was slickly produced but a major disappointment ... more interested in being snarky than correct, and not even doing snarky very well.

Three of the book's entries describe possible "states" that could have included part of Montana ... including an unsourced suggestion for a state called Chippewa, that would have included western North Dakota and most of Montana east of the Continental Divide. The book claims that the region ("Land of No Speed Limits") contains no town larger than Glendive, completely ignoring the existence of a half-dozen other cities (like Billings and Great Falls). And it buys into all the standard stereotypes:

The problem is, no one wanted to live in Chippewa year-round. Not then. Not now. It gets nasty-cold in winter, and you can't grow anything there. True, the big sky country does evoke a certain romantic feel in the summer. That's why rich celebrities flock to the region, buy a little ranch … and then never come back.

He's right about the nasty cold, at least ... but once in a while it's good to be reminded that things shouldn't always be believed, even when they're in shiny hardbound books.

Ceretana ...

I'm a big fan of historic signs, and here's one that I photographed last fall ... this is on the wall of the old Milwaukee Road depot in the town of Grassrange. "Ceretana" was a trademark of the Montana Flour Mills Company, which advertised, "It Pays to Feed Ceretana Feeds."

Roller coaster ...

Here's a bit of trivia that most of you probably didn't know, unless you've lived in Butte: Montana was once home to a real, old-fashioned roller coaster!

It was, of course, at the old Columbia Gardens amusement park outside of Butte. Established in the early years of the twentieth century by William A. Clark, the copper magnate, the Gardens was Butte's primary recreational venue for some seventy years; the author John Gunther called it a "threadbare little park," but it was all that Butte had. And threadbare or not, the roller coaster looks like it was pretty cool.

Columbia Gardens was acquired by the Anaconda company in 1928, and they kept the place going until 1973. In typical Butte fashion, the park's grand old carousel was destroyed in a mysterious fire that year, while the roller coaster and nearly everything else was torn down. The town has wanted to build a new Columbia Gardens ever since, but (again, in typical Butte fashion) the plans haven't gone anywhere.

Today, most of the old park site is beneath hundreds of feet of mine waste rock.

Walkin' Jim ...

There's no doubt that Montana has long had more than its share of intriguing personalities ... one of the great things about this state is the way it attracts free spirits. One of the state's freest spirits belonged to a singer and wilderness advocate named "Walkin' Jim" Stoltz, who passed away back in September at age 57.

Walkin' Jim spent his winters working down at Big Sky, but the rest of the time he mostly spent ... walking. He reportedly hiked over 27,000 miles in his adult life, mostly in wilderness, crossing the length of the country in most every direction. He had a guitar along on some of those trips, and the folk songs he wrote led to a second career as a recording artist and concert-giver. His website called him a "troubadour for the Earth," which is a pretty accurate description. A fascinating and memorable guy, indeed.

Jim was also an artist and poet, and I thought I'd share one of his poems here. He penned these lines in 1995 to memorialize Edward Abbey, the famous and eccentric chronicler of wild country in the American southwest ... but the words are a fitting tribute to Walkin' Jim, as well.

Northern lights blazing over the desert,
Dancing eagles crying in the sky,
Coyote knows that somethings gone,
The canyon wind mourns good-bye.

Your words, dropped so,
Led me by the hand,
Opening doors I never thought to look behind
Desert pearls
Like grains of sand
They piled up fast and spread with time.

Northern lights rolling ‘cross the night,
Lion screaming at the highway’s shoulder,
The canyon sleeps
While miles away
Another needle
Falls from the pinyon.

Buy a Nash ...

One more historic photo from Bozeman this morning. This is an early 1950s shot of Norine Motors, the town's Nash dealership. The old building is still there, up on North 7th Avenue, but of course the great old sign is long gone, and there's not a Nash in sight. Too bad ...