Tarra's Travels: Havre, Montana and Forts Benton & Assinniboine

August 26th, 27th and 28th

We went off duty for a few days while Jeff's folks were here to visit. We drove north to Havre and stopped to see some of the sights along the way.

A couple views along the drive north to Great Falls, one of the prettiest drives we have taken.

We stopped for lunch at a little Chinese place in Great Falls.

North of Great Falls the scenery changes drastically. Choteau County is Montana's greatest wheat producer.

The Marias River branches off the Missouri here, a short ways from Fort Benton. After much scouting and discussion, Lewis and Clark made a momentous decision here to follow the Missouri, hoping that it was the main river and not just a branch.

This railroad track just below where I am standing is, hopefully, no longer used, as the earth beneath it looks to have been washed away a long time ago. When the river was too low for steamboats to make it all the way to Fort Benton, freight was unloaded here at Cow Island.

Arriving in downtown Fort Benton, we parked at the Visitor Center near the Grand Union Hotel and this memorial to Shep, the famous dog who met the train every day for almost 8 years. His owner was a sheep herder who died in 1936. He followed his master's casket as it was loaded on the train to be shipped back east for burial. Shep met every train from then on until January of 1942, when he slipped on the tracks in front of an incoming train and was killed.

He was buried atop a hill just outside town overlooking the train station. With Boy Scouts as pallbearers, his funeral was attended by hundreds of town folk and his story became known worldwide. From his resting place, he continues his vigil forever.

Hiking the trail up to see Shep's grave.

Yucca plant along the trail. Feels like Arizona.

The Grand Union Hotel opened in 1882. It cost $200,000 and was the finest hotel between Seattle and the Twin Cities. Silver and linen graced the tables and the menus had delicacies only found back East, an oasis of civilization for weary travelers, stockmen and businessmen with billiard room, lady's parlor, bar and hot baths. Rooms were only $2 or $3 a night. It was built by a group of local businessmen at the height of the river traffic, which lasted only two more years before the railroad ended it all. Steamboats blew their horns and great cattle herds crossed the Missouri here. Steamboats supplied the U.S. Cavalry, the Indians they hunted, the Mounties and the whiskey runners. Fort Benton merchants were plumb impartial about business. The fort's merchants sent traders laden with rifles and whiskey up to Fort Macleod in Canada to lure the Indian peoples away from trade with the Hudson's Bay Company, creating lawlessness that brought the northwest Mounted Police. It became known as Fort Whoop-Up Trail. The resourceful, fearless plainsmen and bullwhackers, at the end of their hazardous journey, opened up their cargo and whooped it up! Army officers, Canadian Mounties, miners, trappers, freighters, river captains, stockmen, missionaries, Indian agents, road agents and politicians rubbed shoulders here in the hotel's fine dining room and well-stocked bar. It had all the elegance of Victorian living, but it could never pay for itself. When the steamboat era ended, the hotel then became a gathering place for cattle barons during the days of the open range.

By the end of the Gold Rush from 1862 to 1869 steamboats and smaller crafts had transported 200 tons of gold out of the state. There was a great deal of security aboard boats taking gold shipments downriver. One steamboat carried $1,250,000.00. After the gold rush tapered off, buffalo robe traders, steamboat owners and merchants quickly established an illegal, but lucrative, barter system with the Indians over the border. A watered down cup of whiskey could be traded for a buffalo robe, which could be sold back in the U.S. for $8.00. The Northwest Mounted Police put an end to the whiskey trade in 1874. Military contracts brought floods of newcomers. At the peak in 1878, steamboats made 65 landings here, depositing 10,000 pounds of freight and 2,000 passengers. The river was extremely hazardous and claimed over 400 steamboats in less than 30 years. The Far West, specially designed to navigate the Upper Missouri, had a narrow beam and spoon-billed bow for sliding over sand bars and a flat, shallow hull. In 1872 it raced against the Nellie Peck from Sioux City, Iowa to Fort Benton and broke all records, making the trip in 17 days and 20 hours. In 1883 it got caught on a snag and sank.

View from the original bridge, now just a pedestrian bridge, back toward the hotel. There was a mile and a half levee along Front Street here from 1860 to 1887. It was founded as Fort Lewis in 1846 as a fur post and is the oldest, continuously inhabited settlement in Montana. It was renamed in 1850 for Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, a constant supporter of the fur trade. It was the head of steamboat navigation on the Missouri and the world's innermost port. It was the most important transportation center in the Northwest for 27 years, once called the "Chicago of the Plains". Trails led to all points from here. Freight was loaded into giant wagons, pulled by hundreds of mules and oxen to faraway Idaho, Washington and Alberta. After the railroad came in 1887, most of the freight for northwestern U.S. and Canada was unloaded here on the levee. The 825-foot, 6-span bridge, completed in 1888, was started as a private toll bridge by a group of Fort Benton merchants to connect across the river to the rapidly developing Judith Basin, named by William Clark for his girlfriend, Judith. They charged pedestrians 5 cents, horse and buggy 25 cents and each head of cattle 1.5 cents with special rates for large droves. They sold the bridge to the county in 1896 for $10,000. The swing span collapsed in the Great Flood of 1908, but was soon replaced. In 1927 lights were added to aid auto travel at night. Vehicles crossed the bridge until 1962, when it was closed to all traffic. The new bridge in the picture was built in 1963. The old bridge was restored in 1980 as a pedestrian bridge and the original lighting was replaced in 2011.

There is a wonderful 2 or 3 mile walking path along the river with lots of monuments and interpretive signs about the town's history. This statue George Montgomery: Rider of the Purple Sage (2003) was gifted to the city in 2007. George Montgomery was the youngest of 15 siblings born on a homestead near Brady, Montana. He graduated high school from Great Falls, attended one quarter at the University of Montana and headed for Hollywood. The legendary Hollywood leading man starred in 87 movies and the Cimarron City tv series. He also designed and built homes and furniture and was a gifted sculptor of over 40 pieces. He created the historic bronze Custer's Final Moments in 1975 in his second year of sculpting.

75% of the freight for the Northwest was unloaded here and some savvy merchants created an empire for themselves. Baker and Power became friends, as well as rivals. They shared several ventures and, at times, their people faced one another at gunpoint. Peaceful settlements were reached that were financially acceptable to both. They monopolized trade in the region until the coming of the railroad. They shared freighting adventures and jointly owned a steamboat line. They were into banking and export business with offices in St. Louis, Montreal, London and New York. Baker built a huge warehouse for shipment of wool down river. In 1892 Choteau County (one of only nine counties in the state at the time) had 400,000 sheep and 100,000 head went to Eastern markets for meat plus 1,000 bags of wool was shipped by steamboat.

T.C. Power stepped off the Yorktown here June 14, 1867 with a tiny stock of merchandise and plans as flexible as the wild frontier. His brother joined him in 1869. When the Blackfoot moved north, the Power Posts followed to tap the lucrative buffalo robe trade. Their big freight outfits supplied settlers across the region. In 1875 he bought the Benton as flagship of the Upper Missouri's greatest steamboat line, and a dozen other boats sporting the "Block P" became as well known to Montanans as the Robert E. Lee and the Natchez on the Mississippi. He was also involved in stage lines, mining, cattle and banking. He parlayed his start in Fort Benton into wealth, a seat in the U.S. Senate and a noteworthy place in regional history. Brother John Power's son and grandson went into the construction business in Montana and built the original section of the Lewis and Clark Brewery in Helena, where we have been a couple times to listen to the music and sample their beers. They have donated many artifacts from the trading post period to the museum, such as Sioux-style headdresses used by several plains tribes, decorative horse bridles, bear claw necklace, buffalo robes, etc.

Golden Eagle feathers were used by the Blackfoot for ceremonial regalia. The tail and wing feathers were collected by grabbing the eagle by the leg, pulling it into a hole and crushing it. It was high risk work, with injury from beak and talons almost a certainty.

Military figures and political powers were guests at the I.G. Baker home across the street, including this man, acting Governor Thomas Francis Meagher, who ate his final meal at Baker's home before retiring to his quarters in a steamboat across the street in 1867. He was never seen again, despite a large reward being offered. He was born in Ireland in 1823 and was an Irish revolutionary who was caught and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to exile in Tasmania, but he escaped to the U.S. where he became a Brigadier General in the Civil War with the 69th Fighting Irish Brigade. He was a hero of the Union Army at Antietam. He went west after the war as secretary to the Governor and became acting Governor when the appointee refused to stay in Montana. He had just been relieved of his position when he came to Fort Benton for one final duty--to pick up arms and ammo for the Montana Militia. He had recently pardoned a man, which was followed by the Vigilante hanging of the same man in Helena. He was also Irish and Democratic, which made him none too popular with other factions in the Territory. He also had many loyal supporters in the area. Many Union soldiers had rushed to Montana following the war, but there were also many Republicans and Confederate sympathizers in the community. Every 4th of July was a re-enactment of the Civil War! What occurred that evening is still speculation. Did he fall or was he pushed? His body was never found.

Captain John Mullan with 220 men and wagons began construction of the Mullan Road in 1859. It was a 624-mile wagon road that linked Fort Benton to the head of navigation on the Columbia River. Indian wars slowed them somewhat, but the route was opened to travel in 1860, years ahead of the transcontinental railroads. It ended at Fort Walla Walla, Washington. It was a highway to empire, the fastest land route across the country, a mere 47 days to travel it.

This full-scale replica of the keelboat Mandan (62' x 12' 6") was built for the movie The Big Sky. They preceded steamboats and used every kind of power, except steam, chiefly manpower. They would set long ash poles on the river bottom, push hard and walk the length of the boat bow to stern. Crews also stumbled along the bank at the end of a cable pulling. Breezes sometimes allowed the use of a sail. The keelboat speed record was 110 miles in 61 days, set in 1811 by a select crew of Manual Lisa, an impatient character. South Dakota winds chased his vessel clear around the Great Bend below Pierre for 75 miles in a long day. They carried beads, whiskey and other goods and traded for beaver pelts and buffalo robes at Indian posts along the Missouri. After the buffalo were almost wiped out, gathering their bones to ship back east to fertilizer plants became a lucrative business. Probably the first big recycling business.

The Lewis and Clark Memorial (1/6 larger than their actual size) cast in New York City is 21 feet tall and weighs two and a half tons. The bronze was brought upright on a semi-trailer. Problems encountered with underpasses caused many a head to turn, but the Captains were not recognized until they were west of the Mississippi. In 1926 the State Legislature selected Fort Benton as the site for a state memorial to Lewis and Clark. Charlie Russell was engaged, but shortly after doing preliminary sketches he passed away. Then the depression hit and there was no money. Charlie's wife had Henry Lyon create a 1/4 size statue that is now at the State Historical Museum in Helena. In 1972 the project was revived and completed in 1976 at no cost to taxpayers. It was Fort Benton's contribution to the nation's bicentennial in 1976 at a cost of $175,000. It is the State of Montana's official memorial to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The 85-ton granite base was a gift from Tanner Brother's Quarry near Square Butte, Montana. It was transported in mid-winter over frozen roads to save the roadway, on a 30-wheeled trailer.

Across the street from the riverwalk is the Museum of the Upper Missouri. We bought one $12 ticket here for all of the four museums in town. We hustled to get through three of them before closing time and saved the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument for a stop on our way home. Our Golden Age Pass covered that, so we didn't have to pay again.

After the last days of the fur trade, gold was discovered in Grasshopper Creek in 1862. Fort Benton was revived and thrived. Like all placer mining camps, it was wide open and operating spring through fall, 24 hours a day with all vices available. The town was wild, tough and uncivilized and very little law existed. Even its first sheriff was busy running several businesses. Most of Front Street was occupied by "Houses of Pleasure" for the enjoyment of rivermen, bullwhackers and miners. The most famous Madam was Eleanor Dumont, better known as Madame Moustache, but not to her face. Almost as famous was Mose Solomon's Medicine Lodge and Dena Murray's Jungle. Eleanor's place, the Cosmopolitan, relieved players of their poke at several gambling tables, poker, blackjack, etc. She endeared herself to the town by brandishing two pistols on the levee when the pilot of the W.B. Dance tried to land his cargo with smallpox on board. He was threatened by a couple of shots through the pilothouse as a warning. She stayed only a short time (2 years), as she had in many placer camps along the gold frontier. She wintered in Helena and moved onto more prosperous diggings further south. She joined "Hell on Wheels" on the Union Pacific and went on to fame in Deadwood and Tombstone. Dena ran her palace and parlor well into the 1880s and the end of the steamboat trade. She was a madame of means and her place was very popular among those who followed the green cloth, the bottle and pleasures of the flesh. All entertained the travelers and extracted large amounts of gold dust from their pokes (mining the miners) before they returned to their claims or went back to the States. The Chinese settled among the joints on the "bloodiest block" next door to saloons and brothels, providing laundries, restaurants, shops and opium dens in their basements. They stayed until the 1900s when prejudice drove them off. There was a late-night hanging and the next morning they had all disappeared, eventually making their way to Lethridge, Canada. By 1875 the town was again booming thanks to Canadian trade, freight for the Quartz mines and demands from the growing cities of Helena and Butte. In 1885 the railroads bypassed her to the north and south and the town settled into an era of cattle and sheep ranching, just a pretty little town on the river with a very colorful history.

The museum had letters written by Charlie Russell with pictures he drew of ranch life in the Judith Basin area, where he lived for many years. There were also interesting stories about Vigilantes dealing out justice. The last hanging in Fort Benton by Vigilantes was in 1868. The last two legal hangings after a trial by jury were in 1894 and 1895. Public hangings were a social affair that included invitations to the event. The gallows was set up on the courthouse lawn. Formal photographs were taken at the last two hangings of the entire hanging party, including defense and prosecuting attorneys and famous (or infamous) Fort Benton Judge, the Honorable Dudley Du Bose.

Posters and stories of a few of the more infamous characters who spent some time here.

The nearby town of Harlem, started in 1912, boasted a saloon run by Loney Curry, brother of Kid Curry.

This gun was dropped by one of the James-Younger Gang during their hasty retreat after the famous bank robbery attempt in Northfield, Minnesota in 1876. A shoot-out with the local citizenry killed three of the gang and captured Cole Younger. Frank and Jesse escaped.

After we finished the first museum, we walked across the lawn to the replica of the original fur fort.

They have preserved a portion of the original wall from 1846. There is a small art museum on the ground floor and the Bourgeois House above, where the Agent-in-Charge and his family lived as well as anyone in high society back east. The stagecoach left every other day bound for Helena, soon to be the capitol. A trip to Helena took ten days by wagon or two days by stagecoach, today about three hours.

Across the courtyard, inside the Trading Post were buffalo hides, beaver pelts, Indian chief headdresses from different tribes, mounted grizzly bear, eagles, etc. 50 to 60 steamboats docked here each year. Over 40,000 buffalo robes were shipped downriver annually from Fort Benton to markets back East, and as far as St. Petersburg, Russia. Sale of Whiskey was illegal in Montana. More than 40 "whiskey posts" were opened just over the border. Unscrupulous whiskey traders carried supplies north and brought buffalo robes south to send back down the Missouri. Traders took wagons as far north as Calgary and Edmonton. Two gallon cans of 170 proof "highwine" was used to make trade whiskey. It was common practice to water down whiskey before trading it to the Indians for maximum profit. Check out the recipe below. Mmm, Mmm.

From 1869 to 1874 the whiskey trade was a wild and lawless pursuit, until the Mounties arrived.

Bear claw necklace and other trade items. I wonder if the bear claws were all collected by the same person, maybe just traded for.

Little Brother Goes Swimming by Bob Scriver, a famous Montana sculptor.

There are many of his pieces in the small art gallery here in the fort. This one is called The Handstick Game. The Blackfeet are famous gamblers and this game has been played for many generations and is still played today at Blackfeet Indian Days. The games can go on to the point of exhaustion or the loss of all possessions. There are also many pictures by Karl Bodmer who traveled with Prince Maximilian from 1832 to 1834 on his exploration of the Upper Missouri.

When we finished at the fort, we walked about four blocks over to the Montana Agricultural Center and Homestead Village to wrap up our trio of museums for the day.

The first room in this museum is the Hornaday Smithsonian Buffalo Gallery with several great mounts and some great paintings and sculptures, but the center of the Hornaday Room holds a display that was originally in the Smithsonian until 1950. It was the first display of an entire family group of large mammals and the first exhibit to be surrounded by specimens from their natural environs, including skulls, bones, hides, soil, plants and fossils all shipped from Montana. The Smithsonian's exhibit of the Hornaday buffalo established a new standard for museums all over the world. William Temple Hornaday 1854-1937 fought for the earliest wildlife protection laws. There is a mountain in Yellowstone named for him. He was the chief taxidermist at the National Museum (Smithsonian) and started a Department of Living Animals there with bison he brought from Montana. It later became the National Zoo. He started the New York Zoological Society, and established and was the director for 30 years of the New York Biological Park (Bronx Zoo), which became one of the largest and most respected zoos in the world. He helped get several laws passed to protect different animal species and is personally credited for saving the American Bison from extinction. There is some interesting stuff about him on Wikipedia.

Chief Dan George by Harley Brown. He was an actor, musician, poet and author best remembered for portraying Old Lodge Skins opposite Dustin Hoffman in Little Big Man for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. He was also in The Outlaw Josey Wales with Clint Eastwood.

This little exhibit showed the development of the washing machine. In the early 1900s thousands of homesteaders came and Fort Benton prospered as a center of trade for the fertile Golden Triangle (wheat). The government granted 320 acres and dozens of towns sprang up to support the homesteaders between 1900 and 1920. The Dust Bowl left lots of ghost towns.

Few wrenches were adjustable back then. Wrenches were produced for a particular piece of equipment and sold with the implement. Tool boxes were attached to most farm machinery.

I remember playing this in DeLamere.

This water wagon was built in Chicago before WWI and came west on the Great Northern Railroad. It held 800 gallons and after use on farms, it eventually was used at the Chouteau County Fairgrounds to sprinkle the rodeo arena and the track before horse races.

1919 Republic Delivery Truck. During the homestead years trucks like this bumped down the rough country roads delivering lumber to build claim shacks. One-room dwellings could be purchased as a kit. Western Montana mills sold lumber as fast as the railroads delivered it. The mills took advantage of the honyockers. The law required construction of a building and winter was just around the corner. They were forced to buy whatever was available at premium prices. Deliveries included tar paper, nails and many times even a stove. Chevy sold over a million vehicles in 1927, the first year it outsold Ford. Truck prices ranged from $495 to $610 for one with a cab. They came with a full complement of the necessary tools for repairs.

And I was born. A lot of good stuff happened that year!

1953 Chevrolet Bel-Air, the most popular car that year, the same year the Corvette was added to their line. The Bel-Air came in 13 solid colors and 10 two-tone combos. It sold for $1,874.00 plus $178 for power steering. Taxes and licensing began in 1914 to help pay for new roads and repair old ones.

Behind the museum they have a really nice homestead era town. I loved this little gas station.

City Hall had an actual padded cell.

By the 1920s most blacksmith shops served horses and automobiles. They had a livery stable with all sorts of carriages.

Even a stagecoach, a sleigh and several hearses.

Next we walked back through the city park where they have several interesting memorials.

This one is in memory of over 4,000 working U.S. Military dogs who served in Vietnam and were left behind.

This one is dedicated to those in Choteau County who gave their lives in WWII. I believe the bigger one to the right was for WWI. The one in the left background is the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine Monument for all types of boats that have a naming tie to Montana, located here because Fort Benton was the head of navigation on the Missouri River and the innermost port in the world. Fort Benton provided four Admirals for the U.S. Navy.

These are examples of the plaques on the top of each post in the circle.

Sacagawea was the first maritime commissioned vessel named for a woman.

From here we headed to Havre to check into our hotel and have some supper.

We stayed at the AmericInn which was very nice and went to the nearby Murphy's Pub at the recommendation of the young man who checked us in. It was very good. John had a Jeremiah Johnson Mountain Man Scotch Ale. Seems like a long name just to order a beer, but he said it was good.

The next day we stopped by the H. Earl Clack Museum in the Village Mall. If you go through their museum, you can see the buffalo jump out behind, but we have done a buffalo jump museum before, so we decided to pass. The pictures above and below are back toward the buffalo jump and overlooking the Milk River.

We decided to take the Downtown Underground tour instead. The Great Fire of 1905 burned an entire block completely to the ground. Most of the businesses just set up shop in the basements underneath and flourished there. They just knocked holes through the walls, so people could go from one shop to another. In 1916 the Law and Order League of Chicago visited 28 cities to assess their lawlessness compared to Chicago. They found Washington and Oregon to have been pretty decent, but thought Butte and Havre were the two worst cities they visited. They thought Butte might be able to redeem herself, but Havre was pretty much beyond saving. The businesses operated out of their basement shops until around 1930, when the town finally endeavored to straighten out and go legit.

Access between shops.

Saddle Shop.

Butcher Shop.

Drug Store and Soda Fountain.

Barber Shop.

Brothel, of course.

There were separate bathrooms and rows of beds with numbers above them and curtains to pull closed around them.

Chinese Laundry with Opium Den nextdoor. There was also a saloon and gambling place , a bakery and a Tamale Kitchen.

Shorty's office. A combination of railroaders, cowboys, soldiers and coal miners made Havre a seething cauldron of violent and conflicting elements. The meeting place for all of them was notorious Shorty Young's Montana Hotel, honky tonk and brothel. Our tour guide was very well-informed and told very interesting and entertaining stories about some of the local characters.

There was even a mortuary down there. The caskets were just woven baskets. The sandwich toaster below was in the museum upstairs. When the WWII soldiers were coming through on the trains, they could get sandwiches from a vending machine in the depot and toast them in this thing.

The Milk River country and all of the Hi-Line area owes its development to the energy and foresight of James J. Hill. He moved from Canada to St. Paul at age 18 and worked as a bookkeeper for a steamboat company until 1860. He then took a job handling freight transfers for wholesale grocers and fuel supply. He joined the coal business in 1867 and expanded five times by 1879. He then entered banking, bought bankrupt businesses, built them back up and resold them. During the Panic of 1873 he and his partners bought a bankrupt railroad in Minnesota and reorganized it into the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba. It later became the Great Northern Railway with the absorption of Montana Central. By 1892 there was a roundhouse and shop in Havre that employed 200 men and a section house every six miles along the track for construction, maintenance and communication. From 1883 to 1889 he built railroads across Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota to Montana and by 1893 all the way to Seattle 1,700 miles. He did most of the route planning himself by horseback. It was the first transcontinental railroad built without public money and just a few land grants. in 1901, with the help of J.P. Morgan, they merged Northern Pacific, Union Pacific and Great Northern to form the Northern Securities Company, which President Teddy Roosevelt later tried to dissolve as a monopoly. After four failed attempts over 74 years, the Supreme court eventually approved the merger in 1970 to become the Burlington Northern Railroad. In 1995 they merged again with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe to become the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe (BNSF).

In the afternoon we drove just a few miles west of Havre to tour what is left of Fort Assinniboine. They also had a very good, volunteer tour guide who drove us around in a golf cart and told us all about the buildings that are left and all the ones that are no longer there. The 1880 building on the right had apartments shared by two junior officers with servant quarters in the rear. Fort Assinniboine was established in 1878 on Beaver Creek to hold off marauding Indians, including Sitting Bull's hostile Sioux in the aftermath of the defeat of Custer. There were more than 100 buildings on 220,000 acres and it cost over a million dollars. It was a strategic location at the conjunction of two major Indian trails. It was one of four forts guarding the border. It accommodated up to 746 enlisted men and officers, plus some civilian workers and lots and lots of horses. The library carried 33 newspapers and 15 magazines and had over 1,000 books.

General Pershing served here as a young lieutenant 1895 to 1896. He was in charge of the 10th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers. The Infantry and Cavalry stationed here never actually took part in a single engagement after the fort was completed. Pershing was recalled from West Point, at his own request, to rejoin his 10th Cavalry on assignment to Cuba in 1898 and the fort was practically abandoned. He and his Buffalo Soldiers fought valiantly alongside Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders at the Battle of San Juan Hill. One eye witness said, "If it had not been for the Negro cavalry, the Rough Riders would have been exterminated." Horace W. Bivens was among the non-commissioned black officers at the fort. During a career spanning thirty years, he received 32 medals including the Silver Star for valor at San Juan Hill. His army record on marksmanship is still one of the highest on record.

In 1911 President Taft signed a bill abolishing the largest military reservation in the U.S. Some of the demolished buildings provided bricks for Pershing Hall at Northern Montana College in Havre. 58,000 acres became part of Rocky Boy Indian Reservation. Another portion became an experimental station for Montana State Agriculture College. Most of the land was opened to homesteading and the Beaver Creek area (first a Federal park) became part of the largest county park in the U.S. Some of the people who work at the experimental ag. station still live in apartments in some of the buildings. John A. Burns, born at the fort in 1905, was the architect of Hawaiian statehood and Governor of Hawaii from 1962 to 1970.

Residential duplex built in 1905 for NCOs with families. West Point, the first military school in the country, was established by Congress in 1802. Henry Ossian Flipper, born a slave in 1856, was the first African-American cadet to graduate from West Point in 1877. He was never spoken to by a white cadet during his four years at West Point. He was appointed a second lieutenant in the all-African 10th Cavalry, of which Pershing was very proud to be the commander.

Heading home on Wednesday we saw endless numbers of train cars just sitting in storage along the way.

We stopped at Fort Benton again on our way home to check out the Upper River Missouri Breaks Interpretive Center. Some of the species found within the breaks are elk, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, red fox, beaver, bald eagles, blue herons, walleye, catfish, pallid sturgeon, shovelnose sturgeon and paddlefish over 100 pounds. A little trivia I learned in the museum: North America has over 4,400 described species of native bees that pollinate wildflowers and crops. A porcupine has approximately 30,000 barbed quills. The baby "prickle pigs" are born with all of their quills in place. Mom is thankful that they don't harden until an hour after birth. Ouch! King James I of England kept a pack of tame otters to catch and retrieve fish for his table. I wonder what he gave them as a reward.

View behind the center. They decided to call it "the breaks", rather than the badlands, as they wanted people to come. Good marketing. This 149-mile stretch of dramatic cliffs is the last free-flowing section of the great waterway explored by Lewis and Clark and is protected as a National Wild and Scenic River. Levees and dams have changed the course and speed and temperature of the river in other areas, creating long stretches that have a lake-like quality.

This is the surrender rifle presented by Chief Joseph to Generals Howard and Miles. In 1855 the Nez Perce Indians signed a treaty to live on a 7.5 million acre reservation stretching from Oregon to Idaho. Soon after, the gold seekers rushed in and the government reclaimed 6 million of those acres. Deeply divided about whether to accept this, Chief Joseph led a band of 700 that refused, closely followed by 2,000 soldiers. Fleeing persecution, they traveled by foot and on horseback through Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, 1,700 miles through mountains, rivers and canyons that ended in a 5-day siege at the Bear's Paw Mountains northeast of Fort Benton. With his people dying, starving and freezing, Chief Joseph ended his surrender speech with these famous words. "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." The Nez Perce blanket was traded by a starving Indian for food after the Bear's Paw Battle, before they were all sent by steamboat to Oklahoma for imprisonment. Single women, families, young men, freed slaves and European immigrants came in droves to set up homesteads. The population of Montana grew from 39,000 to 143,000 from 1880 to 1890. With the enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, the population quadrupled.