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David Morris was a packer and guide, who was memorialized in the Silvertip Basin for his conservation techniques and animal management program long before such things existed. Dave always loved hiking and riding in the wilderness, particularly the Silvertip Basin, a rugged, steep area, but his outfitter career began quite by chance. Locals and friends knew of his expertise and asked him to take them up to hunt for deer, mountain goats, bear and elk. He gladly fulfilled their wishes and never asked compensation. When someone suggested this was a way to make extra cash, he realized the potential of his friendly service. Thus began Dave’s life-long career as an outfitter. The trek began long before the guests arrived. The campsite, the trail up to it, and the base camp had to be cleared and developed, adequate supplies for both hunters and horses had to be hauled up on horseback and made secure from bears. These included sleeping tents, the kitchen-dining tent, and wood for heat and cooking. To pack all this gear without injury to the horses, Dave, using a pair of portable scales, weighed everything to ensure the loads would be balanced and not too heavy. To guarantee he would not introduce foreign plants into the area, he grew on his ranch the wild grasses found in the Basin and packed up those for horse feed. Folks thought he was fool-hardy to raise and use Tennessee Walking Horses, but that breed proved to be a good choice. Sometimes the crew had to shovel the 12-mile track up the mountain, so the hunters could get to the destination safely. He limited his outfitting to 30 hunters per year, because he knew the size of the elk herds and felt any more would deplete the population. He cared for the environment, the animals, and his customers. To honor him the Forest Service named his hunting area after him.

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This painting of a modern cowboy catching a wild horse reflects a problem that has existed since horses were brought to the United States. Back in the 1930's thousands upon thousands of horses were released into the wild by those whose ranches failed. As they exited they could take with them only those animals and things they could carry or use. These horses, if they did not die of disease, bred, until the Montana countryside was over-run with wild horse herds. Oldsters talk of seeing stallions fighting for the mares. Worse, the weakened horses would spread their diseases to the tame horses. John and Clarence Steffen remembered an incident that happened while there was still some open range in Dawson County. Some infected stallion or mare brought a venereal disease into eastern Montana. The epidemic was so widespread that the federal government ordered all infected horses destroyed and paid farmers to test their horses. Seventeen of the Steffen mares and their registered stallion had to be shot. The government reimbursed the ranchers $100 for each horse lost.

In our times, families that tire of the responsibility of caring for a horse will take it to state or federal lands and dump their pet. The horses, if they survive, eat precious grasses that are needed for truly wild animals; others become diseased and injured.

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"MISS FANNIE SPERRY WINNING 4 MILE RELAY

RACE TIME 9 MIN. 42 SEC – 8 CHANGES OF HORSES"

When or where this race was held has been forgotten by her elderly niece, Viola Sperry; but Viola did describe the excitement of the race in which her aunt beat Christine and Buff, last names forgotten, too. Fannie was hired by the Capital Stock Food Company in 1904, when she was just 17, to spend the summer racing as one of the Montana Girls relay team. The team traveled the state performing this new and novel event where the contestants, always dressed lady-like had to change their saddles from one horse to the next between each lap. Since it was considered improper for the fair female sex even to get close to a rodeo or relay race, there are no women watching the race. They sat in clusters on hill-sides chatting, eating picnics and watching the little ones. Adding a little excitement for the males attending and also ensuring a financial success for the race, a betting booth was constructed near the grandstand. The events were indeed commercial successes with thousands attending them. Their popularity spread eastward, and a reporter covering their event at Madison Square Garden in New York City coined the term cowgirl. Since they did not rope steers, the riders protested and wanted to be called horsewomen, but the cowgirl term stuck. Finding racing in a floor length skirt hindering their riding abilities, the girls began wearing divided skirts which still looked like proper attire until they jumped on their horses. Then the fans could see the riders were racing in a pair of baggy, pleated pants. For this impropriety, one reporter wrote, "These cowgirls could hardly be called ladies." One comment which inflamed Fannie after she won a race was, "If these women were men, they'd be the finest riders in racing."

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Located about a mile north of the Kjos farm outside of Fairview, Montana, the Church School - though not affiliated with any church -  was a typical, tiny, one-room country school, having been moved to this location around 1950. The attached lean-to was added as living quarters for the teacher.  It consisted of a tiny bedroom and living room with cooking facilities.  If the students were especially good the teacher would allow them to bring potatoes from home which she would bake in her teacherage. In the school room were desks for the students, who never numbered more than seven. Blackboards, a wall map, the teacher’s desk, chair, a flag, and a Seigler heater were in the front of the room, while the back had an old pump organ.  Water was hauled to the school and stored in the entry next to a wash basin for cleaning hands.  A barn with three doors was also hauled to the site.  The first door was the boys’ outhouse, and the other two were used for animals, while the girls’ was a separate outhouse. There was a swing-set for play.  Subjects were the basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic along with art, and organ lessons were given after school.  Cold lunches and drinks were brought from home.  Since there were no telephones – electricity in the area arrived in 1949 – parents would watch for smoke from the chimney to ensure the teacher was present. Keeping a teacher was not easy in such a rural environment, and some lasted only a few days.

Tales about the students include a boy who stuck his tongue on the metal support of the swing set one cold winter day, and it took a couple of cups of water poured over the tongue to get it loose.  Another describes how a boy took a girl’s newly knitted mittens and threw them down the outhouse’s pot.  The lucky teacher got to fish them out.

In 1954, when the number of students fell to two, the school was closed.  Now a crumbling structure in the middle of the never-ending plains, the little school house seems almost unreal; but if one stands there and listens and dreams just a little, one can almost see and hear those little blond, blue eye Norwegians scampering about and making life difficult now and then for the very young teacher.

Availability: Sold

On Christmas day, 1889, Gunda Mellumbraaten was born in Norway.  Losing her mother while still a baby, she was raised by her aunt and uncle.  At sixteen she fell in love with Lars Borg, they married a year later, and eight children were soon born in the house built by Lars. In 1911, when just 22 years old, she, Lars, and the six surviving children embarked on a small cattle boat  for Liverpool, England. They would then take a passenger ship to America, where her brother and two of Lars’ brothers lived.  Enduring a foot of water in their cabin caused by high seas’ breaking the portholes, they discovered their second ship was also badly damaged by the same storm and unable to sail. Thus, they set sail for Quebec, Canada, from which they traveled by train to Sault St. Marie and entered the U.S.  Lars worked as a carpenter in Minnesota, where another daughter was born, until they were finally able to move to Montana in 1913, first to Sidney then on to the Fairview area, where they took over the homestead of Gunda’s deceased brother.  Six more children were born after their arrival in Montana.  Our princess was Edith, child number fourteen, born on October 25, 1920.  The painting shows the female part of the family walking home from Sunday service at the Scandinavia Lutheran Church, a half-mile away from their home.  The other three young ladies are Gerda, Thyra, Anna, and Ruth with Nellie still to be born four years later.  When she could take time from parenting, cooking, and gardening, Gunda crocheted and knitted.  Princess Edith’s fine attire was surely hand-made by her mom, Gunda, while the regal carriage must have been created by her father, Lars.

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Price: US $500
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Montana State Finals for the Mounted Shooters of America competition were held at the fairgrounds in Roundup in 2009. Cowboy mounted shooting rules require riders use two single action revolvers that are loaded with five rounds of special .45 caliber black powder ammunition to break balloons that are placed in challenging patterns. The contestants dress in cowboy and cowgirl garb with their pistols safely tucked within their belts. The first revolver must be completely discharged and returned to the belt before the second one can be fired. The rider is graded on his speed and the quantity of balloons shot. Thanks to the black powder's producing great amounts of smoke and sound, the tournaments are not only a great participation sport but are also fun to watch. Here, John Phister, a Roundup local, is completing his successful run.

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When Bill Cody ended his Wild West show due to age and ill health, Fannie Sperry Steele and her husband, Bill, started their own, which performed at stampedes, roundups and rodeos. Fannie, born March 27, 1887, was then in her mid-to late-thirties, and more than half her life had been spent racing and performing.  She wanted children and a ranch of her own, and with their earnings, they were able to purchase a hunters’ ranch on Arrastra Creek near the small town of Helmville, Montana.  Fannie still hoped to have children until Bill bluntly informed her the problem was hers, not his.  He then shared a secret long kept from her - he had a son from a previous marriage.  She accepted her circumstances so they could have a good life together as ranchers and outfitters on their high wilderness paradise. Bill’s son, Ivan, and then his grandson, Vannie, became part of her life also as they visited from California when they could.  After Bill died of a stroke in 1940, Fannie continued ranching and outfitting until one fine day Ivan arrived to talk business.  Unknown to Fannie, Bill had willed his half of their ranch to his son, and Ivan came to collect his share.  Crushed and unable to buy him out, Fannie had no choice.  Ivan sold the ranch in 1965, and Fannie was homeless. Her nieces and nephews moved the legendary cowgirl, along with her favorite horses, to her deceased sister’s homestead high in the Beartooth Mountains.  About the same time she received a letter that she had been chosen as a member of the Cowboy Hall of Fame.    She died in 1983, age 95.

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The first rodeo in the eastern part of Montana .was held at the Steffen Ranch outside Glendive on July 25, 1922. The name of the chap riding this wild horse is unknown. How long he stayed on top or whether he won is also unknown. John Steffen couldn't remember, even though the nonagenarian scrupulously catalogued all his father's old photographs and memorabilia. What John wrote as a tribute to all the homesteaders of this era though is more important.

"We, the sons and daughters of the homesteaders, owe you a debt of gratitude. You suffered and sacrificed much for us. You have given us a less rigorous, more enriching and rewarding life than you endured. You gave us a heritage surpassing monetary worth. You gave us a sense and appreciation of values, a love of country, family, and neighbor. In the western ranching and homestead areas of today, this heritage is reflected in our present day youth who show a greater sense of balance than their counterparts in other areas of America."

John died last year, just six months after his brother, Clarence, and with their passing, another Steffen generation of great ranchers and fine people has ended.

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Joe Klasna was born in Nebraska, and in 1911 or1912 he headed northwest to claim his homestead in the Sidney, Montana area. His first home, made of sod, sufficed as a beginning. On a nearby ranch lived the Goss family, who numbered many children, and Joe met their eldest, a dark-haired beauty named Helen. Love blossomed, but one could not move a true love into a sod house. To rectify this in 1918 he hand-built a popular style, single-story house. It really wasn't much of a place, wasn't even different from many others built in the area, just 15 feet by 24 feet and consisted of two rooms, a bedroom and a combo living room and kitchen, but it was his and would be the house for his beautiful bride. Without a church nearby, on August 19, 1919, Joe and Helen exchanged vows in her parents' house. It was fortunate he built a sturdy house, for 1919 was a horrific winter with much snow. They ranched and farmed, and, as they became prosperous, added rooms to their home. Two sons were added too: the first Joseph Jr., in 1921, another son nine years later during which interval a set of twins were still-born. Ultimately they sold their house, it was moved somewhere in the valley and still stands. The picture depicts Joe and Helen as they leave her family's house after a visit. in the winter of 1919.

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Why or where this picture was taken is not known - except it was early spring, 1913, and the little chap at the far right of the painting was Sigurd Rudie.  The children were dressed to the hilt, so all knew the box camera would take their photo.  Perhaps it was the first known school bus in the Sidney area, perhaps in all of Montana, where getting children to and from school was not easy in difficult winters.  In the Miles City area, the problem was sometimes solved by having one mom and all the children live the winter in a dug-out structure built near the school.  Another was setting a wooden, mobile, one-room class within walking distance of students’ homes.  Different solutions were involved families’ banding together to build roads to carry their children on horseback or buggy to schools.  If a family was large enough, the teacher would just live with them or in another structure on the ranch and teach there.  Others had to leave their families to attend schools in neighboring towns.  As to Sigurd, not dressed quite as fancy as the others, he and his family were new arrivals in the United States that year from Norway.  He and his grandmother became U.S. citizens in 1919.

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Few women were strong and capable enough to ride steers, but Fannie Sperry Steele was a glowing exception. Here, at the Gilman Stampede, September 1-3, 1917, when she was thirty, Fannie out-performed her male counterparts.

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The Rudie farm, located near Fairview, Montana, celebrated its centennial in 2006.  In this painting, Sigurd Jr. was helping his dad store the hay in the barn, and that shiny truck is much prized and still in use.  The Rudie brothers brought their agricultural traditions from Norway, filed seven homesteads at first, and added even more as other brothers and Sigurd Jr.’s grandmother sailed to the United States and became citizens. The prosperous and well-kept farm raises wheat, malt barley, oats, angus cattle and sheep and produces oil.

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The eldest of six children, Del Carey, at the tender age of nineteen or twenty, was thrust into heading the ranch and family when his father died in a tragic horse accident.  In a parade in Miles City, his horse reared up and threw him backwards.  Del’s father struck his head on the curb and died five or six days later.  When his mother remarried and moved to Seattle, Del stayed to run the family ranch on Foster Creek in Custer County and ultimately bought it outright.  He loved ranching and he preferred his horses over machinery.  Once someone became stuck in the creek near his house and asked Del to pull him out.  Mounting his trusty horse instead of his truck, Del quickly pulled out the pick-up.  He loved to rope and was an honored, invited helper at the local brandings, for he put the care of the calf above all else.  He was the children’s favorite, for he had one very tame horse which he let all the little ones ride.  Married with seven children, life was not always easy for him, but like a true cowboy, he just tried to enjoy what God had given him.  He played the banjo, fiddle and mandolin at local dances and loved reading about the lives of other cowboys.  About 45 years old in this painting, he is pulling a calf to the branding fire.

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Randy Carey, born in the early forties, was about ten when he taught both himself and his ever-faithful Shetland pony this trick.  Being the youngest of six children, he was a reasonably spoiled child, but then that sort of matched the temperament of his pony. Popeye was a gift from his parents, and he rode his pony everywhere on their ranch on Foster Creek in Custer County.  Randy taught him this trick which both horse and rider loved to perform.  After his father died in a horrible horse accident, his mother remarried a man from Seattle, and Randy moved with them there.  It is unknown if Popeye made the transition to city life or was left back on the ranch.

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The Crow Reservation
Once the Crow Nation signed the treaty to give them the land they desired, the Federal Government wanted Chief Plenty Coups to appoint the first native police officer. Bear Claw was the one honored, and he proudly discharged his duties. After his death his badge was lost, and years later it was discovered in Texas.

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Crowder Horse Ranch
Linda Crowder is a renowned competitive rider, horse trainer and instructor that teaches both in the Billings area and in California. She and her husband, Gary Crowder, along with their son, Kale, own and operate the ranch on the outskirts of Billings which once belonged to Bud and Bobby Brooks Kramer. Their charming home was once a homesteader school, and the walls of their living room are lined from floor to ceiling with pictures of rodeo events in which both Linda and Gary excelled along with plaques, trophies, belt buckles and awards they have both won. Among Linda's many awards are 1986 Intermountain Quarter Horse Association High Point Senior Barrel Horse and High Point Junior Pole Bending Horse; 1982 Montana Quarter Horse Association High Point Senior Barrel Horse; 1996 Borderline Pole Bending Futurity Champion; 2004 Northwest Barrel Racing association Senior 2 D Champion; and 2006 Cans for Cures 1D Champion and Overall High Point Saddle Winner.

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Crowder Horse Ranch
A veteran of the Viet Nam War, Gary, a Montana native, traveled from Colorado to Montana where he was hired on in 1968 as full time horse trainer for Bud and Bobby Kramer on the ranch they had established three miles northeast of Billings. Raising bucking, cutting and quarter horses with the Hanging A Diamond brand along with long-horn cattle and sheep, Bud and Bobby knew they had found a remarkable wrangler in Gary. He knew he had found his life-long career and a friend and advocate in the Kramers. She adopted Gary who now, with his wife, Linda, run the ranch and training stable. They live in what once was an old school house for the homesteaders' children in the Billings area.

Some of Gary's many accomplishments as a well known competitive rider, horse trainer, and breeder include 1975 Midland Empire Open Horse Show Western Pleasure Stakes Champion; 1977 Montana Wyoming Cutting Horse Association High Point Open Cutting Horse and Area 4 Open Champion Cutting Horse; 1981 Intermountain Quarter Horse Association High Point Junior Cutting Horse; 1982 Montana Reined Cowhorse Cutting Horse Derby Champion; 1982 Cow Country Snaffle Bit Futurity Champion; 1987 Montana Quarter Horse Triangle Association Snaffle Bit Reining Futruity Champion and Milk River Snaffle Bit Futurity Champion.

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Brooks Ranch
Violet Davison Brooks had both a famous grandfather and daughter. John Butterfield won a $600,000 government contract to deliver St. Louis mail to San Francisco in 25 days, thus starting the Butterfield Overland Stage Company, the longest stage coach route in the world. There were 139 change stations along the 2,000 mile route, along with a water stop every 30 miles. Horses used were thoroughbred racing horses so they could out-run Indian attacks, who referred to these fast horses as "faster than wind." The stage company was bought by Wells Fargo, and Mr. Butterfield became the founder of American Express. Violet's daughter was Bobby Brooks Kramer, who was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame for her competitive riding, training, and breeding of horses.

Violet was born in the northern part of Montana. She developed a love of horses at an early age and became a race horse rider and match-racing jockey. A match race, which was quite popular before racing tracks were built, consisted of winning a race of a length chosen by the participants. She also was chosen the first Miss Montana. She married Ed Brooks, a lawman and rancher who settled in Montana after coming up the trail from Texas with a herd of cattle. The painting is based upon an old photo taken of her repairing her saddle near their ranch on Big Sheep Mountain.

Steffen Ranch
Ethel Sansborn and Laura Quick Andersen were best friends and neighbors to the Steffens, whom they would ride over to visit. Horses were the mode of transportation at the turn of the century, and these were capable horsewomen.

Ethel’s father, Sam, homesteaded on land adjoining Bill’s. She arrived from North Dakota a few years after her dad and before she married Bun Brody did the woman’s work on their ranch.

Just turning nine Laura, Gail, her elder brother, her Father, and the housekeeper, Amanda, left Cooperstown, North Dakota to claim their homestead outside of Glendive. Her mother had died and armed with furniture, belongings, and animals, the trip from Circle fluctuated between harrowing and downright disaster. Snow hampered their journey, and before it was over they had to abandon their calf and some of their furniture. When they reached their shanty they found it occupied by another family! They quickly helped the squatters complete their cabin so they might have a roof over their heads for winter, but it was not much of a place. With just a tar paper roof, all would awaken with snow upon them, for heat they would crouch around their tiny laundry stove which burned the buffalo chips they gathered. Having no well, they walked to get water from a spring, and their trusty horse slept next to their bed. Proper food was scarce, but Amanda always kept them fed. LuLu’s Dad married Amanda, but after two years of disasters and poor crops, they abandoned the homestead idea and returned to his original occupation - only this time he was sheriff of McCone county.

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Steffen Ranch
William Steffen and his brother, Ferdinand, Fred for short, were helping farm their father’s place in North Dakota, but they were searching for a new frontier. They wanted to be ranchers! In 1907 they found their dream outside Glendive – hilly land, which they felt was good for cattle and undesirable to farmers so here their cowboy adventures began.

A serious drawback to frontier life was the scarcity of womenfolk. So, when the boys wanted a night out, they’d dress to the nines, pour their home-made brews and distillates into jugs and bottles, and celebrate a men’s night out. Why they were standing in the dirt near the incipient walls of a root cellar or a barn will never be known. Perhaps they were celebrating its construction, or perhaps it was just a good place to get out of the wind. No one knows, and it doesn’t matter, for they clearly had a grand time. Fred is not among the revelers, for he had been smitten by that wonderful invention, the camera, and took the picture.

The only fellow that can be identified was Bill, the handsome chap on the left. Dressed like a real cowpoke he looks like the fellow any girl would dream of catching. Yet, he is the only one in that group of chums never married. A unique individual, he even lived in a cave for a while. He worked hard too, and when he died he left one of the oldest, hardiest, continuous herds of cattle under one brand in Dawson County.

On top of the highest hill on what was once Bill’s land, his nephews, Clarence and John, have placed a Jayhawk stacker as a monument to their uncle.

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The Winner
Oil on Antique Metal 45" x 35.75"
(The metal sheet was used in the building of the Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad, probably as a piece of a furnace.)

Steffen Ranch
As the flyer proudly heralded, “Some of the most astounding Wild West Features ever seen in the state will be exhibited to the public. They will consist of saddle riding, bareback riding, steer riding, etc. These horses are the wildest and most untamable that ever grew hair. If you don’t believe it come and seem [sic] them - Cow Boy [sic] Running Race, Keg Roping, Potato Race on Horse Back - Big Bowery Dance at Night -Admission 50c … Fred Dreyer, Manager”

On July 25, 1922 over 200 folks swarmed onto Bill Steffen’s Ranch to witness history – the first- ever rodeo in eastern Montana. Participants and riders came from what now is five counties. The prize for the lucky winners was hard, cold cash, no fancy belt buckles back then. Native Americans flocked in, too, for they were eager to try their hands at the wild horse race.

The gentler sex really did not participate, for it was not lady-like to be standing close to the events, and back then there were neither stadiums nor grandstands where they could find a seat. They coyly gathered up on the hill overlooking the site, from which they had a good view while picnicking in the grass with neighbors they rarely saw and watching the little ones frolic.

Fred Dryer, a local homesteader, tried his talent as manager, found he was good, and decided this was for him. He quickly gave up his ranch, moved to California, and rumor has it he made it big, though the old-timers are not quite sure doing what. As to the winner of the bucking horse competition, it was a Prairie County rancher, Don Holt who walked away with the prize..

The Drifter
Oil on Barnwood 21" x 27"

Steffen Ranch
Earl Coryell and his twin sister were born on their parents’ homestead outside Glendive. Rumor has it he was a good artist, though nothing survives to prove the story correct. Nothing is left of the Coryell Ranch either, for when hard times hit in the twenties, the homestead reverted to the government. Grasshoppers consumed what wheat the farmers were able to grow on their sun-baked, wind-swept patches of land, and those so lucky to have water rights had a chance to survive. Those without moved on to survive. In reality the ranches were just not large enough to support families in the drought years.

Earl had another amazing talent for which he is revered. He was one of the best trick ropers around. Folks paid hard-earned coins at the local rodeos to watch his feats with the lasso. Sadly, though, one couldn’t thrive on that talent, and, one day, Earl just drifted on - hopefully to a better life.

The Steer Rider
Oil on Barnwood 21 " x 27.5 "

Steffen Ranch
It just wasn’t his day to win. Poor Ted Hammond, a popular local, drew a mighty mean steer, and no matter how hard he tried to stay on, his ride quickly ended with his eating dirt. You might call Ted’s draw a bum steer. Yep, there was no cash prize for him, but he consoled himself with the thought of the dance that evening.

A Bowery Dance is one held outside with planks laid for a dance floor, local musicians joined together to create the music, and the local bootleggers – don’t forget 1922 had Prohibition - smuggling in their wares. After a little hooch, it didn’t matter if yer won or yer lost. What was important was dancing with your pretty lady, drinking a little more than a little, and holding her in your arms as the sun began to rise, when everyone drifted back home tired, happy, and with a wee headache.

Martin Ranch
Joel Charles Martin and Diana Marsh Martin, with their five children, left Milwaukee, Wisconsin by train to start a new life on their homestead forty miles northwest of Miles City. Joel had lost all the fingers on his left hand in a sawmill accident and felt farming was the way he could now support his family. They shipped everything they owned: a steam engine, machinery, lumber, household items, horses, and livestock. At first they survived in a tent, then a tar paper shack for the summer, until he built this magnificent two-story structure. Later came a two-story granary with a dance hall at the top. The barn was built on a hillside with the lower half dug into the bank. Martin intended to build a cheese factory and made the cement vats with gravel from the creek. He nearly had the building completed when a wind storm smashed it into a hayfield, and no one knows if it was ever rebuilt. They raised oats, wheat and alfalfa, and heated the home with coal dug from the beds to the west. Martin used the threshing machine in the painting for his grain and also his neighbors'. In the yard was a six-foot stack of buffalo skulls, which disappeared as visitors from the east arrived. The drought of the Great Depression ended the Martins' lives in that house, for all they could grow in those dry, horrible years was Russian Thistles. Everything was sold in a farm auction in April, 1939.

Hot Water Well
Here in 1956 Shell Oil drilled 8,230 feet before all Hell broke loose. Instead of oil they hit a vein of hot, high pressure water, the same for which Yellowstone is famous. From April to June they tried to plug it off, for they were certain oil was beneath it. On June 7th drilling began again only to blow at 8,256 ft. On the third attempt, July 4th, the geyser blew like a patriotic rocket at 8,840 ft, at which point they put valves on top the casing, so that John Roberts, the owner, and his neighbors to the south, the Lockie Brothers could use the water. The temperature of the water is between 170-190 degrees, and it flowed 2,142,000 gallons of sulfuric water each day. The State required them to slow the flow, for it believed it was the same vein as Thermopolis and Yellowstone Park. The Moore Brothers bought the ranch from Roberts in the late 50's, moved in an old building, poured a cement floor, installed some bath tubs, and opened a spa for their neighbors and friends. Late one evening, tanked up on adult beverages, some high school pranksters decided to try out the tubs. Unfortunately they did not know how to cool down the water, and their evening frolic ended in the ER of the local hospital with their rumps and other private parts scalded. Fearful of a court suit, even though the boys broke in, the owners removed the building and destroyed the tubs. Now there are only scattered, rusting, overturned tubs and this one, sitting majestically in boiling mud in the middle of the vast plains. The steam can be seen for miles around, but this great energy of the Earth is largely wasted.

Schlott Ranch
This ranch was homestead by Charles Schrader, and the Schlotts probably built the house which, despite the collapse of its two stories into one, still manages to stand.  It is presently owned by our guide’s uncle, and next to it the remains of the wind generator give a proof of the climate.

Gresens Ranch
Thomas Grist homesteaded the ranch and built the log house still standing on the property.  It was then bought by Neal Gresen’s parents, and when Neal married Irene, they lived in the corn crib until his folks sold the property to them.  Here Marge Holmlund, our guide, played as a child, and the love of this property and her aunt was beautifully evident as we toured the ranch. The Gresens raised their four children in the tiny house they built in the twenties.  To accommodate four little bodies in one 6 x 6 bedroom they fashioned a pair of bunk beds.  In the dump on the little hill, a distance from the house, was their car, sporting a 1955 plate, though it was a 1948 or earlier vintage Ford.  The car, rusted nearly pink, looked imperial among decaying farm equipment and unknown junk.

Burgel Ranch
Chris Burgel was a card player. When his luck was good he had money for cows, but when he lost he had to settle for sheep. No records were kept to show which animal was the more prevalent, but there are still a log house and a board building, both now lodges for mice and rats. Inside remain many discarded, family treasures, poignantly rotting and rusting away.

Burgel Ranch
Chris Burgel was a card player. When his luck was good he had money for cows, but when he lost he had to settle for sheep. No records were kept to show which animal was the more prevalent, but there are still a log house and a board building, both now lodges for mice and rats. Inside remain many discarded, family treasures, poignantly rotting and rusting away.

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Price: US $750
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Leonard Homestead
One section, which equals 640 acres, of each township (36 sections) was dedicated by the state to education. Yet, it was impossible in bad weather to gather all the children together in one building and return them home each evening. Across the field from the school, the ranchers in this area outside Miles City built a dug-out house, and the children lived there in bad weather, generally all winter. One parent stayed with them and cared for all.

She Rarely Missed
Oil on Barnwood Mixed Media 25 1/2" x 22" 

Sleeping Giant Ranch
Fannie (also spelled Fanny) Sperry was born March 27, 1887 on her parents' horse ranch, and from an early age was taught to be a fine equestrienne. When she became Bucking Horse Champion of Montana and the Lady Bucking Horse Champion of the World in 1912 and 1913, she used her prize money to help her family. She joined Bill Cody's Wild West Show in 1916 and, according to her niece, Viola, could out-shoot and out-ride Annie Oakley but never got the chance, for she joined Buffalo Bill after Annie had moved on. There she met and married Bill Steele, a rodeo clown and broncobuster. Fans flocked to see Fannie and Bill's famous act. She shot china eggs out of his fingers and cigars from his mouth. While on horseback she shot glass balls her husband tossed into the air. After Cody died in 1917 they managed their own show, in which Fannie rode "slick saddle," with one rope and one hand free, an unheard-of feat for women back then. She once accurately said "… the horse has shaped and determined my whole way of life." Fannie is in the Cowboy Hall of Fame.