Little Known Facts about North Central Montana

With the recession and all, what would this character do today? He was "Pinnacle Pete" who lived west of Augusta. Ol' Pinnacle never came out of the mountains for some 25 to 30 years and the Forest Service had to beg him to cash his paychecks.

If you're ever driving through Brady, stop and give a salute to Maude Morrison. Maude was a friend of mine and a grand old lady. Even when Maude was dying of a terminal disease, the way she handled its was Pure Maude and it was certainly an example to me of how to die gracefully and with class! She helped to make others around her feel good. she was special and I suggest you read her book if you can find it. I picked up another copy a couple of weeks ago at an antique store in Great Falls. While motoring in and/or around Brady, check out their post office. The Brady Post Office has living quarters in the top of it (I think just over the dead letter department). The building was moved to Brady from north of "The Knees" east of Brady.It used to be The Ashmoor Store. Mayor Robertson who was the mayor of the Community of Ashmoor at the time was quoted in 1918 as saying, "There will be no bootlegging of any description in the municipality and he was prepared to follow the law to the letter and let Prohibition rule once and for all." Apparently it didn't work out too well or we wouldn't have The Bootlegger Trail today.

Jim Anderson and our neighbors down in Choteau live in one of the oldest active towns in the state. Choteau was named after Pierre Chouteau, President of the American Fur Company. They brought the first steamboat up the Missouri. Choteau is known to paleontologists as one of the richest places on earth to discover secrets of the past. Egg Mountain is 12 miles west of town and is the site that has yielded more information about dinosaur biology during the Cretaceous period than any other paleontology dig in the world. Now, I didn't say that Jim Anderson was a dinosaur!

Speaking of Choteau and Chouteau County, Chouteau County is spelled differently that the town of Choteau. Perhaps we can blame this on Maude because she used to teach school. This count was actually established in 1865 and is one of the original nine counties of the Montana Territory. It was named in 1882 for Augusta & Pierre Chouteau who were fur traders and owners of the original trading post Historic Old Fort Benton, from which the community of Fort Benton, today's county seat, took its name. I remember once referred to Gary Gollehon as "the county seat" when I thought he was eating too many doughnuts and packing on a few extra pounds. Forgive me Gary.On a serious note, Chouteau County is home to the Chippewa-Cree tribe on the Rocky Boys Indian reservation in the Bear's Paw Mountains to the northeast, and contains part of the Lewis and Clark National Forest in the Highwood Mountains to the south.

I thought I would conclude this blog wth a question. How many of you know about the freighter site of Gladden, located in Section 12, Township 27, 2E is now what is Pondera County? Gdden was established when it was still part of Chouteau County. The first owners of the land were Richard and Sarah Quinn and then the land was sold to James and Rula Gladden. It was before the turn of the Century that freighters of mule and ox teams or horses traveled from Ft. Benton to Canada. The weigh station was on the banks of the Pondera Creek and provided lodging and food for the travelers. There are no buildings left at this site. Those are but 5 little facts about North Central Montana. This blog has been a tad long and as I was blogging here about the freighter site of "Gladden", I think I am "Gladden" to conclude this and bid you ado. If any of you have some more unknown facts about out North Central Montana area, I would be more than pleased, or should I say, "Gladdened to get them". In the meantime, have a safe summer. It will be gone before we know it. Trust me on this one.