Distinctly Montana Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.distinctlymontana.com/i/1522500
47 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m by NICK MITCHELL • illustrations by ROBERT RATH I N OCTOBER OF 1865, A FEW MONTHS AFTER THE CIVIL WAR ENDED and the nation looked to recon- struct itself, an aged fur trader named James Lum- ley arrived at St. Louis and visited the Everett House Hotel. There he told the hotel's guests a fantastic tale. It seems that he was in Montana the previous Sep- tember, and while plying his trade in the Cadotte Pass he saw something that must have been passing strange at the time. Looking up, he saw a bright light streak- ing across the heavens towards the east. He watched it move, noting its prodigious speed, before it suddenly seemed to burst into smaller luminous pieces like a fire- work. A moment later, Lumley heard a deep explosion which shook the earth, followed first by the sound, and then by actual gusts, of wind, as if the air was rushing towards him from some unknowable source. At once, he detected an acrid odor, like sulphur. The next day, about two miles from where he camped the night before, he found in the ground six or seven feet across and extending as far as he could see in ei- ther direction. Lumley, amazed, followed it through the woods, inspecting the damage left in its wake; some- thing had torn out trees, left huge divots, and scuffed the tops of hills. Lumley followed the path, taking in the destruction and wondering what in God's creation could have happened in these woods last night. Here we might pause and say that the story might seem far-fetched but has not, so far, diverged much from the path of respectable believability. Cosmic events must have happened in the past as surely as they happen now, and it doesn't take a person of gen- erous credulity to admit that this sounds like a mete- orite, though perhaps a bit embellished by Lumley the fur trader's love of a good yarn. But no; this is where it gets weird. According to Lumley's story, he advanced far enough along the path of the object to find the object itself. And he must have gawped and sputtered when he found it was a large rock stuck in the side of the mountain. This, the apparent source of the explosion, Lumley followed the path, taking in the destruction and wondering what in God's creation could have happened in these woods last night.