Distinctly Montana Magazine

73 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m hangs. On Oct. 24, 2023, a fire erupted at the then-defunct Jordan Inn, destroying everything left inside. Ralston's granddaughter A'Lisa Scott, founder of the J.K. Ralston Preservation Committee, had attempted several times to retrieve the painting after the Jor- dan closed in 2013, but to no avail. When the painting was lost, she was devastated, and inspired. "The situation at the Jordan taught me that we have to take care of his artwork," Scott said. To prevent such a tragedy from repeating, the J.K. Ralston Preservation Committee is moving to ensure the safety of "Gen- eral Sully at the Yellowstone," a large mural that portrays Gen- eral Alfred Sully's voyage into the Montana Territory. The paint- ing captures them meeting up with paddle boats on the river outside Sidney, where the town of Savage is today. "They started from Minnesota and picked up the wagon train at Fort Rice, near Mandan, North Dakota," Scott said. "They had quite a few skirmishes with Indigenous people." With funding assistance from the Richland County Commis- sioners, the staff of the Colorado Art Restoration Services re- moved the 5-foot by 12-foot mural from Sidney's Nutter Building (the location of the old post office) and transported it to their stu- dio in Lakewood, Colorado for cleaning, restoring and framing. This four-phase project will bring the mural back to Montana in early spring of 2025, where it will be placed on permanent dis- play at Sidney's MonDak Heritage Center. Scott firmly believes this is where the painting belongs, as she considers her grandfather a premier Western artist for how he brilliantly captured eastern Montana, a part of the state with a rich, often ignored history. In October, at the Butte Public Library, Scott led a Humanities Montana presentation on her grandfather called "The Life and Family of J.K. Ralston." Scott shared Ralston's family history, his decision to be a painter despite the challenges of the times and his steady rise to prominence in the Western art arena. She con- siders Ralston "the true son of Montana." "I just love to tell his story," she said. "It's so fascinating to me that someone at such a young age could grasp something with such passion and know that the era wasn't going to last, and that if it wasn't recorded accurately we wouldn't know about it." Capturing this history may be more important than ever. Childhood Memories J.K.'s wife Willo and her brother Kenny growing up on the ranch by Culbertson. "This is pretty much what it was like to live in eastern Montana," Scott said of the painting. "Notice the attention to detail of the string hanging out of Kenny's back pocket. A good ranch kid would always have something in his back pocket to fix something." Death of a Mailman "I love this painting," Scott said, "but it doesn't exactly uplift your spirits." J.K. Ralston at his studio in the mid-1950s, working on "After the Battle," his famous oil painting authentically depicting the aftermath of Custer's Last Stand on the Little Bighorn River in South Central Montana. The painting features 39 vignettes. Sitting Bull

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