Distinctly Montana Magazine

72 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 5 T WENTY YEARS AGO, when I worked for the University of Lou- isville college newspaper, I was assigned to cover an exhibit on painters Charles Marion Russell and Frederic Reming- ton at the Speed Art Museum. Their dynamic portrayal of the cowboy life was what first got me excited about the West. A few years later my parents would move out to Big Sky country. It didn't take me long to follow suit. When I arrived, I discovered another painter, James Kenneth Ralston, whose work left an even more crucial mark on my adopted home. I soon found myself in Ralston country as staff writer for the Glendive Ranger-Review. For some extra cash I'd tend bar at the Jor- dan Inn, where Ralston provided the back- drop with a 33-foot long, four-foot wide mu- ral called "A Herd Swims the Yellowstone." Sometimes people would come in just to see the painting, which depicted cowboys driv- ing a herd of longhorns across the Yellow- stone River—a tale of hardscrabble life in the West that Ralston knew well. Ralston was a first-generation Montanan, born in Choteau in 1896, the youngest of five children. He grew up on ranches, primarily in Richland County. He heard tales of Indian fights and trail drives from men who took part in them. Little J.K. had his own adventures on the open range when he was only 10. It was Ralston's passion to share—and preserve—this history of the West. He received formal art training at the Chicago Insti- tute of Art, then returned home to recapture the stories of the frontier land he held dear. "I saw the curtain rung down on the last of the old time range business in Montana. Like a lot of others, I hated to see it go," Ralston once wrote. "Now it is history, and I am very, very glad that I lived in time to see and be a part of it." • • • "A Herd Swims the Yellowstone" embodies the power, danger and determination cow- boys and their horses endured while earn- ing their living out West. Sadly, it no longer Saving a Legacy by CHARLIE DENISON J.K. RALSTON'S GRANDDAUGHTER PLEDGES TO PRESERVE HIS ART FOLLOWING JORDAN INN TRAGEDY J.K. Ralston's granddaughter A'Lisa Scott next to a sculpture of her grandfather made by Billings artist Bill Rains, a good friend of Ralston's.

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