Distinctly Montana Magazine

104 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • FA L L 2 0 2 5 Carbon County Arts Guild & Depot Gallery Distinctly Montana - 2025 2025 - Fall 1/3 Page Vertical My personal story includes several weeks (months?) in the mid-1950s. My father, an ordained minister in what is now known as the United Methodist Church (yes, I'm a PK—a Preacher's Kid), was serving as executive vice president of Rocky Mountain College in Billings. In addition to his academ- ic duties, the church expected him to take on various ecclesiastic functions. I do not remember how long this par- ticular assignment went on, but at one point he was asked to fill in as interim pastor at the Methodist yoked parish of Ryegate and Lavina. Every Sunday we would drive north on Highway 3 from our Billings home, so Father could preach in the two churches and Mother and I added to the congregations. Quite often a parishioner would invite us home for Sunday dinner. On one such occasion, while the adults conversed in a Lavina home, I was given leave to play outside. Our host had a bike that I was allowed to ride. It was what we then called "an English racing bike." I took off to ride around the town, but as I approached Highway 3, I couldn't get the bike to stop. No matter how many times I pressed backwards on the ped- als, my feet just spun and the bike kept rolling toward the highway. I had nev- er seen hand brakes before, and didn't know how to stop that bike. I do not re- member what ultimately happened, but now, almost seventy years later, I'm still alive to tell the story. While today the county has only two towns, that was not the case in the ear- ly 1900s. With the Milwaukee offering special incentives, later called "pro- paganda" by many of the folk who fell for it, settlers began pouring in. The railroad promised fertile soil, abundant grass, and a "golden valley" in which to build a future. Eighteen towns sprung up between 1900 and 1920. Leland Cade has written a book entitled Ghost Towns of Golden Valley County. In its over 400 pages, native son Cade has collected newspaper clippings, oral histories, and other data outlining the rise and eventu- al fall of these communities. Admittedly, his eighteen towns include Ryegate and Lavina, but the story he tells of the other sixteen communities is remarkably con- sistent. In a nutshell: •Settlers come by rail •They build farms and farm towns BEST ART GALLERY IN MONTANA 11 West 8th Street in Red Lodge 406.446.1370 CarbonCountyDepotGallery.org facebook.com/ccag.dg/ instagram.com/carboncountyartsguild/ 2025 o f BEST M O N TA N A A S V O T E D B Y R E A D E R S O F Musselshell Rimrocks in winter

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