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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
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Musselshell Rimrocks in winter
