When Culver Came to Lewistown

              ... ' :
trifle, under the influence'.;of~liquor,
and when we asked for' a. pick and
shovel he became' somewhat in­censed.
It seems, however, that Mr.
Bowles 'had no intention of supplying
us with a pick and shovel, and he
made this matter rather clear to us.
It seems that there had been rumors
of a strike in the Judith mountains
and Mr. Bowles was quite certai
.that ,we "had 'something up 0
sleeve, adding'that we cOulCln't m e a: sucker ,out of him.' l' .- ,
\ .. "We spent the evening at Junea '8
stockade, which was located "where,
the new postoffice building is to be
built, later settling in a cabin of our
own. I went back to Fort Benton' for
winter supplies: later that year and
it was on this trip that I saw the
largest herd of buffalo I had ever
seen.. I had camped for the night
'between the Judith and Rossfork and
in the morning I had' planned on se­curing
some meat to take into Fort
Benton with me.· Riding up onf'the
bench I first saw the herd, thousands
of them. The rolling hills for several
miles were covered with the animals.
"We tnipped' that winter ".and
spring around through the Basin and
Qn returning to where Lewistown
now is, we first heard of gold~p1s­coveries
in the Judith mounuains
and decided that we would go to the
new diggings. C. C. Snow, a fellow by
the name of "Pony" .McPartlin "
"Skookum Joe" Anderson,', Dave
Jones and several others had spent
the winter prospecting' in that ter­ritory'
and had struck some promis­ing
gravel in Alpine gulch. Brundage
and I met a man by the name of
Herring, who had first claim above
discovery, and 'he gave us a "work- •
ing' interest. We worked~about two
'weeks and cleaned, up, a 'pit' 12-foot
'square to bed rock, and incidentally
got for all of our trouble an ounce of
gold, worth some $16..The' stUff
showed up fine in the' pan, nice and
bright, but when it came to weighing
it up it was mighty de'ceiving,"and so'
those particular dreams', of easy
wealth vanished rather hurriedly. "
-:"It seems to be forgotten by most
pioneers that before Maiden· becam
,a' postoffice, .Andersonville, located
about three miles below the old town
,of Maiden, was the postoffice."Ander­,
sonville' was named after "Skookum
(Joe," and,at one time had some hun-dred
inhabitants:' Dexter had'a saw­mill
there that la.ter furnished most
of the timbers for the building of the
old Collar mill.'As I remember it" thiS
'was built around '83 and it created
'lots 'of interest·and enthusiasm" in
that little city. Snow and some others
had developed some "property about
a,mile from Maiden ,over the hill'to­wards'
Fort Maginnis 'and 'an eastern
• 'company had financed the building
'of, the mill. Everybody"that summer
was happy, for theY were working for
the company, assisting in the con,.
struction wor,k and getting ready for
better days. The 'mill was finally 'con­structed
and ran about a month when ~
a sudden hard freeze' completely shut
off the water in the wooden flumes,
necessi in the closing of the mill.
SC 978.6292 FERGUS
COUNTY 1.2
in Montana he spent in Butte 'and
the neighboring camps of Wicks and
Radersburg. They were exciting days
for Butte was a town of easy money
and easy ways. He had learned the
photography business in' Indepen­dence,
Iowa, and while in Butte he
wo~ked a~ that trade, moving in the
sprmg,of 80 to Fort Benton,where he
went mto partnership with a pho":
~ographer at that place. Incidentally,
It was while hd was)n Fort Benton'
that Mr. Culver took the first picture
ever taken of the Great Falls of the
Missouri, something to be remem-bered
with pride and joy. "
It had been intended to get Mr.
~ul.ver to tell about sonie partiCUlar
mCldent, some startling event that
had happened in the early days of
the west, and .when this matter was
approached Mr. Culver became some­what
reticent and made the remarks
that have already been quoted, , ,'",
"There is a tehdency for so mani
~f us who have seen the early days
m the west to attempt to impress the
listeners with some particular bit of
devil~ry that would be startling. I was
readmg the .other day about an early
day hunter in Montana who bagged
2~0 ,mountain lions in a week and its
stones of that caliber that makes a
gOO~ many pioneer stories rather
ludicrous. I would '-rather tell about
how, I first happened to ,come to the
JU,dlth Basin country," Mr. Culver
saId. .
"In the fall of '80 I happened to
meet Al Brundage in Fort Benton"
¥r. Culver related. "And as he eli.
J<?yed hunting almost as much as I
~:l1d, we decided that we would go
mto the Judith Basin country and
~pend the winter trapping and hunt­mg.
We procured a saddle horse each
and a Red River cart to haul our
luggage and eqUipment. . ,
:'Now a Red River cart is some­thmg
that a· lot of 'people haven't
heard about. They were built by the
Hudson Ba:y half-breeds, entirely out
of wood WIth an auger and saw out
of species .of oak timber that 'grew in
theIr sE<ctlOn of the country., Crude
contraptions . with high wooden
wheels but they served the purpose
and I have seen strings" a ,.I;1alf mile
loz:,g, of these carts haulmg supplies.
y/ell, we started for the Judith:
Basm, coming up through the High­woods
and angling across towards the'
Belts, That night ten inches of snow
fell and the next morning Al ran
across a fresh ·bear track 'a few feet
from camp. We got the bear alright
and went down Wolf Creek to about
where old Stanford afterwards stood,
where we struck the Indian. trail
running eastward. That day we
reached the old Reed· and .Bowles
stocka:de, down 'where the county
farm IS now located. and just as we
got there we met· Major Reed "Who
!lad just finished-loading his belong­~
gS on a wagon preparatory to mov­mg
up to what is now known as the
old postoffice building. .
. "We had forgotten to purchase a
pIck and shovel in Fort Benton and
as we felt 'that we wO'uld -·probably
need them to dig in for the winter
we thought it would be best to get
them at this point: .Bowles came out
of the stockade, as we· :t:ode :up, .a
\ .. \ t·
St~rie~'of the' Old Times
WHEN CULVER CAME TO LEWISTOWN
In recent years we have heard
much about the vanishing frontier,
that seemingly mythical line that
divides the old order from the new.
There are still living many pioneers
who saw, in one 'sense, the passing of
the frontier in many localities, and
among those in Lewistown, William
H. Culver, \ photographer, has had
contact with many towns and char­acters
that are today portions of the
history of the west. .
Mr. Culver, while still a young man
moved to Kansas with his parents;
shortly after the war, while that state
was still the favored grounds of the
bushwacking contingents. They made
their headquarters in the Indian ter­ritory
and their working, grounds
among the settlers of Kansas, Mr.
Culver remembers, and citizens with
some respect for the law were forced
to handle matters in their own way,
Whie,h it must be admitted, was forc­Ible
and to the point. The old M. K.
& T. was building its line througlr
.Kansas at that time and with the
:advent of the construction crews
matters did not improve to any great
extent. Mr, Culver remembers that at
.a neighboring town nine men were
hung one afternoon after one par­ticularly
horrible crime.
Many stories have been written
about the Indian territory. and the
wild exciting days that followed the
throwing open of that country to the
~ettlers, but Mr. Culver was in that
territory before the advent of the
land hungry citizenry of the east ever
• th?ught about making it their home.
WIth a surveying party running the
preliminary lines, Mr. Culver spent
:some time in that country, both in
'72 and '73. It was a wild country
then and the Southern Cheyennes
:and Arapahoes made it extremely
uncomfortable at times. The, Indians
killed four men working with a
neighboring party, and at another
time killed the messenger who was
making the. rounds between the
camps with mail and field notes,
In '76 Mr, Culver was with a party
that had Deadwood, S. D., as their
destination, and it was on this tr~p
that he met Calamity Jane who was
'On her way, to Cheyenne with a
group of freighters. Mr. Culver
chuckled over the many stories that
have been circulated about that fam­ous
frontier character, adding that it
was a general, characteristic in these
days to build up a network of stories
aro~nd Qld c!laracters and incidents,
addmg startlmg details whenever the
story-teller felt that the audience
was losing interest. It was on this
same trip that the party Mr. Culver
was with met General Crook and his
troops returning from their campaign
~gainst the Indians, and a sorry look­mg
lot Of soldiers they' were, he re­members.
Many were without horses
'ttnd their clothing showed the effects
'Of the hard times experienced.
I Deadwood was a stirring town that
Winter, Mr. Culver recalled, and yet
it was a pleasant winter. Everybody
seemed to be happy, plenty to eat and
drink, and during all the' time he
spent there. ,Mr, Culver stated that
he didn't remember of a single hos­tile
or combative individual.
It rwas in '79. that Mr. Culver first
came Jo Montana. The first winter