Montana Highway 16 has its historical roots in the old Outlaw Trail, so named by Butch Cassidy, and used for running stolen cattle across the border into Canada. Legend has it that Cassidy set up a rest station just west of present-day Plentywood, and it was also near that town that Sitting Bull surrendered to the U.S. Army when he returned from exile in Canada.
Sheridan County serves as a good example of the depopulation of eastern Montana, and indeed of the entire Great Plains region. County residents were first counted as such in the 1920 US Census, which showed 13,847 residents. Every census since has shown a smaller number with the 2010 Census counting less than a quarter of those original residents: 3,384. The 2012 census estimate shows a slight gain, but whether that will still be the case in 2020 of course remains to be seen.
The county was named for US Civil War General Philip Sheridan, as were counties in Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming, and cities or towns in Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, Oregon, and Wyoming. Sheridan is the alleged source of the quote "The only good Indian is a dead Indian," although he maintained that he never actually said that.
The Sheridan County Courthouse
Plentywood, Montana
The only city in Sheridan County is the seat, Plentywood. According to the 2010 Census, over half the county's population lived in Plentywood. Anyone familiar with the topography of northeastern Montana will figure the name to be a joke, or at least a form of sarcasm. Local legend has it that cowboys watching their cook try to start a fire with wet buffalo chips, told him that if he'd go two miles upstream, he'd find "plenty wood." The town's first business opened in 1900, and the Post Office two years later. The town was incorporated in 1912, after the Great Northern Railway built a branch line through the town.
Other towns in the county include Medicine Lake, Outlook and Westby, the eastern-most town in Montana. Now you might wonder why the eastern-most town would be called Westby, and you'd be right to do so. This is a part of the country settled largely by Scandinavian people. Westby and nearby Dagmar were settled by Danes. "By" in Danish means town, and Westby was the western-most town in North Dakota. Well, the proper businesses of Westby were in North Dakota. But Montana's "sin" laws were laxer, so the saloons and brothels went up across the state line. When the railroad came through and charged more for freight out of North Dakota than they were charging for freight shipped from Montana, the good people of Westby up and moved the whole town across the state line.
The Rocky Valley Lutheran Church
Dooley, Montana
West of Westby and north of Plentywood sat the farming community of Dooley. I use the past tense because today, Dooley is a ghost town, one complete with its own tombstone. While driving through the region, I stopped to take pictures of the ghost of the old Lutheran Church, and once back on the road, my GPS directed me to turn left, then right onto a non-existent road. I drove around a roughly square mile loop, and got right back to where Tom-Tom wanted me to turn right again. Still no road there. The third time I did it, I decided that Tom-Tom didn't know what he was talking about, so I took the only road I saw heading west, even though Tom-Tom now showed me driving across a wheat field. I was so frustrated by the experience that I neglected to photograph what was at the place where I was supposed to turn, a large rock inscribed with the words: "Dooley, Montana. 1914-1957."
Sheridan County Farmland
Sheridan County's finance is farm-based, with over one-third of the men and eight percent of the women involved in agriculture. The farms average 1,672 acres in size, and bring in annual revenue of $68.832 on average. The people of the county are, as I noted above, primarily of Scandinavian descent. Nearly fifty percent claim Norwegian (36%), Danish (9%) or Swedish (4%) ancestry, and not surprisingly the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America is the largest denomination in the county with 56% of all county residents who claim a religious affiliation. Roman Catholics are in a distant second place with 29%, and city-data.com lumps everyone else into the "Other" category.
Abandoned Farm Buildings
Near Dagmar, Montana
Mirroring the county's population decline, the towns of Sheridan County are also losing people. Outlook, one of three "towns" in the county had half as many people living there in 2010 (47) as in 2000, and 1/6th of its highest count, back in 1930. Westby, with a 2010 count of 168, is down from its own highest population of 396 in 1950, and Medicine Lake, which also had its highest recorded population in 1950 (454) showed only 225 residents in 2010. The other communities in the county, Antelope, Comertown, Dagmar, Raymond, and Reserve are today little more than wide spots along the back roads, and may soon share the fate of Dooley.
Sheridan County's website can be found at: http://www.co.sheridan.mt.us/
The city of Plentywood has an unofficial site at: http://www.plentywood-montana.com/
