40. Sweet Grass County

The Sweet Grass County website can't be beat for introducing this county in south central Montana.  They state:

The county of Sweet Grass (two words) is located in south central Montana. Don’t confuse the town of Sweetgrass with the county of Sweet Grass. The town of Sweetgrass (one word) is located on the Canadian border in Toole County in north central Montana.

Sweet Grass County came into being in 1895. It was formed out of parts of Park, Meager, and Yellowstone Counties. Between 1910 and 1920 parts of Sweet Grass County were taken to form Stillwater, Wheatland and Golden Valley Counties. It has been its present size since 1920. Sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata) is, of course, a native plant used by indigenous people for centuries in purification rituals.  I'm sure that the folk who named Sweet Grass County were thinking more of attracting settlers by suggesting that this would be good farming country, with plenty of good sweet grass for cattle.

The Sweet Grass County Courthouse

Big Timber, Montana

In keeping with the two word, Chamber of Commerce approved county name, the seat of Sweet Grass County is Big Timber.  Curiously, both Sweetgrass and Big Timber are names of films--the former a semi-documentary about a family of sheepherders in the mountains of south central Montana and the latter a silent film from 1917 set in the northern woodlands.  Whether this means Montana woodlands or not, I do not know.

Big Timber the city got its start with the construction of a saw mill at the confluence of the Boulder and Yellowstone Rivers.  The settlement that grew up around the mill was named Dornix, but the town's location was subject to flooding as not only do two rivers flow together at this location, but Big Timber Creek enters the Yellowstone from the north just a short distance from where the Boulder flows in from the south.  In 1883 the Northern Pacific Railroad reached the area and built a station for the town which was soon renamed Big Timber honoring the large cottonwood trees growing along the stream fronts.   The town was incorporated in 1902 and remains the only incorporated community in the county.

Outside The Sweet Grass County Courthouse

Big Timber, Montana

Sheep have long been an important part of the county's economy.  Do a Google search for Sheep Raising in Sweet Grass County, Montana, and you'll find pages of websites devoted to the topic.  The City of Big Timber reports on its website that sheep raising in the area began in 1880 when Charles McDonnell and Edward Veasey drove 3,000 sheep from California to the area.  Note that this was before Montana became a state, and more importantly, before the Northern Pacific Railroad built its line across Montana.  The site further states that in 1901, Montana's first woolen mill was built in Big Timber, and that at one time, Big Timber shipped more wool than any other community in the United States.  The Langhus Sheep Ranch's website states: "Sheep raising has always been the leading industry in Sweet Grass County (Montana).  By 1895, the wool shipment reached the enormous figure of 4,138,763 pounds."  I have already written about the Annual Running of the Sheep in Reedpoint, just across the county line in neighboring Stillwater County (32).

Antelope in the foreground, Absaroka Mountains in the Background

Aside from ranching, and more recently the mining of palladium and platinum which I wrote about in my Stillwater County post, outdoor recreation is a major draw, as it is throughout Montana.  With the Absaroka Mountains to the south and the Crazy Mountains (aka the Crazy Woman Mountains) to the north, the two divided by the Yellowstone River, and the Boulder River flowing north out of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, there are plenty of reasons to spend vacation time in Sweet Grass County.  My own childhood memories include many trips to the Boulder River where my father loved to fish.  It's no wonder that half the items on the Chamber's list of "10 things you can do" involve fishing, hiking, floating the river, or just getting outdoors.  In fairness, they list some fun things to do indoors as well.

If the shooting sports are of interest, you may wish to visit the C. Sharps Arms Co., Inc., located in Big Timber since 1980.  Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing is also located in Big Timber, and has been building rifles there since 1976.  As the DistinctlyMontana website dedicated to Big Timber puts it, 

"Within shooting distance of each other, C. Sharpe Arms and Shiloh Rifles offer their worldwide clientele the finest quality in custom-made, single shot rifles. According to owner, John Schoffstall, custom rifles from C. Sharpe Arms have been in great demand since he set up shop in 1975. Both C. Sharps and Shiloh sell their product worldwide through both reputation and the Internet."  

It was just outside of Big Timber that I was introduced to black powder shooting by my friend Dave Christensen, a man dedicated to eradicating hunger by reintroducing open pollinated corn to the world.  While not a native of Sweet Grass County, nor even of Montana, Dave has made Big Timber his home for several decades now.  He is a self-described "Mountain Man" and has taught Native American groups how to brain-tan hides as well as other traditional crafts many native people have lost in recent times.

The Crazy Mountains

Today, Sweet Grass County is home to 3,669 people (US Census 2013 estimate).  This figure is considerably lower than the 1920 count (4,926) but up from the 1970 count (2,980).  The county voters are overwhelmingly Republican, and have always been.  President Obama, for example, received only 22% of the county's vote in 2012, and the only Democrat to win the county in a Presidential election was FDR in 1936.  More to the point, in 1916 and 1932, Sweet Grass County was the only county in Montana to vote for the Republican candidate.  While almost 90% of the county's population over the age of 25 has graduated from high school, less than one quarter has a bachelor's degree or higher.  According to City-Data.com, 27% of males and 12% of females are involved in agriculture.  The average size farm is 2,429 acres, and the average income per farm is $46,718.  Compare this with the average expense of $48,745, and once again we see that family farming is a constant struggle.

39. Fallon County

Following the arrival of the Milwaukee Road (The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad) in 1908, an influx of settlers raised the local population to the point that in 1913, they successfully petitioned for a county of their own, separated from Custer County (14) and named for Benjamin O'Fallon, an early Indian Agent and nephew of William Clark.  Over the next few years, the new county lost area in the formation of Wibaux County (52), Prairie County (45), and Carter County (42).  (Note:  Fallon County's website says that Carter County was formed from land taken from Fallon in 1913.  Most other historical records show that Carter County was not created until 1917.)  Almost from the beginning the town of Baker, Fallon County's largest community has been the seat.  When the county was first created, the towns of Baker and Ekalaka (now seat of neighboring Carter County) fought for the honor of being county seat.  Ekalaka won the first vote, but a year later a second election was held and Baker won.  By this time, the citizens from the Ekalaka area had already decided to form their own county, so they didn't fight to keep the Fallon seat in their town.

City-County Administration Building

Baker, Montana

The original Fallon County Courthouse was a three-story white frame building (two stories above ground and a full daylight basement) built in 1915.  In 1975, that building was torn down and the current City-County Administration Building was constructed.  Just around the corner is the original Fallon County Jail, now home of the O'Fallon Historical Museum.  The O'Fallon Historical Society, formed in 1968, is the sponsor of the Museum, and in 1975 the Society published a book O'Fallon Flashbacks, a history of the county to date.  That book is available for sale at the Museum as a fund-raiser for the Society, and it has been digitized as part of the Montana Historical Society's Montana Memory Project.  I haven't (yet) read all 549 pages, but the one question I would dearly love answered is why, if the county was named for a man named O'Fallon, did the O' get dropped?

The Original Fallon County Jail

Now the O'Fallon Museum

Baker, Montana

Today, according to Wikipedia, there are just three communities in Fallon County.  Baker is the only "city," and Plevna, the only "town," but there is also an unincorporated community named Willard some thirteen miles south of Baker on Montana Highway 7, the only north-south highway in the county.  Up until 1995, Willard had a U.S. Post Office, and it still has its own Zip Code (59354), but there's not much else left of the town.  Nonetheless, it has its own chapter in O'Fallon Flashbacks, appropriately titled "Willard--The Birth of a Community."  Turns out the area was settled largely by a group of folk recruited by the Milwaukee Railroad in Minnesota.  The land around Baker, where the railroad ran cross country, was largely what we in Montana call "gumbo," and unsuited for farming.  South of town, however, the gumbo gives way to good arable land, and that's where the Minnesotans settled.  In 1909, one of these settlers, Fred Anderson, decided to apply for a Post Office Permit.  The name "Anderson" had already been taken, so he proposed using his own middle name, and thus was the community of Willard born.  With help from folks in Baker, the people of Willard built a community hall which hosted dances, dinners, and church, the building being used on alternate Sundays by the Lutherans and the Wesleyan Methodists.  The community even boasted its own baseball team, but over time, drought killed the farms, the young people moved away for other opportunities, and the town withered.

Plevna, thirteen miles west of Baker on U.S. Highway 12, started out as a railroad town.  The Milwaukee Railroad brought in a number of Bulgarian workers who named the community for their hometown, Pleven (Плевен), today the seventh largest city in Bulgaria.  The Montana town is not as distinguished, with a 2013 estimated population of 179 (up from an all time low of 138 recorded in the 2000 Census).  According to the Plevna chapter in O'Fallon Flashbacks, the name comes from a Russian (I'm guessing Slavic) word for churches, and at one time, Plevna had six churches, as well as a store, a bank, and a post office.  The Wikipedia article for the Bulgarian city of the same name gives the etymology of the name as Slavic for either "barn" or "weed," both of which are plentiful in eastern Montana.  

South Sandstone Reservoir

(one of my favorite photographs)

South of Plevna, Montana

Turn south off US 12 at Plevna, and you'll drive across the rolling grasslands so prevalent in eastern Montana.  Just east of the county road lies South Sandstone Reservoir, one of the largest bodies of water in Fallon County, covering 679 acres.  There is a fishing access on the lake, and a small campground.  I spent a nearly sleepless night tenting alongside the reservoir, wondering all the time if my tent was going to blow away, taking me and the tent to Oz, or worse, North Dakota.  Wikipedia maintains that there are six bodies of water that could be classified as "lakes" in Fallon County, but the only other one that I have seen is Baker Lake found, appropriately enough, on the eastern edge of the city of Baker.  Both Baker Lake and South Sandstone Reservoir are popular local recreation sites, but to paraphrase one Fallon County writer, the county is so remote from the rest of the world, that it's usually only locals visiting the various sites in the area.  Personally, I feel this is unfortunate, although as near as I can tell, Benjamin O'Fallon himself never set foot in the county named for him.  There is a lot to see and do in Fallon County, and while the photo above gives credence to the wide spread belief that eastern Montana is flat, the fact is that there are hills, small mountains even, throughout the area.  Seven Up Butte and Bearhorn Butte flank the dirt road that leads from Plevna to Montana Highway 7 near Willard.  At 3,455 and 3,553 feet respectively, they're the 2859th and 2812th highest mountains in all of Montana.  We won't tell where they rank nationally.

Southern Fallon County Landscape

Don't tell me it's flat