Situated on the North Dakota state line, Wibaux County is one of the smallest in area in eastern Montana. Driving across the county on Interstate 94, it's less than twenty miles from the North Dakota line to the point where you enter Dawson County (# 16) on the west. North to south, from the Richland County (# 27) line to the Fallon County (#39) line, you'll cross roughly 53 miles of Wibaux County, giving the county a total land area of 890 square miles. The 2010 US Census counted 1,017 people in the county, the lowest number ever counted there, and one third of what the 1920 Census showed. The 2013 estimate, however, showed a 10% increase, bringing the count up to 1.121. Even by Montana standards, this is a low population for a county. The county was created on August 17, 1914, with land taken from Dawson County, although some references say that land came from Fallon and Richland Counties as well. While numerous small towns have, at some point, existed in Wibaux County, today the seat is the county's only incorporated town, and indeed, every address in the county bears the same zip code, 59353, since the whole county is served out of the Post Office in the seat.
The Wibaux County Courthouse
Built 1953
Photo taken October 7th, 2009
Wibaux, Montana
The town of Wibaux was originally named Keith, or possibly Beaver, then Mingusville. It sits on Beaver Creek which runs the length of the county, north to south, and whose water attracted early day settlers to the area. Chaney says that Keith had its post office established in 1882, but that the name was changed to Mingusville in 1884, and finally to Wibaux in 1895. I'm not sure who Keith was, but Mingusville got its name from Minnie and Gus Grisy, early day settlers. The story, perhaps apocryphal, is that Wibaux's ranch hands surrounded the town, essentially laying siege to it, until the town agreed to take the rancher's name--the one it still holds. Another story, which definitely sounds apocryphal but clearly isn't, concerns our 26th President, Theodore Roosevelt, who out for a ride, found himself in a bar in Mingusville. The National Park Service's website for Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota quotes the man himself:
“It was late in the evening when I reached the place. I heard one or two shots in the bar-room as I came up, and I disliked going in. But there was nowhere else to go, and it was a cold night. Inside the room were several men, who, including the bartender, were wearing the kind of smile worn by men who are making believe to like what they don’t like. A shabby individual in a broad hat with a cocked gun in each hand was walking up and down the floor talking with strident profanity. He had evidently been shooting at the clock, which had two or three holes in its face.
…As soon as he saw me he hailed me as ‘Four Eyes,’ in reference to my spectacles, and said, ‘Four Eyes is going to treat.’ I joined in the laugh and got behind the stove and sat down, thinking to escape notice. He followed me, however, and though I tried to pass it off as a jest this merely made him more offensive, and he stood leaning over me, a gun in each hand, using very foul language… In response to his reiterated command that I should set up the drinks, I said, ‘Well, if I’ve got to, I’ve got to,’ and rose, looking past him.
As I rose, I struck quick and hard with my right just to one side of the point of his jaw, hitting with my left as I straightened out, and then again with my right. He fired the guns, but I do not know whether this was merely a convulsive action of his hands, or whether he was trying to shoot at me. When he went down he struck the corner of the bar with his head… if he had moved I was about to drop on my knees; but he was senseless. I took away his guns, and the other people in the room, who were now loud in their denunciation of him, hustled him out and put him in the shed.”
Downtown Wibaux, Montana
Taken October 7th, 2009
My own history with Wibaux goes back to my childhood, when my Methodist Minister father was serving as Vice-President at Rocky Mountain College. He was often called to fill in for churches needing temporary pastors, and one of the churches he served in this way was the Methodist church in Wibaux. I don't remember much about the church itself (I was seven at the time), but I do remember those long drives across eastern Montana every week. Today, with Interstate 94 to follow, it's 250 miles from Billings to Wibaux. In those days, we followed U.S. Highway 10 along the Yellowstone River at a much slower pace than today.
The Wibaux United Methodist Church
Taken October 7th, 2009
Wibaux, Montana
Roughly half the population of the county lives in the town of Wibaux. The rest of the county's people are ranchers and farmers, with 40% of the men and 9% of the women engaged in agriculture, according to City-Data.com. The average size farm is 2,492 acres and livestock or poultry accounts for over 61% of the total agricultural market value in the county. But should you be traveling through this part of the state, by all means get off I-94 at exit 241 if only to visit the Beaver Creek Brewery. The only microbrewery on a 600 mile stretch between Billings and Fargo (according to the Craft Beer website), Beaver Creek Brewery can provide you with not only great home-crafted beer, but also their own root beer, and bread made from the brewing process's spent grain. As they say on their website, if you're going to succeed in a town as small as Wibaux, you have to offer something for everyone.
Wibaux County Landscape
Off MT Highway 7
Taken August 26th, 2011
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