Born at the height of the homesteading boom (October 4th, 1920), Golden Valley County with its chamber of commerce name promised rich harvests, presumably of golden wheat, but the climate didn't live up to the farmers' needs, and the county's population has dropped fairly consistently since its first census in the county's tenth year, 1930. 1980 and 2000 both showed an increase over the previous count, but the 2013 estimate of 859 residents is the lowest yet for this county that measures 30 miles wide by 50 miles tall. Nestled between the Snowy Mountains in the north and the Big Coulee in the south, the "Valley" follows the Musselshell River as it flows west to east across the center of the county, parallel to US Highway 12 and the old Milwaukee Road rail line. Today there are only two unincorporated communities in the county, Ryegate, the County Seat, and Lavina, seventeen miles to the east, where Montana Highway 3 meets US 12. The county's official website lists several books, including one, Ghost Towns of Golden Valley County, Montana, that apparently documents sixteen ghost towns in the county, but that book is out of print and currently unavailable. One wonders what the county fathers were thinking back in 1920. Most of the county is roughly rectangular in shape and was taken from the western section of Musselshell County (# 23), but there is one small square of land that sticks down in the southwestern end of the county which came from Sweet Grass County (# 40). At its largest extent, this appendage measures twelve miles by twelve miles and is both west and, for the most part, south of the rest of the county. There must have been some reason to add this odd bit of land, but I have no idea what that might be. The county's own website divides the county into two sections, ranchland north of the Musselshell and farmland to the south. The site states:
The northern part of the county is predominately stock country and is liberally sprinkled with sagebrush and grease-wood from the river to the base of the Snowy Mountains. At one time during the homestead days, much of the land was broken by plow and farmed. The ground proved to be nonproductive as farm land. It does provide excellent range-land. Many large sheep and cattle ranches occupied this area at one time, but now most of the sheep enterprises have turned to cattle ranching.
South of the Musselshell river much of the bench land is farmed. Wheat is the main grain crop along with oats and barley. There is also an abundance of range land here as well. Six miles south of Ryegate is the Big Coulee. This wide open valley surrounded by sandstone rims drew many settlers to the area.
The Golden Valley County Court House
Ryegate, Montana
September 8th, 2007
Ryegate got its start as a station on the Milwaukee Road. Emmy-Lou Garfield, writing about the Sims Garfield Ranch has this to say:
The town of Ryegate was originally part of Sim's hay field. When the railroad purchased the right of way they had to set aside a town site every so many miles and name it. They set aside a siding for the railroad and a town site. Sims had a large field of rye there, so they named it Ryegate.The most notable geologic feature in the Ryegate area is the three-mile long sandstone rimrocks, once the shore of an ancient lake. The rims are home to marine fossils and pictographs. South of Ryegate, in the Big Coulee Valley, John Murphy's cattle ranch, the 79 Ranch, was a prominent part of the community in the days before Golden Valley County was formed. The county's website has an excellent article on the ranch written by Albie Gordon in 1971. Don Spritzer, in his Roadside History of Montana, says that "At its peak in the early 1890s, the 79 shipped seven trainloads of cattle to the Chicago Stockyards each year." p 311.
Grain Elevator along the non-existent tracks
Ryegate, Montana
April 22nd, 2011
Thomas C. Power, Montana's first U.S. Senator, built his fortune controlling shipping and freight from Fort Benton in Chouteau County (# 19). When the Northern Pacific Railroad came to Billings, Power got the idea of running a stage line between Billings and Fort Benton, the first north-south mail service in Montana Territory. Forty miles north of Billings he ran into a natural road block, the Musselshell River. At the site of a good ford, Power and his associates built a stage station, stables, a bunk house and, most importantly, a saloon. The first postmaster was Walter Burke who named the new community for an old sweetheart, Lavina. While to my eyes, Ryegate seems to be little more than a wide spot in the road, Lavina looks to be a place that has some history. Three of the five Golden Valley County locations listed on the National Register of Historic Places are in Lavina, including the Adams Hotel, once considered one of two luxury hotels along the Milwaukee Road, the Lavina State Bank, and the Slayton Mercantile Company.
The United Methodist Church
Lavina, Montana
April 22nd, 2011
Some of my own, most vivid childhood memories center on Lavina. I have talked in the past of the different churches my father served as interim pastor while on assignment at Rocky Mountain College in Billings. One of the parishes he served in this manner was the Methodist Church's yoked parish of Ryegate and Lavina. Memories come back to me of attending Memorial Day services, complete with twenty-one gun salutes, at the cemetery in Lavina. I remember my mother baking my large panda bear because the bear, and I, had apparently come into contact with a Lavina child with pink eye. And most vivid is my first experience riding what we then called an English racing bike--one with three speeds and hand brakes. I had never used anything other than coaster brakes, the kind where you press back on the pedals to stop the bike. The bike I was riding around the block in Lavina didn't have coaster brakes. As I was pedaling along, I realized that I was about to ride into the middle of Montana Highway 3. I tried to stop, but all I succeeded in doing was getting the pedals to turn backwards. This did nothing to stop the bike. All I could see was getting crushed by traffic as I sailed into the intersection. I don't remember what finally happened. I probably fell down. What didn't happen was an accident in the middle of the highway. That much I do know.
Other communities have come and gone around Golden Valley County. West of Ryegate, almost to the Wheatland County (# 44) line, is Barber, truly a wide spot in the road. North of Ryegate, Montana Secondary 238, also known as the Rothiemay Road, will take you past Franklin which first had a post office from 1889 to 1902, then again from 1910 to 1953. Beyond Franklin lies Rothiemay, although you'll be hard pressed to find it on a map. Rothiemay had a post office in the early days of the 20th Century. Cushman, between Ryegate and Lavina, got its post office in 1909, and as of 1970, that post office was still functioning, according to Roberta Carkeek Cheney in Names on the Face of Montana. Today, however, the zip code for Cushman is more properly used with Lavina addresses, as is the case for Belmont, some five miles south. Cheney says that the post office in Belmont was established in 1892 and closed in 1965. The last time I was in Golden Valley County, April 22nd, 2011, we were driving through a blizzard. Most of my photographs from that trip are hazy, blurry, out-of-focus. I was able to grab this one whimsical sign, an indication that at least one country craftsman has an entrepreneurial bent. Makes me think of Kathy Lee Bates in the movie Rat Race. "Should have bought a squirrel."
Sign along Highway 12
Ryegate, Montana
April 22nd, 2011
