Dry roads, a bright sunny day coinciding with the Spring Equinox, and a willing and patient companion provided the impetus for the first official road trip of 2013. Launched from Livingston and into the beautiful sweeping prairies of central Montana. I love these grand Montana views and the remnants of the ragged little towns still clinging to the edges of existence along US Route 89 and the absent tracks of the Milwaukee Road and its spurs. They materialize sporadically along the rolling hillsides like characters from an Ivan Doig story: Clyde Park, Wilsall, Ringling, White Sulphur Springs, Martinsdale, Two Dot, Harlowton; woven into Mythic Montana as surely as the expansive landscape. There is so much space, and the towns so humble, that they somehow seem as naturally integrated as a meadowlark’s nest in a tuft of grass. Every town has a similar story, and in each, either the railroad or the Resident Land Baron, stars in the featured role. Or usually both, because they were mostly inseparable. A few had an even earlier genesis as mining centers, but as the Montana Railroad morphed into the (electrified!) Milwaukee Road, the marriage of rail and agriculture ruled the land.

Ringling, originally Leader, renamed for John Ringling of Ringling Brothers Circus fame, once a shipping and supply center for the surrounding sheep ranches (including the Doigs). Immortalized in song by Jimmy Buffet, and still wasting away. The bar remains. Open on occasion. For Sale. Again. And a handful of houses and trailers without one tree in sight to act as buttress against the interminable wind. The Milwaukee Road tracks are long ripped away, but the decaying depot stands, although probably not for long. Also the old church, it’s charm wrecked by “restoration,” but still functioning. 

White Sulphur Springs, with an actual hot spring, first discovered by Native Americans and now frequented by day trippers up from Livingston and summer tourists. Originally Brewer Springs, it was rechristened for the resort in West Virginia by the nascent Chamber of Commerce, spearheaded by the ever industrious Mr. John Ringling. Bypassed by the Milwaukee Road, John Ringling developed a spur line from White Sulphur south to Ringling to intersect the Milwaukee Road, and simultaneously installed himself as President of the White Sulphur Springs Yellowstone Park Railroad. Intentions to expand the rail line to connect Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, and to build a Grand Hotel, evaporated along with Ringling’s fortune in the early 1930s. Several rusting passenger cars sit incongruously next to the restored depot (for the movie Heartland in 1982). Stranded by the abandonment of the line in the late 1970s, they literally have nowhere to go except into the wind. 

Martinsdale, original home to The Charles Bair, who came to Montana as a penniless conductor on the Milwaukee Road, made a fortune in the Alaska goldfields, and returned to Martinsdale to become Montana’s most wealthy sheep rancher, eventually piecing together a land mass of over 80,000 acres. One tiny Main Street, and another abandoned Milwaukee Road depot. Roof partly gone, all windows out, the pigeons have free reign. On the side of the bump out where the modern bathroom was added, two holes drilled by an obliging flicker or other woodpecker type were so perfectly round that they seemed certainly made by a power tool. When a bird quickly entered the hole as I was returning to the car, I eagerly pulled out the binoculars to see exactly who had flown into the nest. It was a starling who poked her head out to confirm that all was safe. Perfect.

Harlowton, first Merino, as in Merino sheep. Established as a stop on the Montana Railroad, predecessor of the Milwaukee Road. And, surprise! renamed for Mr. Richard Harlow, President of the Montana Railroad. Harlowton became the eastern terminus of the electric section of the Milwaukee Road and has weathered the demise of the railroad somewhat better than the others. The grand old sandstone block hotel, The Graves, still stands high on the bluff overlooking the depot, and for a mere $899,000, it could be yours. Substantial renovations are required, according to the real estate listing. Along with a substantial imagination for repurposing and clientele.

Driving. Looking. Exploring light and land and random thoughts. Squint your imagination and herds of buffalo move across the hills and disappear into clouds of dust. Squint again and shrinking bison fade to white; those same hills now carpeted with sheep. Once more, and the Milwaukee Road clatters by, hauling cars of copper ore, noisy stock, and well-dressed ladies trying to retain an illusion of refinement in the wind and dust. The flux of light and time become one and the same.

I left about a million pictures up there on that cold and windy prairie and I’ll be heading back as soon as greenup arrives. Who wants to go?