Homestead Era History
Introduction
Europeans, and other non-native Americans, have traveled through the Pryor Mountain area for more than 200 years. Trappers and explorers were in Montana before and after the 1805-6 Lewis and Clark Expedition. We now call them the Pryor Mountains after Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor, a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. In the 1860s thousands of people travelled the Bozeman trail past the Pryors.
In the late 19th century early 20th century there were active homesteading communities in and around the Pryors.
The pages linked below are excerpted with permission from Harvey, David. A General Historical Survey of the Pryor Mountains. Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, Boulder, Colorado. 1974. Harvey spent the summer of 1974 as an intern for the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). He interviewed old timers from the homestead era, did research in libraries, and visited various historical sites in the Pryors. He then wrote his survey which was published by WICHE.
Oral history can be challenging as Harvey writes:
"[A] research problem was the conflicting information I occasionally received from my interviews. I would get different versions of the same story, or on the location or significance of a historical site. So the authenticity of certain information may be questioned. Nevertheless, most of the questionable information has some value, because it is part of the folklore of the area."
Another historian, Victor Konrad, writes in "The Pryor Mountain Homestead Landscape," 1984:
"A great deal of Harvey's history of the Pryors is based on tales recounted by local informants. ... When compared to facts documented in homesteaders' serial files and Custer National Forest Records, tales recounted by Harvey [and others] usually are lacking in detail and veracity. Nevertheless, oral history and published local accounts do provide the opinion and minutia to color information established in the records.”
Harvey’s Survey is an interesting introduction to the homestead era in the Pryors. We would be glad to hear from amateur or professional historians who have studied the history of the area.
At the end of this introduction are two additional short statements from people with information about homestead era history of the Pryor Mountain area: one about a prohibition era whiskey still in the Pryors, the other about Krueger’s cabin.
Click on the titles below to read Harvey’s report on the listed topics:
Bainbridge Cabin on Big Pryor Mountain. (d. walton photo)
Upper Sage Creek and the Northern Pryors. Cattle Rustling, Sawmills, and a Cheese Factory.
Bowler and the West Pryors. A Post Office, Store, Road Ranch and a Lime Kiln.
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad - Toluca-Cody Line. Railroad R stops at Toluca, Coburn, Morin, Keiser, Pryor, Chicopee, Oswald, Crockett, Bowler, Scribner, Frannie, Mantua, Garland, Powell, Ralston, McCormick, Corbett, and Cody. Buffalo Bill, Twenty thousand dollar bills, and a railroad removed in the middle of the night.
South of the Pryors - Lovell, Cowley, and the Big Horn Basin. Water rights, Timber rights, and Cattle/Sheep wars.
Crooked Creek Country. Bessie Tillett, Frank Sykes and a "Death List."
Dryhead Country. Buffalo Skulls, a Dude Ranch, Gold?, and Will James.
Management Recommendations from David Harvey: At the end of his 1974 report, David Harvey made recommendations to the agencies managing the Pryors. These recommendations include the following general statements:
“To preserve the natural tranquility and environment of many areas where sites are located, motor vehicle traffic should be prohibited. The construction of hiking trails to some of these sites might be a feasible alternative.”
“I am for minimal development of the Pryors. I do not want to compromise its unique personality of serenity by criss-crossing it with more roads, or even improve present roads.”
Hank Lane’s Whiskey Still
Oral History from Vern Waples provided by Ginny Waples.
Sometime during the Prohibition Era (1920 – 1933)
Vern Waples (Ginny’s father-in-law) was a Montana Game Warden for 32 years (1947-1979) and for most of those years his working territory included the Pryors as well as the Beartooth Mountains. The following oral history is in Vern's words, transcribed and edited from a 1992 videotape.
That old Hank Lane who was a good friend of mine, friend of the Tilletts and so forth... they have his records. He lived way back on the other side of the Pryor Mountains. Closest person to him was 20, 30 miles. Closest neighbor. And he was a little Swiss and didn’t speak very good English. When I knew him, he was in his mid-seventies. And whenever I was over there in that country I would stay at his place.
Tilletts had a line camp there. That was his ranch but they bought it from him, but he got to live there as long as he wanted to. But he built a two-story cabin...and that was Tilletts’ line camp. He had a dugout right beside it. That’s where he moved to. And so, when I was over there in that country I’d stay there overnight quite often...eat with him and he’d tell [stories]. He didn’t talk to people very often...
Well anyhow, he decided he’d set him up a still. And he was so far out that nobody would ever find him, you know. They found a lot of stills for the odor, they had a certain odor. Whenever the wind was blowing from one direction it would come to they could kinda figure out where it was coming from. But he was so far away that nobody would ever smell his still. And he had in it a little clump of, well not little, large clump of quaker aspen above his place about half a mile and well hidden and everything.
And he took me up there and showed it to me and so forth, and I got two of his old barrels. He carried the whiskey, they're little barrels. [demonstrates size with hand, about 2 ft. diameter]. He put two of them on each side of the pack horse, you see, and carried them down to the Indians. But any rate he operated about a year or so, and then he got hit by the revenuers.
And he couldn’t figure it out, he just couldn’t figure it out. He figured that someone must have squealed on him. Some no-good. Well, he bought three times, about three times a year, maybe four times a year. He’d take a pack string with 20 head of horses into Bridger and buy corn and sugar. That’s all he’d buy--corn and sugar. [Laughs and shakes head.] He couldn’t figure out how they would ever figure that out that he was making whiskey with the corn and the sugar. But somehow the word got to the revenuers about the big pack strings of corn and sugar that were going off toward the Pryors.
Krueger's Cabin
An excerpt of a February 1980 letter from Bill Krueger, grandson of Herman Krueger.
Krueger’s Cabin on East Pryor Mountain. (d.walton photo)
“Somewhere around 1916 a man by the name Fenner filed a claim on the section of land now owned by my family. He built a cabin, which was adjacent to the [Krueger] cabin … and where as I understand it the new cabin built by the BLM now sits. Fenner later dropped his claim and moved down into sage creek valley, where he ran a saw mill for a number of years. The land was then filed on by a fellow by the name of Mundi [sp. ?], who was in the sheep business. He used the cabin which Fenner had built and ran sheep on the top of the mountain on his claim and on the claims of two of his brothers had filed on. Mundi [sp. ?] did little work on his claim and lost it after seven years for failure to comply with the homestead laws. My Grandfather, Herman Krueger, a cattle rancher in the Powell area, heard of this and in 1935 my Great Grandfather, Otto, a german filed on the land. The cabin … was built between 1936 and 37 by my Great Grandfather and Grandfather. According to my Grandfather, the early homesteaders failed because there was no water available for watering their stock. And their efforts to collect water in reservoirs failed because these reservoirs would not hold water. My Grandfather spent $1500, lots of money in those days, to build reservoirs. The reservoir, which is situated at the upper end of the valley in which the cabins are located, caught 8 feet of water but went dry in a month, to the amusement of the stockmen of the area. It was necessary to have water to the stock for the rest of the season. My Grandfather then tried lining the reservoirs with bentonite. They have not gone dry since.”
“My Grandfather ran stock up their for many years until he retired, somewhere around 1960. Then land was then leased to the BLM which uses it as part of their wild horse preserve. The new cabin was built by the BLM as part of their rental agreement.”
Bill Krueger