Places on the Face of Montana

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This is going to be fun!

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• The Snowden Bridge

• Where’s This Picture?

• On Charley’s Mind

• More Montana Terms

• Coming Next Week

If there’s such a list, the Snowden Bridge would rank as one of the “Seven Man Made Wonders of Montana.”

My first look at the Snowden Bridge was in 1994 or ‘95 during a trip to NE Montana. I was on my way to visit a cousin and her husband who farm and ranch near Froid and had a little time to do some exploring.

Spanning the Missouri River a few miles upstream from the Dakota border, near the old townsite of Snowden, this massive “vertical lift” bridge was built in 1913 connecting Richland and Roosevelt counties. Constructed by the Great Northern Railroad it was at the time the longest (1,159 feet) vertical lift bridge in the world and the second largest moveable bridge.

The lift bridge was built because federal law gave (and still gives) priority to river travel versus rail travel. Therefore as steamboats ventured up the Missouri, bridges had to be built so as to not interfere with river transportation. Kerosene-powered engines would raise the 300-foot lift span about 40 feet in just a few minutes.

Ironically, the Snowden Bridge was lifted only 16 times as railroads, by purpose and destiny, quickly put the Missouri River steamboats out of business.

In 1925 planking was added to the bridge’s deck allowing vehicle, horse and foot travel—which sometimes proved quite hazardous to everything but the trains. Local legend says the bridge is haunted by the ghost of a man who was lynched near the site at the time the bridge was being built.

The Snowden Bridge was last raised in 1935 and the lift structure was mothballed in the 1950s. It continued to be used for vehicle travel into the mid-1980s. The BNSF Railway continues to operate across the Snowden Bridge today.

The Snowden Bridge is about 12 miles northeast of Fairview. Take Richland County Road 351 as it winds north to the river. Or get there via US Highway 2 by going south on Roosevelt County Road 153 about five miles.

You can’t miss it!

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The gravel bed of one of Montana’s most iconic lakes is very unique. This is also the background image on the montanacharley.com homepage. Email [email protected] with your guess!

You can see the answer in next week’s post. And there will be another one…

This morning while putting the finishing touches on this post, I’m watching news of the Key Bridge collapse in Maryland.

It’s coincidence that I planned to feature a bridge in this week’s post… But as we wait for more news we should all mourn the loss of life and property. Meanwhile, it’s natural to wonder about the short- and mid-term effects this disaster is going to have on our nation.

It’s safe to assume there will be micro-impacts on numerous supply chains, and possibly macro-effects as the nation struggles shake off the inflation woes of the past few years.

And, there’ll be a cost to taxpayers as President Biden moved quickly to assure the nation that the Federal government will rebuild the bridge. But even with due haste it could take years to cleanup the current mess and engineer and build a new bridge.

No question the Key Bridge rebuild has to commence quickly and it’s hard to argue that Uncle Sam shouldn’t pony up for the cost. For now we can be thankful the lost of life wasn’t worse.

More details will come out; but for now something seems to have worked right in getting word to Baltimore transportation authorities to close the bridge in the moments before the ship’s impact.

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A few more “Montana” terms for the list on montanacharley.com.

• Wibaux is the name of a county bordering Dakota and the name of it’s county seat. Please don’t call either Why-Box or We-Box it’s we-BOW.

• And there are a couple of towns in central Montana that confuse more than just the weather girls - LewisTOWN and HarloTON—or Harlo for short.

• Philipsburg in western Montana is just P-burg. Don’t need to spell that out, right? Oh yeah, and only one L (el) in the long version.

• Those wily little canines that slip around our countryside are coyotes (kai-OATS) not (kai-oat-EES). Charley can even accept the Hispanic coyote’ (Coy-OH-Tay).

• You guide a team of draft horses with “lines”— and you control a saddlehorse with “reins.” Use your left hand to hold the reins so your right hand is free for shooting, roping, holding a lead rope, or blowing snot out of your nose.

• A cowboy’s leather leggings are called chaps (shaps) not chaps (like chap-ed lips). The most popular style of chaps are batwing, shotgun, woolies and chinks. Dad had a pair of Mohair woolies he wore in the ‘30s—wish he hadn’t sold them...

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1. Fish On! - Feature—Getting spring fever? Let’s talk fishing.

2.  Where’s This Picture?—This will be regular content in these posts and on montanacharley.com.

3. Book Sharing—Every so often you’ll find a review of a book about Montana.

4. On Charley’s Mind—Of course Charley always has opinion, analysis, commentary, or random things on his mind.

5. What else?—Still thinking about it…

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   In the Works—A feature detailing a study to re-establish the former North Coast Hiawatha passenger rail line through southern Montana.