In 2011 the Three Forks Historical Society rescued the Trident Northern Pacific Railway Station, moving it to Three Forks. The station was scheduled for demolition by its owner, Montana Rail Link. Built at Trident, Montana in 1910 by the Northern Pacific Railroad, the station was the town's major link to the outside world until the advent of improved highways and motor vehicles. Built by the Three Forks Portland Cement Company, the town of Trident was a company town with but one product, cement processed from the surrounding limestone hills. When, in the 1940s and 50s, it became easier to commute from nearby Three Forks, employees, despite the cheap rent available in Trident, began to build houses in Three Forks. Slowly Trident emptied, the post office closed and the railway station closed, remaining unused until being threatened with demolition in 2010.
When the station arrived in Three Forks it was placed at the northern end of a small historical park named
John Q. Adams Milwaukee Park alongside the Milwaukee Road tracks in Three Forks. Nearby is a Milwaukee Railroad caboose which serves as the Three Forks Visitor Information Centre. The rest of the park is dedicated to educating visitors to the town on the importance of the Three Forks area to the settlement and development of Montana. Signs and placards, large and small, relate the story of Three Forks, the Headwaters of the Missouri River, and the natives, fur traders, explorers and others who came to the area, if only briefly.
On the northwest side of the park, between the Trident Station and the informational plaques, is a gambrel roofed shed with a mural covering the east side. The mural depicts a view of the nearby
Sacajawea Hotel, looking through a pergola labeled
Gallatin Gateway to Yellowstone National Park. The view would have been from the Milwaukee Road station in Three Forks to the northwest of the hotel. Said station is long gone, as both it and the railway tracks have been removed, leaving only an empty right of way.
The hotel, however, remains, visible from John Q. Adams Milwaukee Park, directly south and across Main Street. While two sections of the hotel, the northeast apartment wing and the southeast wing with private dining room and main kitchen, were built in 1882 as the Madison House, the main section was built in 1910 as the
Sacajawea Hotel. The Madison House was initially in "Old Town" Three Forks, a mile downstream on the Missouri River. John Q. Adams, purchasing agent for the Milwaukee Railroad, purchased it and had it moved to its present site. After splitting it into two sections Adams built the hotel around it.
The design of the main hotel was by an architect with a name very familiar to Montana historians, Fred Fielding Wilsson, the most prolific Bozeman based architect of the twentieth century. His vision was of a somewhat Revival, somewhat Colonial exterior with a bungalow arts and crafts interior. The result is a formal exterior as viewed at the entrance, with a less formal, more inviting, interior. Though the hotel remains open today, it nearly succumbed to the economic ups and downs endured by Three Forks, being shuttered in 2001 and remaining closed until being bought by a third generation Montana family in 2009. The building then underwent its most major renovation to date and was reopened in time for its 100th anniversary.
With 29 luxury rooms, the hotel has won acclaim for both its accommodations and its food, as found in
Pompey’s Grill, named for the son of Sacajawea.
Gallatin Gateway to Yellowstone National Park refers to the fact that, when Yellowstone National Park, created in 1872, later became more accessible through railway and road access, Gallatin County advertised itself as a gateway to the park. Of course, many other towns, cities and counties also professed themselves to be gateways to the park.