FIRST - Post Office in Central Montana
Posted by: T0SHEA
N 47° 03.505 W 109° 25.454
12T E 619667 N 5212861
The first post office to be built in central Montana, the old log Reed's Fort Post Office still stands in its original location.
Waymark Code: WMWRD3
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 10/06/2017
Views: 2
First restored in the late 1930s as a Daughters of the American Revolution project, this old post office was again restored in 1970 by a local volunteer group. Though changed somewhat in appearance since it was built, the post office retains excellent overall integrity, reflecting its period of operation from 1880 to 1885 when it served as Lewistown's first post office. The post office was established here on January 6, 1881 and named Reed's Fort after its first postmaster, Alonzo S. Reed, homesteader of the land on which the post office stands.
The building's Registration Form states that it was built by one Mose LaTray, a Métis carpenter originally from the Milk River area along the Canada-U.S. border. This is one of the very few remaining Métis constructed buildings which stand in North America. Today it is maintained as a heritage site. Affixed to a boulder in front of the post office is a plaque placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution on September 17, 1931.
The post office building stands along the east side of Casino Creek Drive, less than 100 feet south of Little Casino Creek, one of two creeks named by the settlers in 1873. The explanation for the name is this:
In the fall of 1873, [Nelson] Story and [Charles W.] Hoffman had retained Peter Koch to travel north from Bozeman with a bull train of materials to "build, stock and manage" a trading post. He sited the new camp on the west side of Big Spring Creek, just north of Little Casino Creek and named it Fort Sherman. He built the first standing structures in the Judith Basin.
As Koch later related:
"A site was selected just below the mouth of Big Casino Creek, on the south bank of Big Spring Creek, and when the ox train with the goods and supplies had arrived I built there, during November and December, 1873, the first permanent houses within the Judith Basin. While waiting in idleness for the arrival of the train, the boys put in most of their time with an old deck of cards, playing casino, and we accordingly named the creek we were camped on "Big Casino" and a little spring creek just below " Little Casino," and I was much amused years after
on seeing Colonel Ludlow's map that these names had been perpetuated.
From the NRHP Registration Form
FIRST - Classification Variable: Item or Event
Date of FIRST: 01/06/1881
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