The Oily Boid Gets The Woim - Shelby, MT
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Bon Echo
N 48° 29.362 W 111° 49.068
12U E 439575 N 5371016
Possibly the cheekiest historical marker you may ever find
Waymark Code: WMYRAJ
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 07/16/2018
Views: 3
This Montana Historical Marker is located on the north side of US 2 east of Shelby Montana. Written in a rather an unusual tounge-in-cheek prose, the marker describes does not focus on a single event or person but instead describes the overall historical development of this area.
A narrow gauge railroad, nicknamed the "turkey track" used to connect Great Falls, Montana and Lethbridge, Alberta. When the main line of the Great Northern crossed it in 1891, Shelby Junction came into existence. The hills and plains around here were cow country. The Junction became an oasis where parched cow-punchers cauterized their tonsils with forty-rod and grew plumb irresponsible and ebullient.
In 1910 the dry-landers began homesteading. They built fences and plowed under the native grass. The days of open range were gone. Shelby quit her swaggering frontier ways and became concrete sidewalks and sewer system conscious.
Dry-land farming didn't turn out to be such a profitable endeavor, but in 1921 geologists discovered that this country had an ace in the hole. Oil was struck between here and the Canadian line and the town boomed again."
Describe the area and history:
The area is obviosuly still "dry land" although the evidence of it becoming "concrete sidewalks and sewer system conscious" is a little less obvious at the marker location as opposed to a few miles to the west (back in the main part of Shelby).
The railway tracks located nearby are likely the same "main line of the Great Northern" route.
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