Written by Suzanne Waring

These waterwheels on the Sun River were offset and a flume channeled water to ditches. Photo taken from a history of the Sun River area and found at the Great Falls Genealogy Society, Montana Room of the Great Falls Public Library.

North Central Montana farmers began using water wheels as soon as they took up homesteads along the Teton, Marias, Sun, and Missouri Rivers before the turn of the 20th Century. Water wheels had been used in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, especially by the Dutch, for eons, and the concept had migrated to the United States. It was only natural that those farming the bottom lands along Montana rivers on the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains would attempt to use water wheels for irrigation in a region where it rained only around fifteen inches a year.

The two major types of water wheels used in the United States were “overshot” and “undershot” wheels. Overshot wheels were built mainly for the purposes of milling grain and sawing wood and were powered with water that came from dammed mill ponds and entered from the top of the wheel forcing it downward into rotation.

The Trail That Made Fort Benton Mercantile Owners Rich

Written by Suzanne Waring

Early-day photo of one of the many oxen teams that transported tons of goods north to Southern Alberta. Whenever the ground became too rutted, the teams moved over and made a new trail. Photo from the Fort Benton Overholser Archives.

The Whoop-Up Trail connected Fort Benton, Montana, to what is known today as southern Alberta. When asked, many will wonder aloud whether the Whoop-Up Trail had something to do with prohibition and the illegal transportation of alcohol. Prohibition occurred from 1920 to 1933. The Whoop-Up Trail was used much earlier—in the late 1800s—when trade goods were shipped north to Canada.

Because of the Gold Rush in Montana, modes of transportation from the East to Fort Benton had already been established before the Whoop-Up Trail was used for commerce. In the years between 1860 and 1890, goods came to St. Louis or to Sioux City, Iowa, via rail. They were shipped by steamboat up the Missouri River and dispersed to Bannack, Last Chance Gulch, and other settlements.

Do you know someone who has had to start life over?

Connie Beal, the Preacher Lady, has to step out on her own at mid-life. Along with her faithful dog, Sam, she moves to her first solo assignment as a pastor. This account takes Connie through that first year at Old West where she beats down the antagonism of being a woman in what is considered by some as a man’s job while at the same time attempting to revitalize a traditional church.

A Business Operated by Women

Many of the cows on the Milk River Genetics Ranch live to be twenty years old. That’s old for cows. Kathy Creighton-Smith, the business owner, has patience and compassion for the cows that live in her pastures. Maybe that’s why they live so long.

Creighton-Smith was fortunate to attend Colorado State University at Fort Collins, Colorado, when an embryo transfer lab was established. When she graduated, embryo transfer was so new that few had the skills that she had learned while working in the lab. She was offered several jobs, but her husband’s family had a ranch in North Central Montana, and that was where she wanted to make her life, so in 1991 she started her own cattle embryo transfer business near Chinook, Montana, and named it Milk River Genetics.