Havre

Yesterday was our longest day of travel. I started driving at 7am, and didn’t pull into the campground until about 4pm. 365 miles. The Wind Gods of the Prairie were kind to us and gave us a 25 mph tailwind… if you traveled due west, otherwise more cross winds. The terrain is changing a bit. The endless fields of waving, green grass is showing more sage brush and small hills. And the buildings seem to be getting older and more decrepit.

I’m leery of this campground because I’m greeted with “Be careful, this is snake country” and have been reminded of it at least 3 times today. No one has seen a snake yet. And of course, they are talking about rattlesnakes.

In case you’re wondering about Lewis and Clark… remember they wintered back near Bismark, ND in 1804. They left in the spring and continued up the Missouri River and passed by this area in May 1805.

Today was an optional day. So most of us went into Havre, Montana. First on the agenda was the Buffalo Jump. “A Buffalo Jump was a place where animals were driven over a cliff and killed by the fall or the wounded killed after the fall.” –from their website.

This is the ledge they drove the buffalo over. There’s a small window in the middle which was an earlier archeological site.

We went through several archeological sites showing layers of buffalo bones and sites where they processed the buffalo.

This site was where the buffalo were killed. It shows different layers and is mostly big bones. The Besant Complex was 2000-1760 years ago. The Avonlea Complex 1350-900 years ago. The Old Women’s Complex 900-355 year ago. The site was then abandoned. For reference, 2000 years ago was the time of Jesus, 355 years ago is when Christopher Columbus came to America.

They said the red stain in the middle layer was from blood staining the soil.

They would cut the buffalo into smaller pieces and take it to off to the west side where the women would process them. They would either dry it, or boil it or slow roast it. The bones in this area were smaller, broken down.

This shows a earlier kill layer and a later boiling layer.

Here is an precursor to the crock pot. They would make a fire, add rocks, wrap the meat in a hide and place it on the warm stones, cover with dirt and come back at the end of the day.

It all sounds so gruesome as I’m writing the details, but at the time I was there, I was only fascinated by the archeology was going on at this place.

Next we went to Havre Beneath the Streets. A town was built here as the mid-way point of the train between Chicago and Seattle.

A cart at the train station. I gad to share this because the milk barrels on the wagon were the same as the ones used by my father for milk storage and delivery. Also, we used to have a baby carriage just like the one here.

However, in the early 1900’s a fire came through and burned a 4 square block section of the downtown to the ground, but not underground. So the businesses went to the basements to continue their businesses until they could rebuild.

A bordello. Interesting part about this was the basement was first used to house Chinese workers on the railroad. When they continued on, they made a bordello out of the space. The numbers can still be seen on the walls, and the only thing separating the beds was a curtain.

Of course the madam had much nicer quarters.

I try to explain to my grandkids how the telephone operator would pull out one of those orange things at the bottom and plug it in above to connect your call.

Apparently, Shorty was a colorful character at that time and had his office below ground. He had control over most of the town and its businesses.

Look what they used to sell at the pharmacy.

So this is the view from my RV where I sit in this Montana campground, still looking for snakes, and listening to the trains go by hourly.

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