http://www.shorpy.com/node/13556
WOW! this is a great series of photos. If you look inside the car on the back quarter panel is a calendar with flowers on it. I wonder if they were marking off the days as they traveled. I wonder why they took the roll of barbed wire with them?
No two tires alike.
My aunts and Grandma wore dresses like that.
The high def photos are fun to look at, so many interesting details. I saw the calendar, but that it looks like a baby photo on it. Did anyone notice the utility pole? It appears to be 3 sided, not round. It has what looks like a sign on it that says "US 10". That road looks little used.
I love the details. Note that the left headlight rim is off a 26/27. The door handle is mounted wrong. He has the sides of the hood folded under, giving him maximum air-flow. It's all interesting.
Jim
US 10 now ends at Fargo. Through North Dakota and Montana it's been replaced by I-94 and I-90.
Steve B.
Yes. the power pole is hand split cedar. Depending on the size of the tree, they kind of come out pie shaped. I've split a lot of fence posts like that but never any power poles. Interesting.
Jim
The pole is from the telegraph days and is redwood. You can still see some of them on the old power lines. I spot them on 99 in Calif. Scott
I agree, it looks like a telegraph pole. I would bet the split poles in CA were redwood and other areas where cedar in available, cedar. The one in the photo is from a smaller tree, maybe 18" diameter.
Jim
US 10 by that time would have been paved all the way from the Montana border on the east to the Montana border on the west, over 700 miles. It came in to the state at Wibaux, went on to Glendive and joined with Hwy 12 for a few miles from Miles City to Forsyth before 12 branched off and went north to Roundup and on west.
These people would have come out of South Dakota on 12, through the far southwestern corner of North Dakota, then through Baker, Plevna and on to Miles City. By 1936 it was all paved from border to border except possibly for a few miles over the top of the Government Hill east of Miles City, which was the last section paved The new route of 12 had bypassed Westmore & Ismay and the route along the Milwaukee railroad that was quite a bit longer. They would have picked up 10 at Miles City and followed it to Missoula. Highway 10 was the major east/west route through the state and was the first paved road to entirely cross Montana. By 1936 it would have been heavy with truck traffic as it was mostly a new, paved road and was the major east/west thoroughfare in the northern US. It ran pretty much right along the Northern Pacific railroad from the time it entered the state until it left.
This photo would have been taken off to the side of the new Highway 10, probably staged to make it look worse than it was. Had it been taken from the north looking south instead of south looking north there would have been the Clarks Fork river and a highway full of traffic behind it.
Highway 10 followed the Yellowstone River from Glendive to Livingston, crossed Bozeman Pass and the Missouri River, went west over Pipestone Pass to Butte, picked up the river route along the Clarks Fork to Missoula and followed the river west and then climbed over Lookout Pass which is the border between Montana and Idaho.
I don't recognize that hill exactly but when I go to Missoula next time I will look and see if I can find that exact spot. It looks like the country just to the east of Missoula.
That pole doesn't have wires enough to be a telegraph pole. With only three wires it is probably a low voltage power pole going into a farm. It is a split cedar pole. They are still in use here.
Stan, It looks like there are 7 insulators without wires on them. Could they have removed the telegraph wires?
My wife's grandfather, Ludwig Erk, who initially purchased our 23 touring in Faith, SD. lived on a ranch 50 miles north of Sturgis. He also went to Oregon, probably in our T, during the grasshopper infestation and drought on the ranch at about the same time. What he found was that conditions there weren't a lot better and he returned and stayed on the ranch. He eventually purchased more land from people leaving the area and built the ranch to what it is today. We had a big 100 year celebration of the original homestead this year and had the T there as well.
That must have been a great event, Doc. I bet the T was a center of attention.
Flatlanders were not welcome in Oregon during the Depression. My Dad had a tough time finding work for years, and did all sorts of jobs, contracting, etc., to put food on the table. For awhile, he was an adult supervisor with the CCC. Cities in southern Oregon had Sunset laws, too, but that's OT.
rdr
I guess it could be the telegraph but usually they have lots of wire and run right along the Railroad track. The tracks are across the highway from this spot as far as I can tell. The car is pointed west, the sun is to the southeast, there are no tracks in sight so they must be to the south. Since they run along the Clarks Fork river, I would assume the telegraph lines ran right beside the tracks. My thinking is that they would be several hundred feet from this spot. Mebbe not. I dunno. I'll see if I recognize this spot when I go to Missoula next week.
As just a bit of interesting history, the Northern Pacific ran on the north side of the river and the Milwaukee ran on the south side. The Milwaukee was all electric from Harlowton, Montana to the Pacific ocean, the only U S Railroad to make it work. There was no smoke, no steam, no frozen engines and no danger of carbon monoxide in the tunnels. Both the NP and the Great Northern had tunnel crews that manned the fans on the ends of the tunnel to either draw or blow smoke ahead of the engines. The Milwaukee engines did not smell either of steam or diesel, both of the others did. The Milwaukee made a lot of advertising hay out of that and a lot of people wouldn't ride any passenger service but the Milwaukee Hiawatha if possible because of the problems with steam going over the mountains and through the tunnels. There had been a terrible tragedy where over 200 people asphyxiated in a tunnel for the coal fumes while they were clearing track before they went to all electric in 1920.
Our auction at Trego last weekend was just a few miles from the 2rd longest railroad tunnel in the US. Seven miles. It is on the Burlington Northern west of Whitefish, Montana. Use to be the Great Northern. It's worth a google.
Just back to the forum after spending most of the day upstairs. I'm glad Stan elaborated on US 10. I had my doubts about a major US highway being a dirt track like that, especially as late as 1936.
I stand corrected about the Milwaukee being electrified all the way from Harlowton, Montana to the Pacific. It was electrified from Harlowton though the mountains to Athol, Idaho and again from Othello, Washington to Puget Sound. I guess they must have run steam or diesel out in the flat country between those places and just ran electric through the mountains.
Stan
You are correct that the Milwaukee RR used electrified segments along there route west through Montana,Idaho and Washington in there long mountains tunnels to prevent asphyxiation of the crews and passengers. The SP RR used the Cab Forward locomotive through the snow sheds over the Sierras for the same reason.
Bob