I went to an auction 200 miles away yesterday to buy a Model T Truck. It turned out to be a Model A, an early 28, so I bought it anyway. Went back today with the F-250 and the trailer and got it.


The first picture is the truck loaded on the trailer in front of the original homestead house.




The kids must have wanted a tree house so he built them one in the only tree for miles on the windswept Montana prairie.

Hey Stan, I wish I'd found that! A wire-wheel AA would be a keeper round here.

Stan
Being a City boy, but always interested, how far is the tree house from an interstate highway? Nearest town? What do they farm? Nearest neighbor? Please tell me more.
Jon Crane rochester Mich and living on a 100 city lot!

Jon, look at the background of the treehouse. Do you see any buildings all the way to the horizon? That's what I love about the prairie. At night, there are places that there isn't even a light on the horizon for 360 degrees. People from the cities get anxious out here just like I get anxious in the big city. If I can't a significant chunk of sky, I lose all directional sense, and a lot of what other sense I've got, too.

Doctor Dennis
Very interesting. What is the radius of your patient list? Where is the nearest town with a hospital?

A boy in my son's High School class comes from an area in Nebraska. He went for a visit to his grandparents last summer and the big task was burning down an old house. I asked about getting a fire department permit and he laughed. Said that the nearest fire department is an hour away!

I guess it would make you a very self sufficient person.
jon crane

While it is totally different, having to make do with what you had in the 1930's during the depths of "The Great Depression", a lot of us who began in this hobby as kids, with very little money or sources for parts are very familiar with having to make do with what we had when it came to restoring our Model T's. In 1970 when I bought my first Model T (a 1926 Coupe) at 16 years of age, there were few parts sources I knew about and even if I had known about them, it would have done me no good since I had very little money, so many parts that I would have replaced today, I had to repair or straighten and use, which is good, because it means my car has virtually all of the parts it had back in 1926, when it rolled off the assembly line. Jim Patrick.

Jim, my first car was a 31 Model A Fordor,i paid $35.00 i found a parts store that still had some parts, plugs, rotors , dist cams, dist caps etc,when i needed a part they would let me dig in the box and have what i wanted,this was in 56.
Rick

Noel
You are absolutely correct regarding the vast prairies of Big Sky Country. To describe it to some one who has never seen it, is a challenge in itself. "Breathtaking in 360 degrees," is the best I can do?

Harvey .....

Unlikely comparison. My wife is from Holland, and in the mid eighties, we drove from St. Louis to Bismarck ND. As we crossed ND, she remarked that it reminded her of home - not that the vastness reminded her of tiny little Holland, but the flatness, the ability - as she put it - "to see all the way to the horizon."

That was the trip where we learned that the state tree of North Dakota is the telephone pole...

Stan
What did the good folks who owned the Model A do for a living? I am still interested. thanks jon

My late Dad had a delivery business around Bayard, Nebr. He hauled milk from the farms to the creamery in Scotts Bluff, and returned with groceries and supplies that he would deliver the next morning. He started out with a used Dodge Bros truck, and then added a brand new AA truck, that I just learned about. He sold the business to a guy who had been pestering him for it - in late summer 1929.

He fed Mom and four kids on the proceeds of the sale, through the early part of the Depression, until Christmas, 1933, when they moved to Oregon. They ran out of money before they got to family in Jefferson, so settled in Ashland area.

Stan, did you get any history with that AA?

rdr

This place is not so isolated as some would have been. This area was opened to homesteading in about 1912 with the majority of the homesteaders coming in 1913 and 1914. By 1915 there would have been a farm on every half section (320 acres) or section (640 acres) if they were able to also file on a second claim. That usually involved a single woman filing on a claim next to the man she was going to marry and building a house on the property line.

This would have been about 20 miles west of Big Sandy, Montana, which was and is, good farm country; part of what is known as the Golden Triangle, some of the most productive land in the US. Now the farms are mostly 3 thousand to 20 thousand acres, farmed with huge machinery and chemical weed control, also erosion control etc., but in the day it would have been farmed with a 3 or 4 horse hitch, hence the big barn, needed to protect and care for the horses. The barn probably came along later than the house.

This community was known as the Kenilworth community and the hall they build for a community hall is still there. Surprisingly, there is no rural church near the hall. Usually, there was a church, cemetery and hall. Maybe I just haven't seen it, although I drive this road quite often.

From what they said at the auction, this truck was bought new in Big Sandy in 1928 and used as a farm truck up until the 1950's. It has one family ownership, they are getting the title straightened out and will send it to me, the 91 year old owner has her name on the title and they have to send it to her and get her to sign it and send it back. She is visiting a new great grandchild in California and won't be back until about Thanksgiving.

They would have mostly been grain farmers in this area, very few livestock, probably a few cows to eat the fields down in the winter and provide milk and meat for the family, but no "ranching" as we would think of ranching here, and work horses up until the mid to late 20's or possibly 30's. This area would have grown crops that were more valuable than using the land to grow hay for horses. Hay is also more time consuming and more work to put up than harvesting grain. I would guess that by the mid to late 30's there wasn't a horse on the place unless they had a saddle horse for the kids. Livestock need natural shelter and this is flat as a pancake and not a tree in sight.

This truck may have been their only transportation but more likely they also had a car. They had built a new house by the mid 20's, there were lots of out buildings and it looked like they didn't do too badly over the years.

Jon, it would be 75 miles to the Interstate at Great Falls, 20 to the two lane at Big Sandy, nearest neighbor today would be about a mile to the northeast and two miles to the south. This place will be burned and bulldozed into a hole, a year from now it will be hard to tell there was ever a farmstead here. With the huge machinery they farm with today (100 foot seeders are not uncommon) it is too much bother to try to farm around these old places and they are an invitation to lawsuits and liability.

You can almost always tell an old family farm, grampa and gramma's homestead house is almost always still standing and farmed around, in the middle of a huge field you will see a tiny little round topped house, that's where they started and there are very few don't have a lot of admiration for those who bet their life and their family's life against the government that they could stick it out and success or at least survive.

Here is another shot of the house. The main door was on the west side, around the corner to the left. They must have built it without realizing the wind blows from the northwest about 300 days a year. The other 65 it blows from the southwest.
The house was smaller to begin with, it was built on to later. There are a couple windows that have been filled in, one on the east and one on the north side. This was used for storage after they built the new house.



A little more info, the son (now about 70) and his wife who lived here had no children and took in wayward or needful boys from the city or the nearby reservation to care for for years. They said nobody ever ran away more than once. It was too far to walk to get anyplace else and after they left they'd get to thinking about her cooking and come back. Pretty noble thing to do, in my book. They had sometimes half a dozen teen age boys that they worked to help get their life in order. I believe some of the boys built the tree house for some smaller children who stayed there for awhile in the 1980's.

Tree house again.

Stan,

Great find, even has the sun visor frame which is difficult to find. We still have my fathers 1929 Model A pickup that I learned to drive in. It has not been on the road since the 60's and needs to be restored. Been too busy playing/restoring our early cars and T's and so the pickup still sits in storage. Just turned 70 yrs old so I better get busy or it will become some one else's find.
Good luck with your new project....looks to be very complete.
Les

Stan ; very nice story ,I love that !!!!!!!

Toon

Stan
I love American History. Those folks had true grit. Is this the area where they had sod houses? I don't believe I ever saw a real picture of one. Thank you for the detailed answer. Most interesting. jon

They had a lot of grit but for a lot of them, this was also the first opportunity they ever had to get ahead in life. True, it was hard work, but they were already working hard wherever and whatever they were doing. In Europe many were working as hard as anyone could just to survive. The landholder or business owner made all the money except for enough food to keep his help from starving and they had no chance to improve their lot in life. Here, they had a piece of land that they could own in five years if they stuck it out. They had their own ground where they could grow a garden and raise a cow to milk. The biggest thing, tho, was they got to keep the fruits of their labor. Whatever they could scrape together was theirs. No share for the landlord, virtually no taxes, nothing. It was theirs. For many, this was the greatest blessing life had ever bestowed on them. Homesteading was the great American success story from the 1860's to the 1920's and should be more widely known than it is. Here, the air was clean, the disease of the cities, the filthy water and the stench of open sewers or no sewers was left behind. Children worked, but they ran and played and for the most part were healthier than any city children. Every community built a school, they voted taxes on themselves to support a school and hire a teacher so their children would have opportunities they never had. They built churches and towns and formed social clubs and had community dances and learned to play music together, work together, suffer together and take life as it came.

We need to be more like them.

Now to answer you question. I don't think there were a lot of sod houses here. I think there were probably a lot more stacked rock and frame houses than sod.

I have some pictures on another computer of a beautiful rock wall my grandfather and uncle built that is still standing 90 years later.

Now, not to sound like I am pimping my own deal, but my Herman and Freida book covers a lot of the homesteading era. One of the reasons I wrote it is to tell the homesteading story in a positive light. Many of the books about homesteading just talk about how hard it was and how poor they were and how cold and lonely it was and on and on and on. That is not true in the overall picture. At least not for everyone. Some people did well and some did not. Many people had some money when they came and were good farmers, some did not and were not. Some areas were better than others. In Herman and Freida, they did well. Herman is a good farmer. They built a nice, new house. Herman bought new Fords instead of patching up an old one and keeping it running. He bought new Fordsons. They had plenty of food and money to buy a light plant and a wireless set. They had a good phonograph. Their story is very typical of the homesteader who came and stayed and did just fine. They laugh, they love, they work hard and they play their fiddles and drink whiskey and dance with the best looking girls at the dance.

I could go on and on and on but it is going to snow tonight and I need to back and work on my tractor and move some things before dark and cold.

Stan I hope you get done early and have enough time to write some more.

Herb

Uh,the engine or pump on the back of the truck,I am haveing trouble telling what brand it is.Looks like a Briggs aircleaner.
Yep,A spoke AA is a keeper.Those wheels are rare around here.
Shame that home place will be destroyed.

that is what I was looking for when I ran across my TT! No wonder I couldn't find that truck...never though to look in Montana! Very nice find sir!

Stan
I bought your book last year. If anyone wants a good read I recommend it highly.
My neighbor, Mrs. Proft, (who lived on a 50' wide lot next door) told me that her parents were farmers in North Dakota and around 1938 gave up. They settled their bills, left their home and moved in a wagon pulled by a mule to Arkansas! She said that many people gave up but that a wagon pulled by a mule was the exception in 1938. Kind of a Grapes of Wrath story. Most interesting was her first statement about settling their bills...These days everyone seems to want a bailout and free money. Society would be better off if everyone worked for what they want and need.

Maybe if you are snowed in you could tell us a little more of the western settlement story.

jon

Stan: I (we) really enjoy you comments on homesteading and the early life under the big sky country. Often we fail to realize the sacrifics many people made in the earlier days so that we all could have it better today. JP

That's no tree house. That's a hunting blind.

Hi Stan - We've never been to Montana, but you sure do make it sound interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing it next summer after the tour in Rapid City. Should be fun.... Lots of wide open spaces... lots of T's.... Model AA wire wheel trucks...great back roads to tour on...and the list goes on.

Thanks again, Stan.

Fordially, Keith Gumbinger

In 1935, my maternal Grandmother and four of her sons were granted one of the last homesteads in the US, so I've been told. It was southeast of Ashland, Oregon, just below Pilot Rock.

-------

My paternal great grandparents built a sod house on their homestead in far western Kansas in about 1890.

Very interesting reading thanks.

Pep, it's not a hunting blind. I've lived in Montana all my life and have never seen a hunting blind. They are considered unsportsmanlike here. A guy from Missouri moved to Townsend a few years ago and put up a blind on posts, somebody went out and chainsawed the legs off it. He didn't put it back up. Plus, why would you need one??? We know how to find deer and elk and moose and buffalo.

Anyway, the man who was having the auction said that four of his "boys" built it about 20 or 25 years ago for some small foster children they were taking care of from the nearby Chippewa/Cree reservation to play on. It's his story and I'm sticking to it.

Mack, the engine is a 9 horse Wisconsin.

Jon, thanks for the good words on Herman & Freida. This past spring, it was selected for "Listener's Bookstall;" which is a read aloud program on Montana Public Radio (where I do my radio show on old time music). I got a lot of calls from people while it was being read over the air and thought I was going to be invited to the Montana Festival of the Book as an author but it didn't happen. Not esoteric enough for the literati, I think. Maybe a little too earthy for them, too. Anyway, I got a lot of calls from people telling me that it basically tells their parents and grandparents stories of homesteading in the west.

There was one other significant thing I should have taken a picture of and didn't. Next to the front door of the house was a single, solitary Lilac bush. Old and gnarly, it probably still blooms. Think of the buckets of water that must have been hauled to get a little slip of Lilac to grow and thrive in the wind and harsh weather of northern Montana.

I mentioned the little houses that dot the farm fields, the Lilacs often survive, too. They were about the only flowering plant that would survive the winters here and were a harbinger of spring. Occasionally I will be driving down a country road in the early summer and off in the middle of a field there will be a few Lilac bushes in bloom. Surrounded by thousands of acres of green grain, summerfallow or maybe a stubble field; they are in full bloom and are the last remnant of a farm that existed there sometime in the past. Since broadleaf weed herbicide would kill the Lilacs, you know that some farmer is shutting off the chemical and skirting the Lilacs with his machinery to let them grow, preserving the last remnant of someone's home on the broad prairie.

Keith, we are looking forward to having you and whoever else will join us go on part or all of our tour next summer. You'll have plenty of hills to climb. Bring your fishing pole, we'll be going along the blue ribbon Missouri River and camping just a few miles from Canyon Ferry Lake.

I see another hard to find item, the center cap(s?) on the truck wire wheel

All five of them are there. I think they are the only ones I have ever seen. This was a treasured truck. They took care of it.

Hi Stan.  Congratulations on your outstanding purchase.  Thank you for the prairie homestead photos, but could you post more pictures of the truck from different angles inside and out?  There is only one of the front 1/3rd and I'd like to see the whole thing since it appears to be all original and untouched.  How often does it rain in those parts?  I suppose it is pretty dry out there which may be one reason why there is so little body rust.  Was the truck garage (barn) kept or outside most of its' life?  From your posts regarding the 91 year old lady, I assume you did not know the family?  Does it run?  If not, are you going to get it running and keep it all original or restore it?  Man I'll be it smells great!  Nothing like the old musty smell of an all original vintage vehicle.  The combined aroma of old upholstery, wood, grease, gasoline, mold, rubber and rot is one of the best things about being the first owner of an unrestored antique car. I'm glad you got it.  Whatever you do, we know it will be done right.  Keep us posted on your progress on this thread.  Thanks again.  Jim Patrick

It probably was inside quite a lot, "inside" being in an old shed or barn.

I'll take some more pictures of it as soon as I can, I should have taken some before I loaded it but never really thought about it. It was pretty brisk out there in the wind loading and tieing it down.

I did not know the family before the auction. They had some other nice original vehicles, too. A 38 Ford 3/4 ton pickup I also bid on, a 41 IHC grain truck etc. There was a lot of old horse drawn machinery, a steam engine frame and wheels, etc.

As far as rain, it is wetter than one might think. This is only about 100 miles from the Rocky Mountain Front, just east of the Chinook Arch and probably gets 15/16 inches of moisture a year or more. Here in Helena we get less than 10 on average. Much of the moisture is in the form of snow. Crops were good this year, we had a very wet spring.

I probably will not keep the truck. I already have a 29 that I restored many years ago & haven't played with for several years as well as two TT's. It needs to go to a Model A enthusiast who will hopefully just get it running and keep it original. I don't have any storage for this without paying for it or letting it set out in the weather. That wouldn't be good for the top slats, etc.

You're right, it does smell good. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder and good smells in the nose of the sniffer. I like the smell of that old grease, ancient rubber and horsehair seat cushions.

As far as it running, there is oil in it, I think it will turn over and so it should run. I don't know why it wouldn't. The next nice day we get that I have a little time I'll unload it and pull it up in front of the garage, hook up a battery and get a little gas....... I think I know a guy who could work on the carb if it needs it.....it should fire right up.

Ray I have one too, just apart, have cab w/ seats still in it, top is out, but original wood still there for patterns, have new cab corners and lower under the window panel to go back with, needs door patch panels, visor still there, have a good gas tank for it, frame front end, rear still under chassis, have a .10 under engine (stuck), have a aftermarket flatbed w/ grain box, a pc of the steering box is there, but have another one 3500.00 come get it, have either 28 wires, or 29 dish w/ the oval holes danuser88@socket.net

So Stan, how does one go about purchasing a copy of your Herman and Freida book ? I checked on the internet for a copy with no luck.

In answer to an email I got, it is not a hunting blind. It is about 50 feet from the front door of the house. If you have to hide from the deer to shoot them you could very easily hide in the granary, the barn, one of several other outbuildings instead of being all cramped up in a little 3 x 4 foot building in a short tree right in front of the door to the house. There are so many deer here you could shoot them all day long from the road and not make a dent in the population. I probably saw 250 head grazing in the fields close to this. Most farmers don't mind too much because they have no livestock to eat the edges of the fields or the grass waterways down. Since they have no livestock they put up no hay. This is small grain country. The deer don't bother green grain much because at that time of year they have food they prefer more, Alfalfa or browse. After the fields are harvested, the deer are welcome to the stubble. The man who owned the farm said it was a tree house for some Chippewa/Cree children they were taking care of in the 1980's and that some of the older boys built it for the little ones. I'm sticking to his story.

Also, homesteads in this area were 320 acres. The original homestead act established 160 acres as the size of a homestead. In the west, that was not enough land to survive on. Beginning in 1909, the homestead act was expanded to allow homesteading in 320 acres blocks in many areas, including this one. The coincided with the coming of the Milwaukee railroad and the extensions to many unsettled areas of Montana and led to the great homestead boom of the 1910's. In certain areas you could also file on a "desert claim," which gave you another 160 or 320 acres. 320 was usual. The desert claim was land that was unsuitable for tilling for crops or did not have water enough to grow crops. You can still see furrows that were plowed down across some old dry, windy hillside that were "irrigation" ditches to meet the government's requirement of establishing an irrigation system for a desert claim.

Here is our desert claim in the wettest year I have ever seen. This is 500+ miles from the homestead pictures in this thread. This is just north of my ranch in eastern Montana and was taken over 4th of July weekend. This looking southwest and you can see the trees along the creek where the buildings are. I have never seen it green after the middle of June before. You can see it would have been a little hard to irrigate if there had been any water. This has a furrow plowed through it. My family did not homestead this, we acquired it in the 1940's.

I think I'll raise the price on this one by a couple grand. =)

Jay, my Herman & Freida website went down with the changeover in hosting at godaddy, I need to get it up and running again. The book is $20 + a fiver for priority from me @ 4433 Red Fox Dr, Helena, Mt 59602, but I'll give you one next time I send a carburetor back.

Stan,
Is your ranch anywhere near Sidney?
My wife grew up there.
My inlaws now live in Great Falls but we all went back to Sidney for an all class reunion a few years ago.
I really liked the area.
We are going to a family reunion in Baker this summer.
I think I'll look around for some old tin.
Ciao, Mark

Stan, thanks for the post. Congrats on the truck, but I have to tell ya, the treehouse photo made my day.

Hi MarkIV, my place is about 25 miles northwest of Baker. My sister lives west of Sidney, at Lambert. One of my nephews and I own a place at Cartright, North Dakota, just across the border from Fairview.

What was your wife's family name?

Jeffrey, I really like that treehouse photo. I think I might have to try to find a Montana photo contest or some place to get it on display.

Here is the only other picture I have of the treehouse. Notice the granary in the background.

Stan,

My wife's family names are Bucklin on her Dad's side & Kline on her Mother's side.
Mark

I'm not likely to make it back to Montana unless and until I retire, but for those headed that way for the tour next year, or for anything else, I would highly recommend a visit to the Charles M. Russell Museum in Great Falls. The museum has the world's largest collection of Russell paintings, plus his house and his studio.

I was a Russell admirer because of his art, but an afternoon of joy and delight reading his many letters on display heightened my appreciation for him as a man. I imagine that he was as entertaining a storyteller in person as he was in his writing.

If you're going to or from Montana by way of Wyoming, don't miss the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody. This is one of the greatest museums in the country, with a fabulous collection of western art and artifacts. Many of the famous paintings you've seen in books are here.

In the last picture of the treehouse, you can see part of the rear portion of the AA. Notice the full length running boards and rear fenders. Both early '28 features along with the steel spoke wheels. That's a nice piece there.