30 Years Ago

April 19, 1990

A new community hall for people of Biddle

While many other small communities are looking back to past years, to better days gone by, the Biddle Community is looking forward to the future.

For members of the Biddle Community, the future means protecting the past, the heritage of the area, while at the same time providing for the future—a needed gathering spot for the families of the area—a place where social contact strengthens bonds between neighbors.

Over the past 40 years, the old Biddle Hall has provided such a place. If walls could talk, those of the old hall would be able to share many happy memories indeed. Memories of good times mostly… laughing children and adults, music, quiet voices in conversation, or raised in pointedness. Memories of Ladies Club meetings, 4-H gatherings, church dinners, dances, variety shows, Christmas Programs, Halloween Carnivals, baby showers, weddings… and the list goes on.

The Old Hall is a simple structure with hopeful origin. A homesteader, perhaps in search of an escape from isolation and an unstable future, built the structure as a dance hall in the 1920s. When the homesteader moved away in search of better opportunities, the hall was vacated. It remained empty until 1950, when Montana Senator Fred Toman donated it to the Biddle Community.

Volunteers repaired and refurbished the old building and added a kitchen. With devotion to their community, the folks maintained and continued to make repairs as needed.

There were always limitations, however. The 30 by 50 foot hall, with a raised stage and kitchen at one end, has often not been large enough to accommodate the crowds. Sometime, visitors have been left standing outside. The building was not suitable for sports due to its restraining size and low ceiling heights. During the freezing winter months, cold seeping through the thin and uninsulated wall prevents gatherings. Plumbing was never added and water has to be hauled inside. Visitors, in turn, have to go outside to use restroom facilities.

Perhaps the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” came last September in the form of news from a contractor that dry rot had weakened or destroyed the floor on the entire north side of the structure. Walls also suffered from the same cause.

Faced with many variables, most of them negative, a Board of Directors was formed to research ways and means of building a new hall; a facility which would not have to be supported by tax dollars but which at the same time would meet the needs of the community in the future years.

Thus, the group H.U.B.U.B. (Help Us Build Up Biddle) was formed.

Members of the Board were selected to represent the various areas and groups of the community. Members include Chairperson Cathy Elgin, representing 4-H; Bebe Warner, who represents the Biddle Extension Homemakers; Connie Rumph who represents the Biddle Parent-Teacher Organization, and David Mader, Kermit Rumph, Cap Williams and Terry Powell, who represent the community at large.

The Board meets every Friday evening at 7 p.m., at the Biddle School.

Plans to date call for a new structure to be built, at a site just west of the school district’s property. It will be a 48 by 96 foot structure, with a 48 by 60 foot multipurpose room. A 24 by 30 foot area will serve as a Memorial Room, and will double as a small meeting room. Included in the remainder of the interior will be a bathroom, kitchen, and storage facilities.

Plans are for a cement floor and wood frame structure, with 14 foot walls.

The Memorial Room, the kitchen and bathrooms will be separated from the remaining portions of the building by insulated walls. That way, during the winter months, heat can be turned off in the rest of the building, when not in use, to keep propane costs down.

“The area designed as a meeting place is about the same size as the present hall, only it’s better insulated,” said board member Kermit Rumph. “It can be used separately. It’s almost a building within a building. Only that area needs to be heated. The rest doesn’t need to be heated except when it’s being used.”

A water line will be extended from the school, so that no well has to be drilled.

The Heritage Center/Community Center will be built in accordance with state building codes and architect’s specifications.

Land has already been donated by Roland and Erma Rumph.

The estimated total cost of construction of the facility, using volunteer labor, is approximately $40,000. It will cost about another $2,500 a year for maintenance, heat and insurance, with insurance being the most costly necessity.

The Board has hopes of breaking ground for the project this spring.

The Biddle Community covers an area of about 400 square miles of sparsely populated, rugged country in southeastern Montana. It is bordered on the east by the Belle Creek Community, the west by the Big Powder River, the north by the Broadus area, and crosses the Wyoming line on the south. It is bisected North-South by Highway 59, the only paved road in the Biddle area. The highway roughly follows the course of the Little Powder River, a tributary of the Big Powder River, part of the Missouri River drainage. Graveled county roads connect Biddle with the surrounding area.

The majority of the residents are 2nd or 3rd generation ranchers.

Biddle is an unincorporated town of about 88 people, and consists of a general store and gas station, a post office, a community hall, a church, an elementary school, a trailer court, a volunteer fire department, ranch repair and supply shops and several homes.

The population of the area is quite stable, with a few people moving in and out with oilfield work, timber cutting, and seasonal work. A primary export of the area is its young people, the majority of whom do not return to the area after college.

As most of the satellite communities surrounding Broadus have declined, losing population, schools and post offices, Biddle is the single rural community in the county which is increasing in population, has a thriving school and population of young children to maintain the momentum.

About 26 youngsters are enrolled at Biddle this year. The projected enrollment next year is 30.