Voices From The Past

January 18, 1924

Coal Mine Cave-In near Miles has Fatal Ending

At the Paddy Creek Lignite coal mine, nine miles south of Miles City, about 3 o’clock Saturday afternoon, Ed Kendall was instantly killed when a large section of the roof fell without warning. Ed Kregness, his companion, escaped the fall of earth by merely a few inches and was unharmed. The cave in occurred about 300 yards underground. Kregness and Perry Bailey, who has a mine nearby, extricated the body that was badly crushed and removed it to the dugout where the man had been living.

Turkeys filled with Mash, Distillery is Found

Sheriff Lockhart of Rapid City went out into the country and bought a Turkey for his Christmas dinner. In dressing it he found that its gizzard was filled with rye and corn mash and smelled like a brewery. Having noted the same peculiar odor on some of his moonshine raids, the Sheriff went to the rancher’s home and found a thirty gallon still, cleverly concealed in a brush thicket. The turkeys were all nice fat ones and must have gotten a good “kick” out of the mash.

January 22, 1949

Three Blizzards since Christmas Holidays are responsible for Hardest Winter Since Heavy Snows of 1935-1936 Winter

At least 20 inches of snow has been measured at the Broadus weather bureau station since January 1st. With precipitation measuring .98 inches. This snow has come at times of high winds and huge snow drifts are the rule throughout Powder River and Custer counties.

Three blizzards since Christmas have caused untold damage to the livestock industry in this area but the true losses will not be known until spring. The Sonnette area has been snowed in since November with no traffic beyond the Sonnette post office since the first of December.

The Ridge community has also been snowed in since November with the situation becoming desperate there the first of this week. County snow plows left Tuesday noon for this area and will open the road up Ranch Creek as well as the road to the Wyoming line on Little Powder. Last week snowplows opened the road to Moorhead but his road was closed by Saturday’s blizzard. Residents of the Ridge community are running out of coal and coal trucks followed the snowplows.

Calvin Thex, Otter Creek rancher, called the County Commissioners on Monday asking for help to clear the road on Otter Creek. He said the drifts on the Otter Creek Road were the biggest he had ever seen.

Unaccustomed to severe winter weather conditions for 10 years, ranchers have failed to supply themselves, in many instances, with adequate fuel and food supplies to withstand a long siege.

Efforts to keep the road to Little Powder and Powderville open have met with little success. Sunday the road was opened to Pilgrim Creek, but the wind had this filled in again by Monday. The Pemberton brothers are keeping the road open from Highway 212 to Little Powder at the Bridgeview School.

January 17, 1974

Teenage Ambassadors set to Leave

“Yes, we know that we’ll be homesick. We just plan on writing a lot of letters.” Those are the thoughts of Emily Sampson and Donna Denson as they head into their final week of preparing to be foreign exchange students.

On January 24th the girls will depart for six months to represent Montana and the United States as teenage ambassadors. Donna, daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Robert Denson is Mexico bound and will miss her Senior Graduation. Emily, sixteen years old and the daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Sam Sampson is bound for Ecuador.

Both Emily and Donna admit that communicating in Spanish will certainly be a major problem in the beginning, but neither appears overly worried.

“I’ll probably smile a lot and nod my head that first few weeks,” said Emily, laughingly. I have had some Spanish though and I know that if I really set my mind to learning it, I’ll do OK”, confidently stated Emily.

I won’t understand everybody at first,” smiled Donna knowingly, “but I’ve got a good Spanish background (2 Years) so don’t think I’ll have much trouble.”

I’m really worried about school”, confided Donna frowningly. “It’s going to take a lot of hard work and I’m not used to that.”

Emily unhesitantly replied, “Oh, I plan to study a lot more in Ecuador than I do here. I’ve never really applied myself to school here -- might be good for me!”

What has been so great though,” emotionally stressed the young ambassadors, “is the enthusiasm and happiness of the community about our trip. It’s kind of like a little part of everyone will be going with us.”

January 21, 1999

School, Community Development Council members hold meeting

By Karen D. Amende

School/Community Development Council met for their regular monthly meeting on Tuesday January 12th. Present were Patty Willians, Earl Mainwaring, Jim Hanson, Christine Franklin, Nancy Espy, Lyman Amsden, Junior Wetherelt, and Karen Amende.

Rocky Mountain Bank has generously donated a Shiloh Sharps Rifle made by former residents Bob and Phyllis Bryan, now of Big Timber. The rifle was donated to be used as a fundraiser for the community endowment fund. As most people in this area know, because of demand, orders for a Shiloh Sharps rifle result in about a two year wait. At previous meetings, our members discussed the various methods of using the rifle for a fundraiser. We felt that the community is growing weary of raffles, so we began researching other possibilities. We also came up with the idea of selling the rifle at auction, using the Internet as a means of advertising.