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Son of Ghost Towns of Montana
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Once a tourist asked a nurse at a Wolf Point, Montana hospital about the Mennonites, members of a religious group that were farmers that lived in the area.
"Do the women all wear long dresses? Do the men all have beards?" the tourist asked.
"Mennonites are just like everybody else," replied the nurse, "You're talking to one right now."
The nurse was just one from the hundreds of Mennonite families that came from Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Saskatchewan in 1916 to farm around Lustre, Montana and around the town of Volt, just ten miles away. The towns prospered -- there was a blacksmith shop, stores and a post office in both towns. Then, when the hard surface roads made Wolf Point and Fraser, Montana more desirable for commerce Lustre and Volt went fast the way of the ghost town. In 1950, Lustre was down to 17 people. Only four folks remained living there in the 1970s. The very last thing in town was the school. Lustre is about 35 miles northwest of Wolf Point and 55 miles northeast of Glasgow. http://www.lustrechristian.org/lustrechristianhighschool/ http://www.mennoniteusa.org/ http://history.mennonite.net/ http://www.mennonite.net/
For ghost town exploring around the Billings area, there are the towns that were on the Great Northern Sante Fe tracks between Great Falls and Billings. There was Acton, Comanche, Painted Robe, Belmont, Cushman, Slayton, Vebar, Franklin, Wallum, Hedgesville and Oxford and most are all gone now. Belmont had a special notoriety during its short existence. It was suspected that the mercantile store in Belmont was the distribution center for moonshine from the stills in the Bull Mountains to the east. The booze was delivered to speakeasies through out Montana. There was a trap door in the store to a basement where the moonshine was hidden. The trap door was concealed by the counter and the cash register. Today the only inhabitants of Belmont are the pigeons in the tilted and falling down church. http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ah-prohibitionspeakeasy.html http://www.bnsf.com/aboutbnsf/history/add_resources.html
Although not necessarily haunted by traditional story in the Billings area but a short walk or drive for many folks is the Gilsdorf House at 116 South 28th Street in Billings, Montana. The building is not the oldest house in town but it is oldest one that has not been extensively remodeled on the outside. It still looks the way it did over 100 years ago.
Andrew J. "Andy" Gilsdorf moved to Billings from Coulson and built the house in a good up-scale neighborhood close to his business, City Meat Market, in the Yegen Block on Minnesota Avenue in Billings. Crow Indians were Andy's friends and they had a relationship of trust. Many Crows would leave their valuables and important papers with Gilsdorf for safe keeping. Crows camped near the Gilsdorf House and they also camped near the slaughter house near the top of hill on Grand Avenue (about 5th to 8th Street West). The Crows used brains, intestines and other parts from the cows that no one else wanted.
In 1911, Gilsdorf was riding in an automobile when the auto hit a bump and Gilsdorf was bounced out of the car and killed. One of the Crow women camping near the Gilsdorf House cut off her finger in a traditional show of respect and grieving. When Gilsdorf's widow saw it she was aghast.
"What happened?" she asked.
The Crow woman replied, "It is for Andy. He was our friend." http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/ghosts-along-the-little-bighorn.htm
http://www.examiner.com/x-10832-Billings-Sightseeing-Examiner~y2009m10d14-Ghost-Towns-of-Montana
Gregan Wortmann
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