Contractor John Holm constructed this small two-story building for the Dion family in 1929 after he had remodeled the Dion Block on one side and built the J.C. Penney Building on the other. This final addition to the five-building Dion Block shares walls with both its neighbors. The simple design is an excellent expression of the more subdued commercial styles of this later period and complements the architecture of its neighbors. Holm, who came to Glendive in 1906 from Norway, contributed substantially over several decades to the local residential and commercial streetscapes. Harold Wester’s electrical contracting business and appliance outlet was one of the first main-floor tenants, followed by Prefer Millinery in the 1930s. Dr. A. A. Baker, a former Glendive mayor and state senator, practiced general dentistry upstairs. Over the years, the Dions modernized their five buildings. Improvements have included new electrical, heating, and air conditioning systems. An addition with a basement enlarged this building in 1970.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

he Northern Pacific Railroad platted the townsite of Glendive in 1882 against the arid Montana “badlands.” The location was an ideal supply and distribution center since it was where the railroad first met the Yellowstone River, but Glendive looked to ranchers and farmers on the river’s opposite side for economic support. After more than a decade of debate, the county erected the first bridge at Glendive in the mid-1890s. The four-span bridge included a swing span because the Yellowstone was still considered navigable. The bridge provided stockmen and farmers direct access to the railroad and made stage travel to points northwest much more reliable. In 1899, the bridge was washed out by a flood and ice jam. The Army Corps of Engineers had by then determined the Yellowstone no longer navigable, and the bridge was rebuilt using one original span plus three new ones. It sufficed until better technology rendered the older structure obsolete. The new bridge, constructed between 1924 and 1926 with federal aid under the auspices of the Montana State Highway Commission, consists of six riveted Warren through trusses. This type of bridge construction is characterized by the “W” configuration made by its diagonal members and above-roadway trusswork. At 1,352 feet, the Bell Street Bridge is one of the longest of its kind in Montana, representing a significant engineering accomplishment and an essential part of the area’s commercial development.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

Rancher and banker Charles Krug came west from Ohio in 1878, searching for opportunity and a climate to relieve his sister Emma’s asthma. In 1881, he and Emma settled in Glendive where she was a seamstress and he worked for the railroad. Krug built a herd of five hundred cattle, adding one or two head every payday. After the winter of 1886-87 claimed nearly all his livestock, he started over and eventually acquired 34,000 acres of land, 25,000 sheep, and 1,000 head of cattle. In 1900, at the age of fifty-five, Krug married Annie Ketcham, mother of two young daughters. Together they had five more children. In 1906, St. Louis architect Herbert C. Chivers built this twenty-five room Neo-classical style home for the Krug family. Constructed of glazed Hebron brick expertly laid by Michigan masons, Chivers’ own artisans crafted the elaborate details. The interior was handsomely finished in quartersawn oak with elaborate stairways, porcelain-tiled fireplaces, and beautifully carved columns. In the economically disastrous 1920s, when many rural banks were ruined by customers’ panic-driven withdrawals, Krug was president of the Merchant’s National Bank.

He and Exchange Bank president Henry Dion agreed to help each other through the hard times. Krug, known as a man of his word, averted a run on his bank when he vowed publicly to use every penny he had to keep his bank solvent, if he had to leave town as broke as he arrived. All four Glendive banks survived.

Erected by Montana Silver Jackets.

"On our return we shal probably pass down the yellow stone river, which from Indian informations, waters one of the fairest portions of this continent."

— Captain Meriwether Lewis, letter to President Thomas Jefferson, dated April 7, 1805 and sent from Fort Mandan via keelboat on its return trip to St. Louis

Clark on the Yellowstone

Captain Clark led a party of thirteen eastward to the Yellowstone River. The group included Sergeant Pryor, and Privates Gibson, Bratton, Hall, Labich, Shannon, Shields and Windsor. Toussaint Charbonneau, Sacagawea and their son, Jean Baptiste (Pomp), and Clark's servant, York, were also with the party. Clark noted that "the indian woman who has been of great Service to me as a pilot through the Country recommends a gap in the mountain more South which I shall cross." Clark's party entered the watershed of the Yellowstone River, near the present-day Bozeman Pass, and reached the river on July 15, 1806.

11,500 years ago - Paleo Indians arrived in the Eastern Montana region. Early remains have been found in the Lindsay area.

Mid 1700's - Fur traders came onto the scene due to the popularity of beaver hats.

1803 - Louisiana Purchase which brought the area soon to be known as Montana into land owned by the United States. First known encounter of local tribes by French fur traders.

1805 - Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery enter Montana.

1806 - Lewis and Clark pass through Montana on their return trip.

1819 - Steamboat traffic was introduced on the Missouri River.

1828 - Fort Union Trading Post was built near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, dominating the fur trade on the Upper Missouri River.

1862 - Fisk Wagon Trail established connecting upper Midwest to Fort Benton.

1864 - Montana becomes a territory.

1876 - Battle of the Little Big Horn.

1881- First train stops in Glendive, Montana.

1889 - Montana becomes a state.

1909 - In April, the headgates constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation for Irrigation Diversion Project were opened for the first time delivering water to 67 farms in Eastern Montana.

1910 - Homesteading boom is in full swing, and agriculture replaces mining as Montana's top industry.

1951 - Oil boom begins in Williston Basin, producing from the highly productive fields of western North Dakota, southern Saskatchewan, and eastern Montana.

1969 - Three major railroads, the (leftmost of three markers in the Clark on the Yellowstone kiosk)

Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, and the Burlington, merge as Burlington Northern.

2003 - 2006 200 year anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Erected by Lower Yellowstone Lewis & Clark Regional Committee; and Montana Lewis & Clark Commission.

1917 American Legion 1919

For God and Country This Tablet Is Erected In Honor Of The Eight Hundred Ten Boys of Dawson County Montana Who Answered Their Country's Call In The World War and In Memory Of

The Following Who Made The Supreme Sacrifice

Carl J. Anderson • L.A. Anderson • Carl C. Moe • Frank W. Brown • Roy W. Cottrell • Charles O. DeVaull • John H. Devitt • David R. Ferguson • Albin Geier • George Geier • Walter Hall • Henry Hanson • John Bart Healy • Jack Humphrey • Joseph M. Kalberg • Everett E. Kneibet • John Leibole • Noble L. Moore • Francis H. Potter • Robert B. Prigan • Alvin Quammen • Louis Storite • Lars Svela • Wilbur C. Ward • Loraine York

This Tablet Presented to

Dawson Post No. 28 American Legion by George McCone

Erected by George McCone.

Henry Dion built this brick building circa 1894 to expand his mercantile business. In 1908, he sold it to his two eldest sons, Harry N. and Fred. The brothers enlarged the original one-story building in 1910, adding a second story with apartments and a new façade. The four original shops were converted to one large general merchandise store that catered to the homesteaders then pouring into Dawson County. The business included an International Harvester farm equipment outlet across the street. The brothers, who themselves had a ranch on Belle Prairie, stocked everything imaginable from a spool of thread to a team of horses. Smaller purchases, wrapped with paper and tied with string, had to be secure enough to be carried many miles on horseback. Miles City architect Brynjulf Rivenes designed the stunning Neoclassical style façade, which features extensive brick and sandstone detailing. Note the “Dion Bros.” inscription and decorative lions’ heads, perhaps a reminder that the French-Canadian name, Dion, was Americanized to rhyme with lion.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

Fire swept through Glendive’s wood-frame businesses in January of 1886, destroying Henry Dion’s saloon and general merchandise, established on this corner in 1881. Dion constructed a kiln and built a more substantial fire- resistant brick building, completed later that year. The striking Gothic style building was featured in an 1889 issue of The Northwest Magazine. Dion’s businesses occupied the two storefronts while the Glendive Club, the center of the town’s social life, shared upstairs space. The club opened to ladies one day a week and hosted frequent dances in its handsome quarters. Remodeling of the building in 1929 included a new façade of better quality brick accented with marble and limestone panels. The original “Glendive brick” may still be seen in the elevator foyer. Dion served as Dawson County’s first sheriff and in many other public offices. He was president of the Exchange Bank established here in 1901 and retained presidency of the Exchange Sate Bank when it was founded in 1911. While many financial institutions failed during the 1930s, this bank remained solvent thanks to the private funds of its stockholders.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

Horses, Canoes and Bull Boats

Clark and his party traveled by horse along the north side of the Yellowstone River until July 24, when nine members began a float in two lashed-together canoes built from cottonwoods they found along the river. Sergeant Pryor and Privates Hall, Shannon and Windsor were sent overland with the party's remaining horses. When those horses were also lost, the four men walked to the Yellowstone River, near Pompeys Pillar. They then built bull boats from buffalo bull hides, on frames of branches that were lashed together. The men floated down the river and into the Missouri River, and rejoined Clark's group on August 8. They joined Lewis' party on August 12, south and east of present-day Williston, North Dakota.

July 20, 1806 "The horses being fatigued and their feet very Sore, I Shall let them rest a fiew days. dureing which time the party... will dress their Skins and make themselves Clothes to bare, as they are nearly naked." "I deturmined to have two Canoes made out of the largest of those trees and lash them together which will Cause them to be Study and fully Sufficient to take my Small party & Self with what little baggage we have down this river"

July 21, 1806 "This morning I was informed that Half of our horses were absent."

July 23, 1806 "Sgt. pryor found an Indian Mockerson and a Small piece of a roab ... those Indian Signs is Conclusive with me that they have taken the 24 horses which we lost. ..."

July 24, 1806 "had all our baggage put on board of the two Small Canoes which when lashed together is very Study. ...at 8 A M we Set out..."

July 24, 1806 "on this Island I observd a large lodge… this Lodge a council lodge…”

July 24, 1806 "I had the horses drove across the river and Set Sergt. Pryor and his party across. ... my man York killed a Buffalow Bull, as he informed me for his tongue and marrow bones. for me to mention or give an estimate of the differant Spcies of wild animals on this river particularly Buffalow, Elk Antelopes & Wolves would be increditable. I shall therefore be silent on the Subject further"

July 25, 1806 "The nativs have ingraved on the face of this rock the figures of animals &c. near which I marked my name and the day of the month & year"

"I encamped on the Stard. Side imediately below the enteranc Shannons River [now known as Fly Creek] about 22 Yards wide, and at this time discharges a great portion of water which is very Muddy."

"A Remarkable Rock"

The most significant incident that occurred during Clark's journey down the Yellowstone was on July 25, 1806, when he wrote, " ... 4 P M arived at a remarkable rock. ...This rock which I shall Call Pompys Tower [Pompeys Pillar]. . . I marked my name and the day of the month & year."

Clark's signature can be seen at Pompeys Pillar today. It is the only remaining on-site physical evidence along the entire route of the Corps of Discovery's 8,000-mile journey.

July 27, 1806

”when we pass the Big horn I take my leave of the view of tremendious chain of Rocky mountains white with Snow”

Erected by Lower Yellowstone Lewis & Clark Regional Committee; and Montana Lewis & Clark Commission.

Noted Miles City architect Brynjulf Rivenes designed this splendid English Gothic style church in 1909. Constructed under Pastor T. S. Leland during intense community growth brought about by homestead settlement, the building replaced the smaller Methodist Episcopal Church built in 1883 at Mann and Pearson Streets. Now the Glendive United Methodist Church, this architectural landmark features a crenelated bell tower, doors and windows with pointed arches, and fine polychromatic brick detailing. The Craftsman style parsonage, with its flared gable roof and open front arched porch, was added in 1913. The church and its parsonage were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

A yachting party consisting of Capt. Wm. Clark, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, six of his men, Sacajawea and her child flood by here August 1, 1806, navigating a craft made by lashing together two hollowed-out cottonwood logs. It was Clark's birthday and the outfit had to land that afternoon to let a herd of buffalo swim the river ahead of them.

Sir George Gore, a "sporting " Irish nobleman, arrived on the scene to hunt in 1855 with Jim Bridger as a guide. Gore's harvest during an eleven-month stay in Yellowstone Valley included 105 bear, over 2,000 buffalo, and 1,600 elk and deer. The hunted for the thrill of the chase and trophies, only infrequently using the meat. The Crows, who occupied this country, hotly protested the devastation of their food supply.

It was Sir George who named the local tributary to the Yellowstone River "Glendive." and the town assumed the same name 25 years later. During the cattle boom of the 1880s Glendive became the "Queen City of the Cow Land." In 1884, 12,800 "pilgrims" or eastern cattle were unloaded here in one week to help stock the range. The may have been "barnyard stock" but their progeny grew up rough, tough and hard to curry.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.

On this day, nearly 3 inches of rain fell in Glendive as an immense downpour. It folded the main streets of the city, covering the sidewalks to and average depth of 10 inches and causing damage to the businesses along Merrill Avenue. The ground floor of stores and offices were submerged up to 18 inches deep. Basements were flooded from backwater that couldn't flow in the city's sewer system.

Glendive was accustomed to ice jam flooding but, according to the Yellowstone Monitor, it was the city's first experience with flooding from a cloudburst.

Farmers reported little damage as grain had already been cut and threshing had already begun.

Silver Jackets brings together federal, state, and local agencies to collaborate in reducing flood risk. To learn more about Montana's flood history and how you can prepare your family visit flood risk.mt.gov/

Erected by Montana Silver Jackets.

Fancy arches and other fine detailing highlight the façade of this commercial building, constructed as an investment in 1905 by pioneer Henry Dion. The outer walls are of softer, locally produced “Glendive brick” while quality imported brick covers the façade. In 1907, during Dion’s term as mayor, Glendive’s first water plant was constructed and water was piped to users in wooden mains. Dion constructed a two-story frame addition, providing his commercial and residential tenants with running water and bathroom facilities. Historic maps show the post office and a print shop, equipped with a noisy “hit-and-miss” one-cylinder gasoline engine, as the original first-floor tenets. William Ryan operated a saloon here in 1912 and during the 1920s, this was Lee’s Pool Hall. Many a youngster received his first haircut on the raised platform in Lee’s front corner barbershop. Frederic Dion, later owner of the five family buildings in this block, remembers it as a “frightening experience.”

After the death of Glendive pioneer Henry Dion in 1920, his widow and children contracted with John Holm to construct this commercial building according to the specifications of the J.C. Penney Company. Built in 1929, the architecture is typical of the many Penney stores built in small rural towns. Penney stores were easily identified by their brilliant yellow tile aprons, black signs, and trim. Interior features usually included a rear sales balcony and a front balcony for the manager’s office. The cashier’s station was connected to the various departments by a system of trolleys, which carried the cash from each sale. High wattage incandescent fixtures, prism glass over the display windows, and two large skylights provided ample interior lighting. This building and four others extending east to the corner and south to 110 South Merrill Avenue are known as the Dion Block. They reflect the long history of the Dion family in Glendive, from the town’s beginning to the present day.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

Neoclassical style elements including pilasters with decorative capitals and an elegant bracketed cornice enliven the facade of this significant building designed by Miles City architect Brynjulf Rivenes in 1910. Constructed by Joseph Wester for wealthy Glendive rancher, businessman and banker Charles Krug, its first tenants were a saloon and a clothing store. The architect's brother, Einar Rivenes, was proprietor of The Toggery whose advertisement claimed that "if you don't trade here, we both lose money." Stetson hats, Florsheim shoes and Chesterfield clothing made it a first-class establishment for gentlemen's furnishings. The saloon next door at #202 had several early tenant proprietors including David Leidahl in 1912 who owned one of the buildings in this block. In 1941, the Glendive Masonic Lodge #31 acquired the property from Krug's widow, Annie. Although the ground floor has a newer brick facade and the arches along with three of the original seven windows on the second floor have been infilled, the architectural statement of this marvelous period landmark remains substantial.

NSDAR Real Daughter Orpha Parke Bovee

National No. 87088

Daughter of Ruben Parke Revolutionary War Soldier

Connecticut.

Marker placed by

Montana State Society NSDAR 2011

[Engraving on the stone:]

Orpha Z Parks Bovee

Born N.Y 1811

Died Mont. 1913

Erected 2011 by Montana State Society, Nation Society Daughter of the American Revolution (NSDAR).

July 28, 1806 "Set out this morning at day light and proceeded on glideing down this Smooth Stream passing maney Isld...."

July 29, 1806 "in the fore part of the day, I saw great numbers of Buffalow on the banks, … great quantities of Coal in all the hills I passed this day. … Beaver is very plenty on this part of the Rochejhone. "

July 30, 1806 "here is the first appearance of Birnt hills which I have Seen on this river…"

August 1, 1806 " ...we had Showers of rain repeetedly all day... My Situation a very disagreeable one. in an open Canoe wet and without a possibility of keeping my Self dry. ... at 2 P M I was obliged to land to let the Buffalow Cross over ... the river was crouded with those animals for 1/2 an hour."

August 2, 1806 "about 8 A.M. this morning a Bear of the large vicious Species being on a Sand bar raised himself up on his hind feet and looked at us as we passed down near the middle of the river. he plunged into the water and Swam towards us, either from a disposition to attack't or from the Cent of the meat which was in the Canoes. we Shot him with three balls and he returned to Shore badly wounded."

August 3, 1806 "last night the Musquetors was so troublesom that no one of the party Selpt half the night. ... at 8. A.M. I arived at the Junction of the Rochejhone with the Missouri, and formed my Camp ..."

August 3, 1806 "The Rochejhone or Yellow Stone river is large and navagable with but fiew obstructions ... The Country through which it passes from those Mounts. to its junction is Generaly fertile rich open plains ..."

A Lasting Legacy

The Yellowstone River valley still contains much of the abundant wildlife that roamed the area when Clark and his party traveled through in 1806. The vibrant landscape, with its animals, birds and plants, is a living treasure that has been inhabited and cared for by many groups of people and cultures throughout time. What today's people bring to this Yellowstone region contributes to its legacy and will endure as vividly as the remarkable story of the Corps of Discovery.

Erected by Lower Yellowstone Lewis & Clark Regional Committee; and Montana Lewis & Clark Commission.

he Catholics of Glendive first organized at St. Juliana’s, a 100-seat church purchased from the Congregationalists in 1886. After nearly forty years, they had outgrown those quarters. In 1924, architect Brynjulf Rivenes of Miles City designed a new Catholic church, inspired by Early Italian Christian and Romanesque styles of architecture. The two-tiered façade has twin lower arches framing double paired doors and a single upper arch framing the large circular window. The attached square campanile tower, with hipped roof, was designed to house the 1,300-pound bell cast for the old church in 1889 by McShane of Baltimore. Local builder John Holm won the construction bid for $50,000, and Father Michael Webber laid the cornerstone on May 10, 1925. Skilled masons surfaced the entire building with tan brick from Hebron, North Dakota. Complex patterns of red and tan brick highlight the façade, side entries, and tower. On May 31, 1926, Bishop Mathias Lenihan dedicated the 500-seat church to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He personally donated the large window, which portrays the Sacred Heart of Jesus appearing to St. Margaret Mary and bears the bishop’s coat-of-arms and motto, “Fides et Caritas” (Faith and Charity). The feast of the Sacred Heart is celebrated annually in June. This plaque was erected in 1996, the seventieth anniversary year.

Erected 1996 by Montana Historical Society.

Missionary Narcissa Whitman was recored to be the first white woman to cross the Rockies on the Oregon Trail. She and her husband Dr. Marcus Whitman settled near Walla Walla, Washington.

I chose to depict her at the river's edge in 1839, grief stricken as she held her two-year-old daughter Alice who went to the river to get two cups of water, fell in and drowned. As she held her lifeless child, Narcissa cried, "Thy will be done, not mine."

Another historic tragedy wrenched my heard as well when I red that Glendive's Sullivan family, along with all six of their children, drowned in the 1899 Flood when the frozen river and bridge went out.

I dedicated this sculpture in memory of the pioneer courage and sacrifices of the builders of our town and to all who have lost children.

A gift to this City from Pamela C. Harr www.bridgebronze.com

Erected by Pamela C. Harr.

Striking red rock caps may of the hills of eastern Montana. Some of the rock looks volcanic, so it has incorrectly been called scoria. Lewis and Clark attributed the red rock to burning coal beds and called the red areas "burnt hills." Geologists call the rock clinker. It occurs within the Fort Union Formation which contains coal beds sandwiched between soft sedimentary rock. Clinker developers when coal burns from the surface into a hill, where it cooks, fuses, and melts the adjacent rock, forcing new, completely different types of rocks. Sandstone is baked to a brick-like rock. Shale may be fused like a ceramic in a kiln. Other rock may melt to look like hardened lava. The heat from burring coal rises, so most of the clinker develops above the burning coal bed. Some clinker beds are 100 feet thick. Clinker beds are pours allowing water to infiltrate into them rather that run off. The infiltration recharges the groundwater and protects the underlying rock from erosion, producing hills with red clinker caps.

Before a coal bed can ignite and burn it must be dry and exposed to air. Streams and flash floods erode the hills in eastern Montana In the process, coal beds are left above the water table where water can drain out. Lightning, spontaneous combustion, chemical reactions and range fires ignite the coal. Burning trees rooted in coal beads can also start the fires.

Scientists have determined that coal has been burning in eastern Montana for at least four million years, but each burning coal bed eventually extinguishes naturally. As the fire burns into the hill, the overlying rock breaks up and collapses, this allows air deeper into the hill and keeps the coal burning underground. Eventually, too much overlying rock collapses to allow air to enter, and the fire goes out.

Geo-Facts:

• The ceramic-like cylinder rock produced from welded shale is called porcellanite. Similar to pottery, it has sharp edges when broken. For thousands of years, Native Americans made tools from it, such as hide scrapers, knives, and arrowheads.

• The open spaces within beds of clinker make the layers permeable to water. The backed character of the rocks make the rocks less soluble than typical coal of sandstone beds. Therefore, clinker beds are important in the production of less mineralized ground water in southeastern and far eastern Montana.

• The Fort Union Formation is named for Fort Union, an American Fur Company trading post located near the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. The post was active from 1828 to 1867 and is now a National Historic Site.

Geo-Activity:

• Read the description about red clinker caps. How many can you spot around you? What about while you are driving?

Interstate 90 (sic) generally follows the Yellowstone River from Glendive to Livingston, Montana. This river originates south of Yellowstone National Park and terminates when it joins the Missouri River north of here. It is the longest undammed river in the lower 48 states. When the West was won, most rivers were lost to damming and dewatering. This river is the exception' it remains wet, wild and dam-free over its entire length. The Yellowstone flows free for over 650 miles, draining a watershed greater in area than all the New England states combined.

In the 1970s Montana's held a great debate over this mighty river's future. When the dust settled, the state reserved a substantial amount of water to remain in stream so that the Yellowstone might never be depleted and might forever remain free-flowing.

Other uses of the river - municipal, agricultural and industrial - are also provided for. Today, this waterway is a balance with all its users, including nature's creatures. Few American rivers can still make that claim.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.