Malta

Many a dogie # (not doggie - dudes please note) has been decorated with one of these famous Montana irons.

(Click on the photograph to enlarge it and have a closer look at the brands.)

# A dogie is a little calf who has lost its mammy and whose daddy has run off with another cow.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.

The old West produced some tolerably lurid gunslingers.

Their hole card was a single-action frontier model .45 Colt, and their long suit was fanning it a split second quicker than similarly inclined gents. This talent sometimes postponed their obsequies quite a while, proving they weren't pushed into taking up rope spinning from a loop end of a lariat by a wearied public. Through choice or force of circumstances these parties sometimes threw in with the "wild bunch" - rough riding, shooting hombres, prone to disregard the customary respect accorded other people's cattle brands.

Kid Curry's stomping ground in the 1880's was the Little Rockies country about forty miles southwest of here. On July 3, 1901, Curry and his partners, Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Deaf Charlie, pulled off a premature Independence Day celebration by holding up the Great Northern Railway's No. 3 passenger train and blowing up the express car safe near this point. Montana's most famous train robbery netted the crooks a bag of gold coins and $40,000 in unsigned and worthless banknotes. Soon after, Curry and his gang departed Montana.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.

Malta, first known as “Siding 54,” took its place along the Hi-Line in 1887 as the Great Northern Railway opened new opportunities. The railroad heavily promoted the area, and by 1910, Malta was the county seat. Longtime residents Lee Edwards and William McLellan partnered to build a commercial block to serve northeastern Montana. Local architect James Maurice Montgomery’s Western Commercial style design included retail space, ten second-story offices, and basement plumbing and tin shops. The brick building features forty-three feet of plate glass display windows, and Chicago style windows on the upper level reveal the architect’s familiarity with contemporary trends in larger cities. Decorative elements include flat arches, second-story pilasters, recessed panels, and a metal cornice. Inside, hardware stock, originally displayed in golden oak Mission style shelving, covered one side while clothing and furnished goods filled Flemish oak wardrobes and cabinets on the other side. Reminiscent of a bygone era, many of these features remain intact and functional. When the store opened in 1910, Edwards and McLellan handed out long-stemmed asters and gold-lettered brush-shaped souvenirs. Over the decades, the massive inventory included everything from Studebaker cars to Frigidaire refrigerators and RCA Victor televisions. Much more than a mercantile, the store was a community hub. McLellan’s wife, Nettie, assumed part-ownership of the business from 1916 to 1937. Edwards family member Harold Leib ran the store until 1975. Scott and Gina Simanton purchased the building in 2020, operating the upper level as lodging. Their careful restoration and stewardship have assured this Hi-Line landmark a future.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

Montana's native people revere this boulder that once perched high atop a wind-swept ridge overlooking the Cree Crossing on the Milk River. The ancient weather-worn effigy resembled the leader of a herd of reclining buffalo in an outcrop of gray granite. Ancient markings define its horns, eyes, backbone and ribs. Since late prehistoric times, native people of the Northern Plains have honored the Sleeping Buffalo's spiritual power. Oral traditions passed down among the Cree, Chippewa, Sioux, Assiniboine (sic) and Gros Ventre as well as the more distant Blackfeet, Crow, and Northern Cheyenne tell how the "herd" fooled buffalo-hunting parties. While each tribe has its own culture and beliefs, all Montana tribes share worldview. A Chippewa-Cree elder explained, "These rocks are sacred, just like our old people." Locals claim the Sleeping Buffalo, relocated to Malta's City Park in 1932, was restless, changing positions and bellowing in the night. The Sleeping Buffalo found its final resting place in 1967 where the smaller "Medicine Rock," also collected near Cree Crossing, rejoined it in 1987. These timeless objects continue to figure prominently in traditional ceremonies, linking the present with the past when the power of the prairie was the buffalo.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.

In 1919, the Duluth, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce sponsored the creation of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway as a memorial to the recent passing of the former president. An early interstate highway, the route stretched 4,000 miles between Portland, Maine and Portland, Oregon. A little over 750 miles of the Roosevelt Highway spanned Montana, none of it paved. The Roosevelt Highway Association warned motorists in 1921 that the route between Glasgow and Malta was a partly improved dirt road that was almost impassable because of gumbo in wet weather. Despite that, hundreds of adventurous automobile tourists undertook the difficult road to visit Glacier National Park and other attractions along the way. They had their cars serviced in local garages and stayed in hotels and campgrounds along the way, enriching businesses in the small towns along the Montana High Line. One promoter wrote that the Roosevelt Highway "opens to the tourist the door of the treasure-box of beauties and grandeur and varied scenery of the North continent as no other highway does." In 1926, the Bureau of Public Roads re-designated the route as U.S. Highway 2.

For some, though, it will always be the Roosevelt Highway.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.