Scobey

The settlement of Old Scobey relocated here from the Poplar River flats to greet the approaching Great Northern Railway branch line in 1913. By the time the first train arrived on Thanksgiving Day, the two-story Commercial Hotel—today the south half of the courthouse—was the new townsite's largest building. It served passengers and visitors until 1915 when Minnie "One-Eyed Molly" Wakefield arrived from Kansas City to purchase the building. Molly expanded the hotel to include gambling and live entertainment. She and her sons kept pit bulls for fighting staked between her hotel and the Tallman Hotel next door. In addition to drinking, gambling, and dog fighting, women were a main attraction. Much of the hotel's first floor was devoted to this pursuit while a large sleeping room upstairs accommodated legitimate overnight guests. Molly left town in 1917 when Prohibition and federal closure of red-light establishments put a damper on her business. In 1920, voters chose Scobey 964 to 358 over Madoc as the seat of newly designated Daniels County. County officials purchased the hotel and remodeled the interior. In 1927, an addition on the north doubled the space, preserving and extending the original false front. The Western False Front architectural style, once common across Montana, gave young communities like Scobey the look of instant prosperity. The upper porch was long used as a speaking platform for governors, senators, and visiting dignitaries. Painted a crisp white, the building is Montana's last functioning false-front frame courthouse and perhaps the West's only bordello converted to government use.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

This ancient trail extended from the Yellowstone River past this point to the Wood Mountains in southwestern Saskatchewan. It was used for generations by the Sioux and Assiniboine Indians in pursuit of buffalo and for trade with the Canadian tribes west of the Great Lakes. Refusing to surrender to the U.S. Army, Sitting Bull and his Hunkpapa followers often used the trail in the years following the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Eventually becoming homesick for his people and perhaps realizing the futility of his fight, he rode this trail for the last time in July, 1881 to Fort Buford where he finally surrendered to his enemies.

It was during the late 1880s that cattlemen drove longhorns over the Wood Mountain Trail into northeastern Montana. By the second decade of the 20th century, this region was populated by hundreds of homesteaders who sought their own piece of the American dream on the windswept plains of northeastern Montana. While many failed to realize their ambitions, they left an indelible mark on the landscape and culture of the region.

During the height of the homestead boom in the 1910s, Scobey was the largest primary shipping point of grain in the world.