A Pioneer Welcome Traditional Cache
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(micro)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
A history lesson of the pairies of eastern Montana.
Quick park and grab
Big Sandy was named for a creek near the town. The Indians called the creek Un-es-putcha-eka, which translated from the Blackfeet language as "Big Sandy Creek."
Big Sandy is one of the storied towns of the Old West. Charlie Russell worked on ranches near here. Rusty Brown's saloon and other old-time buildings are gone, but the region remains a meeting ground for fact and fiction. Big Sandy was the prototype for "Dry Lake," the town B. M. Bower featured in her Flying U novel. The novelist lived in this town in the middle of the open range country. In John Willard's notes is this statement: "Big Sandy was cow town of long tradition and a freighting center when goods were unloaded at the Coal Banks Landing just south of here on the Missouri River. Material for Fort Assiniboine were delivered at Coal Banks by river steamer, then freighted overland to the fort."
A saloon was opened in a tent near McNamara and Marlow’s freight depot in 1886, and then another saloon, the Log Cabin, was put up. The railroad came and located its deport and water tank near the water source and the McNamara freight depot. In 1887, Big Sandy consisted of those two depots, a warehouse, a boxcar for the section foreman to live in, and nine saloons, which, except the Log Cabin, were tents with wooded floors or small shacks. In 1889 the Spokane Hotel was built to accommodate increased business—cowboys, settlers, and railroad men. By 1912, it had become a homesteaders' boom town and the Great Northern moved its depot into town. Before that a horse-drawn bus met all trains. For fifty cents a passenger could ride the 1 ½ miles to Big Sandy. By 1919 many of the homesteaders were broke and left. Then big farm units absorbed the inadequate homestead acreages and by 1928, the country was prosperous again. (from Cheney's Names on the Face of Montana, Mountain Press Publishing Company)
At one time the site of a saloon that served Missouri River freighters, the community of Big Sandy is named for nearby Big Sandy Creek. The town began in 1887 with the arrival of the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway (later the Great Northern Railway). By early 1900, Cornelius J. McNamara and Thomas A. Marlow, owners of the McNamara Cattle Company, had opened the town’s first store. Homesteaders began arriving in Big Sandy in 1909, and an influx continued for a decade. Several stories explain the creek’s name. The most colorful involves a muleskinner, “Big Sandy” Lane, who arrived one day near the present townsite and, to his dismay, discovered the creek at flood stage. He cursed the uncooperative weather, his bad luck, and the flooded creek crossing so fluently that the offending stream dried up immediately and he was able to cross
Today, Big Sandy is a small farming community near the beautiful Bear Paw Mountains off US Highway 87. While there, visit the Big Sandy Historical Museum, which is located in the old Great Northern Railroad depot and see the largest collection of early pioneer photographs in Chouteau County. Be sure to visit the old jailhouse and tourist center as well. If wildlife viewing is what you had in mind, Lonesome Lake northwest of town offers great viewing opportunities.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
abar