Legend of the Big Draw Traditional Cache
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(small)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
The legend of the Big Draw always frightened me as kid growing up in the greater Flathead Lake area. I never liked driving through it at night, and as an adult, I seem to always find a different route home than taking Hwy 28 if it is past dark. Below I share with you one version of the Legend of the Big Draw by Maggie Plummer from her blog Maggie's Musings. Think twice before trying to find this one at night. Eeekkkkkk!!!!!
This is my second cache but third in a row on Hwy 28, you are looking for a small camo'd pill bottle type thing. The following story of the legend of the Big Draw was republished with permission from Maggie Plummer the author.
Things That Go "POOF!" in the Night...
Just a few miles west of Flathead Lake, the windblown sagebrush country around Niarada is like another world. In fact, some believe it is other-worldly.
The rolling land seems empty, and nightfall brings an inky blackness – the type that ghost stories are made of. Sure enough, the place is crawling with tales of a haunted tavern, a ghostly mother, a vanishing hitchhiker, and a headless horsewoman.
Niarada, pronounced to rhyme with "Nevada," is just a wide spot in the road these days. But it has a way of scaring the daylights of folks, and many of them won't travel alone after dark on the remote stretches of road between here and Elmo.
Years ago there was a popular watering hole here called the Long Branch Bar. It was the kind of place known to host rattlesnake barbecues, Halloween bashes, impromptu rodeos, big dances, and – ghosts.
Most of the spooky stories center on Niarada's neighborhood ghost, "Hannah." One Long Branch bartender used to refuse to work at night because she was convinced that the building was haunted. One night as she was closing the bar, she kept trying to turn the lights off and they kept coming back on. Another night, she said, Hannah leaned on her car's horn, making it blast even though the vehicle's battery was supposed to be dead. Other stories had Hannah the ghost trying to suffocate someone with a pillow, or stomping around the kitchen.
Rancher Tom McDonald's Hannah story is the original, and most convincing, one. There was this old root cellar on his property, dug to store vegetables for a busy stagecoach stop, restaurant, and inn that used to be located there. Even though many, many years have passed since weary travelers stopped there, and the two-story inn has long since surrendered to the elements, the cellar remains.
And so does its ghost, according to McDonald and many others.
About 50 years ago now, one of McDonald's ranch hands spent a night in the root cellar, then said the next day that he'd spoken with a strange woman and her two little girls, and that all of them had worn old-fashioned long skirts and aprons. The woman's name was Hannah, he claimed. Again and again he saw the woman and her girls come up out of that root cellar. One time he tried to shake Hannah's hand, and she and the girls abruptly turned and went down the cellar stairs, quickly disappearing down there.
Folks were pretty skeptical until one day when McDonald was getting a haircut in Polson and happened to visit with an old-timer there. When the elderly man realized McDonald was from Niarada, he began talking about other old-timers from that area. McDonald asked him about the old stage stop on his place and the man said it had been run by some people named Flagg. When McDonald asked him what Mrs. Flagg's first name was, the man answered, "Hannah." How many children did the Flaggs have, the rancher asked. "Two daughters," the old-timer replied.
McDonald began giving his ranch hand's stories more credence. But then he had to cover up the cellar so his cows wouldn't fall in. He wondered if the ghosts were trapped in there. He didn't mind having a ghost on his place, he said, as long as it left him alone. McDonald was used to ghost stories, he would say, having grown up hearing them from the Indians.
He believed that the Flathead Reservation is full of haunted places like his cellar.
But a lot of folks think the Niarada neighborhood is particularly spooky.
They've heard stories about a vanishing hitchhiker, or headless horsewoman, along Montana Highway 28 between Niarada and Elmo. That's an area called "The Big Draw," a tunnel-like valley that still doesn't have electrical lines. The handful of people who live there use generators.
Not everyone is scared. Some intrepid types go out to the Big Draw at night looking for the headless horsewoman. Or the hitchhiking woman who disappears without a trace.
Who are these apparitions? Could they be Hannah Flagg, tired of her lonely root cellar and looking for some company?
No one seems to know.
Or if they do, they're not talking.
One thing is for sure: on Halloween, the spookiest night of all, most folks on that lonesome stretch of highway won't be stopping to ask.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Whfg n urnqf hc....Zbfg pnpurf nybat Ujl 28 jvyy unir yvggyr gb AB PRYY freivpr fb vg vf orfg gb chg nyy bs gurz va n yvfg naq gura pyvpx "qbjaybnq bssyvar" vs hfvat n pryy cubar. Gung jnl lbh'yy unir gur pbbeqvangrf naq gur svefg svir ybtf sbe vas
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures