Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
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Recent flooding throughout Valley and Phillips counties have had impacts on low lying areas, drowning out hay bales and alfalfa seed as well as covering roads. The Courier spoke with local ranchers and farmers affected by the flooding to get their reports on this problematic fall weather. West of Hinsdale, Mark and Heidi Johnson have been ranching for some time. Mr. Johnson grew up ranching since the 1950s and Heidi married onto the ranch some 25 years ago. They provided insight not only on...
Living on the Milk River bottom all my life, something you learn to expect and accept as part of life are the floods. I don’t think you ever really get used to them, as each presents a different challenge. I have memories back to grade school days of the floods – the enjoyment of getting to stay home from school for a few days until it became apparent the water was not going to recede quickly. Dad and Uncle Lee walked the distance of the road under water and staked the sides so you knew where you were on the road. They then went through the wat...
Religion played an important part in the community life of the homesteaders. The Kienitzes belonged to the Lutheran congregation, which met once monthly at the Gus Pehlke home, beginning in 1916. Members would take turns meeting Pastor A. Jordan at Saco, where he arrived by skidoo. Pastor Jordon was stationed at Chinook and was single at this time. He was silent about possible romantic attachments and his congregation might have been in the dark to this day if it hadn’t been for Mark Wright’s sheepherder’s weekly Chinook newspaper. One Sunda...
Some young men’s thoughts turn to love in the spring, but for Otto Kienitz, during this period of his life, his thoughts centered on the “Land of Opportunity,” which was the vast prairie land of Montana. It was none too soon, as three years before, this territory was thrown open to homesteading and the days of the one-open range were quickly drawing to a close. Anyway you look at it, this planned adventure, from Minnesota to Montana, took the courage of rugged individuals. The succeeding years proved this definitely was the “survival of the...
Here’s the plan. I want every one of the 3.14159265 true conservative males over the age of 18, staunch supporter of HRC and who actually reads this nonsense column to take out your wallet and extract 25 percent of its wealth. Now go directly to the bathroom and flush this money right down that John C. Crapper invention called the twalette in polite circles. I want you to repeat this process every time you get a paycheck from now on until the guys in the white coats come to take you away. I call this the Urination Syndrome. It was initially inv...
Riverside Contracting has announced plans to close Highway 117 to through traffic from mile post 0.0 to mile post 11 (Milk River Bridge) beginning Monday, April 18, at 8 a.m. The closure is not expected to exceed four consecutive days. The work is in conjunction with the MDT, Fort Peck - NW Project that is currently under construction. Local traffic only will be allowed on either side of the bridge with no access of any kind across the bridge during work hours. The anticipated work sequence is as follows: Message boards will be provided to...
The annual Saco/Hinsdale community picnic at the Bjornberg Bridge came off without a hitch on Sunday, Sept. 20. Under the shade of the cottonwoods on the north bank of the Milk River, a lasting tradition stood strong. A long table laden with dishes from every family in attendance split the grass. Beyond the spread of desserts, Mark and Mike Johnson served pork, beef and lamb with Bernie Hart. If the food and company are what draw a person to an event like this, it's the music that keeps you...
This will be the first in a series of travel segments focusing on various sections of Valley County and beyond. A special thanks to Glasgow's Dave Pippin for providing insight, personal connections, and transportation. A quartet of area elders headed out early June 12 from Happy Flats in Hinsdale on a mission of general education for the Courier's newest managing editor. The lesson was a profoundly edifying one. The group included Sherman Lacock (79), John Mogan (88), and one of Hinsdale's...
A crowd large enough to fill a court room showed up on New Year's Eve to welcome the newcomers and to say goodbye to those going out of Valley County Office. David Pippin stepped down as County Commissioner and Paul Tweten took over the seat. The other newcomer is Christine Hillman who is now officially sworn in as the justice of the peace. Pippin retired after two terms of service, or 12 years. David Reinhardt will be taking over the chair position this year during his third term as a...
A Glasgow native has been making trips up to the area as a civil engineer with plans to develop some land just outside Glasgow city limits. Travis West made an appearance at the Valley County Commissioners meeting to get subdivision plans accepted on Skylark Road. West showed commissioners areas of easement and access road to five lots plotted out near the Ridge Runners Saddle Club building. Some issues on conditions were discussed and the possible need for the property owner to deal with drainage issues on one lot were worked out. Language...
Hinsdale, like many other small villages and towns throughout Montana, is in a pickle. The infamous Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has warranted that the water being dumped into the Milk River from Hinsdale's sewage treatment facility is unfit to be dumped into the sanitary and sterile Milk River. The wastewater from sewage plants like Hinsdale's has been proven to be 10 times cleaner than the river it is being infused into. A person could drink the wastewater (if you didn't know from whence it came) without suffering any ill effects....
The bridge spanning Beaver Creek on the Milk River Road west of Hinsdale was built in 1915 and has been re-planked a few times over the years, but not much else has been done to it in the past 99 years. Countless school bus trips have traversed this structure carrying hundreds of school children into Hinsdale. Ranchers and farmers have used this bridge to move some of their smaller farming equipment, and the occasional herd of cattle from one side of the creek to the other. The Hinsdale...
This upcoming weekend marks the start of the 75th anniversary of the 1939 Milk River Flood. Until the 1952 flood, it was the most devastating on record for the Milk River valley. The flood started with the snow melt in the smaller tributaries. Some of the worst flooding occurred with the smaller streams. Wagner, west of Malta, had evacuations. The high waters caused a bridge to collapse eight miles south of Malta. Bridge damage in the Hinsdale area closed off the highway. Portions of Hwy. 2...
June C. (Brown) Castleberry Coleman, 88, died of natural causes on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2013, at the Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospital in Glasgow, Mont. She was born on June 22, 1925, in Hinsdale, the daughter of Howard W. and Clara G. (Anderson) Brown. She lived her early years on the Missouri River on 9th Point. The family land was purchased by the Fort Peck Dam Project, so their buildings were burned and they moved to Glasgow in 1938. Her father was killed in an accident related to the dam...
With winter weather advisories in effect, snow and ice covering the roads and concerns with the amount of precipitation that falls in the local area, many turn to the local National Weather Service to predict what might be coming. Glasgow is lucky to have the weather service headquartered here for the Northeastern Montana area. Tanja Fransen, warning coordination meteorologist, explained that the there has been some form of weather service in Glasgow for many years, as far back as 1887. Last...
The Nashua Civic Center was the site for a Sept. 24 meeting between Nashua area residents, representatives from HDR Engineering of Billings and the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) concerning the proposed construction of a railroad overpass in Nashua. Paul Grant, the public involvement and meetings representative of MDT, introduced project engineer Tim Erickson of HDR Engineering, who gave a presentation of four options for the overpass. Jeremy Miles, Lisa Fischer and Chris Kelley of HDR Engineering were also at the meeting....
The Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) is seeking comments on a proposal to realign and reconstruct about 1.8 miles of Highway 117, west of Nashua. The project begins at the north end of the Milk River Bridge and proposes reconstructing Hwy. 117 north for 1.8 miles, intersecting with U.S. 2. The project would create a second access to U.S. 2 for the community of Nashua through construction of a “grade separated crossing” of the BNSF railroad. Community meetings were held last year in Nashua for a solution to the problem of trains blo...
The Milk River at Glasgow jumped ahead of predictions and rose to 25.6 feet late Tuesday night. Flood stage is 25 feet, so there is minor flooding in low-lying areas. The latest forecast from the National Weather Service office in Glasgow (1:30 a.m. on Wednesday) is that the river will hold near 26 feet from Wednesday through Friday, and be at 27.5 feet early on Sunday. The situation changed quickly from the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday, when the river was at 23.15 feet and a height of 27...
