North by Northeast

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 oldest citizens, Sid Simonsen (94). Former county commissioner and current Two Rivers Executive Director Dave Pippin (a relative spring chicken) was behind the wheel with a few coolers full of food and drinks put together by his wife, Marie.       

Just getting to the aforementioned residences was illuminating and entertaining. Mr. Lacock's home is an orderly pastoral surrounded by trees, restored tractors, and other machinery in various states of what can only be described as 'repair.' The man stepped down from his doorway to Pippin's truck without ceremony and we proceeded around a corner and past a striking sign for Mogan's Saw Sharpening on Hwy 2, where the titular Mr. Mogan himself joined our small collection of colorful personalities for the journey northward along the edges of Valley and Phillips counties. 

At the Simonsen place near the old Swanson Ranch 12 miles northwest of Hinsdale, Sid's sister, Jean Williamson, assisted in the taking of pictures in the bright morning sunshine. Mr. Simonsen, who joined us for the trip, started off strong with some banter and a winning grin but soon took ill, limiting his contribution to the storytelling. Fear not on that point, however, as your faithful reporter and any community-minded readers who wish to participate have been invited to assist Sid and Jean in some repairs to the works that provide the water for the annual ice sculpture that takes shape on the property each winter. If its stories you're interested in, you'll be well rewarded for helping us out with that task (detail TBA).

Successfully assembled, we set our sights on Frenchman Dam and the surrounding area. Along the way, I got a general history lesson. Hinsdale as we know it today goes back a long ways (well back into the 1800s) but the community didn't find its legs until the turn of the century following the placement of one boxcar in the area to serve as a station stop in 1888. As with much early activity regionally, the course of progress was dictated by natural resources and the advancing Empire Builder. Lacock and Mogan were clear about one point of fact: Hinsdale's initial attraction to James J. Hill and the railroad was water.  

Even as plentiful (and overabundant at times) as the local access to the Milk River was and continues to be, some adjustments had to be made. One effort among many over the years was the Frenchman Dam and Reservoir. If you take a quick look at the map results for the dam online, you'll find a familiar name attached to many local features. Frenchman Dam Road becomes Mogan Road heading northeast toward Genevieve and the Snake Creek School. Pippin had clearly picked the right companions for our journey. 

Looking southward from the road along the reservoir up on the bench, Mogan pointed out a coulee that has served historically as an excellent winter camp and grazing area for local ranchers and their herds. The picturesque gash in the landscape provides welcome shelter from the brutal seasonal winds and temps. Historically, it has made an excellent pit stop and vantage point from which to take in the view southward back to town where one can imagine the generations of homesteaders, ranchers and farmers who have pitted their livelihoods against the challenging weather faced by residents of the area to this day.   

Back on the road, Lacock recounted how Willie Copple bit off the ear of one Vaughn Grady during a scuffle at a community dance at Genevieve Hall in the late 1940s. "I never did hear how it tasted," Lacock joked, displaying the mixture of pun and point of fact that typifies his approach to storytelling.    

We ended our northward progress at what was once the Duncan Ranch. Clair and Laura Duncan raised seven daughters on the ranch before the property was sold to none other than Lacock, whose son owns it today. It was a fine location for sandwiches, refreshments and personal recollections. The only residents still living permanently at the spot, which marks the end of electric service out of Malta, are the handful of horses taking shelter in the sturdy structures that remain intact. Hunters and campers make use of the ranch as a base for hunting deer and antelope, among other wildlife.  

Our original plan was to proceed toward Opheim and loop south toward Glasgow, but we were stopped at a crossing that looked to an outsider to be a mild joke cooked up at his expense. It was pointed out that ranchers and farmers located near our position would have had a journey of several days and sometimes more to conduct business in town, meaning that many families, like the Duncans, took homes in Hinsdale where the women and children could participate in civic life while business at the ranch went on year-round. 

Our own journey lasted just a few hours and the loop we eventually completed brought us back the way we came. On the return trip, the group's curiosity got the better of them and they insisted we stop at the Barnard Ranch, which straddles the county line. 

The main attraction was a new shop/garage building erected in 2006 that is still in the process of being completed. Jodi Barnard explained that her father-in-law, Eldon Barnard, relocated to the area after his home in the town of Leedy was submerged during construction of the Fort Peck Dam. The shop was impressive and allowed us to catch our collective breath. If the structures around the place are any indication, the descedants of Hinsdale's settlers are going strong. 

After dropping off Sid and collecting some fresh eggs from Jean, we meandered past the site of the Juneberg Picnic at Bjornberg Bridge, which is held on the third Sunday of September.  

Mogan left our company first and Lacock took the opportunity to show off a beautiful 1947 Ford truck he had recently restored. Painted red, white and blue, the vehicle exemplifies much of what the man and the residents of Hinsdale amount to generally: It was built well and put to hard use. Today, both the truck and community remain attractive and have improved considerably with age.