The Kevin review. [volume] (Kevin, Mont.) 1922-1929, 1922-11-02

q In days of old when Castle wa
new, great were its wonders. Mon
tana's premier silver camp, it la
|. at one end of the Jaw-bone railwa.
that well-nigh tabled thread O
steel that wound a gnarled cours'
! up Sixteen-Mile canyon from LON
bard and the Northern Pacific.
Castle in 1890-its boom days
had all those wonders that could be
offered for a mining camp of some
1900 or 1000 persons. Now that ii
has dropped to a cluster of moldering
cabins, the remaining Is inhabitants
still tell tales that bear the mark of
the high community ambitions that
only an early mining camp-and the
early mining camps inspirational
beverages could incite.
Such a story is that of Sure Shot
Bill of the Castle mountains and the
airplane he built in 1890. w. B.
Wiley, supervisor of the Jefferson
national forest, returned from a trip
through the White Sulphur Springs
region, tell it.
Sure Shot Bill left behind him as
evidence of his early aeronautical
experiments and the v~eracity of his
remaining townspeople, the skeleton
of his flier. 1t lies on the mountain
hack of Castle.
Sure Shot Bill came to Castle in
it's early days and was one of the
builders of the silver camp. He
its growth. But torn between mu-
nicipal patriotism and the promise
of wealth, he was forced to leave
Castle to develop the mining claims
he located on the top of the noun
tains four or five miles distant and
high above the town.
Perhaps it was the desire to make
a quick descent to the mining town,
perhaps to avoid the roughness of
the mountain trails that first led
Sure Shot to divide his time between
the mining work and building of his
airplane. The lodge pole pine about
claim provided the materials and
all appearances 1t met the require
as well as the spruce wood of
the modern plane.
1t was 80 years ago that Sure Shot
Bill built his plane. His neighbor-
ing miners scoffed and joked the pro-
ject. The laughter then is reflected
chuckles today. Yet, 80 years ago
Sure Shot Bill built a glider, as
shown in the skeleton still existing,
hat was not essentially different
rom the gliders that are now attract ]
ng attention in Europe and are be- I
ng experimental with largely by
.~viators in the United States. 1t util-
zed the elementary principles that (
he Wright brothers, then hardly out \
f knee trousers, used in their air
lane Of almost 20 years later.
A long slender lodge pole, some 40
eet in length, provided the chief
tay of the canva wings. A deep =
rooye was carved in the length of
he pole and the stays of bent pine
ere fitted in this. 1t was a mono
lane and beneath it are still the
,ays that held a rude seat. So light =
/ construction is it that a man can
asily lift it.
So far as anyone knows, Bill never
led out his air plane. Before he
yer gathered the courage to take to
lie air, he became Disguised with
lie possibilities of silver in his mine, Of
I'd moved to happier fields, where vi
3 heard Of "silver mines as had sill W
er." The principle of flying his ma ht
line was undoubtedly to take a a
wing start from the long grassy M
opes of the mountain, even as pilots la
elders do today. XII
Tradition has it that once in his la
Fps, he bet his silver claims that or
could fly from Castle to Lombard ST
ID beat the Jaw-bone flyer.
Today the skeleton of this early ia
rerunner of the airplane lies be- fix
lie the ruins of the old cabin. Only err
heap of rotten and disjointed logs st;
the cabin, and the lodgepole
eleton is w%eathered but still dry 80
d solid. -
Ask a native about it and he'll say: 90
'ure Shot Bill-he built 'er. He -
yer flew 'er." %