The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1927-05-13

the F1rSC NaClOnal Bank OF Great
Falls; and George Hurd, depot agent
at Glasgow during the day time and
law student at night, these were a
few of the efficient attorneys who
wrote great part of the history of
the legal development of Northeast
ern Montana,
Front Street in Glasgow consisted
mostly of saloons. There, frequent
ly, judges and jurors, witnesses and
attorneys, parties-defendant and par
ties-plaintiff, gloried and drank deep,
and dozed and nodded the next day
in the hot, fetid, atmosphere of the
crowded court ROOM
From the window of that old court
room was done stark and speedy JUS
tice too One night when one of the
principals in a jail-break, involving
the murder of the sheriff, dropped
off the window-sill, with a MANILA
rope about his neck, stopping with a
jerk some ten foot below, and drum
ming holes in Dan McKay's brick
with his guilty heels, most of the
prominent citizens of Glasgow, it is
said, helped to push him off.
Colonel Colt, in those days, made
all men the same size. And the roar
and smoke Of the forty-five settled
many disputes and ended many quar-
rels. One prominent attorney bears
today a perceptible limp, when he
failed to outrun leaden slug, on
Election Night, in the Board of Trade
saloon.
Sheridan County itself came into
existence with the advent of the sod
buster. By petition and election, the
county was created out of Valley
County, effective March "a, 1913. At
that time little towns had been plant
ed every few miles. A store, black
smith shop, an elevator or so, a bank,
and one or two Saloons and here
was Hedging metropolis, eligible
as the poorest barefoot lad to become
prince and ruler. And out of the tur-
MOL and confusion, Plentywood and
Medicine Lake appeared as principal
contenders for the county seat honor.
The memory Of that fight can new
er be erased from the minds of those
who endured it. Uncle Sam was Civ
ing every citizen, and everyone who
had even declared his intention to be-
come a citizen, first, a quarter Sec
ton and later three hundred and
twenty acres of land, if he had the
courage and pertinacity to live on it,
at first, five years, and, later, three
And before the Lord discovered just
what was happening, those home
steaders farmed mile wide and an
inch deep. They ripped up a few
ragged burrows, ran a disk over it,
and a drill, scratched in the grain
and, declaring, "Grow, durn you,
you're paid for,'' found to their sur
prise that, thus tickled in the ribs,
Nature Laughter a bountiful harvest.
The world was full of money. A
real estate loan is ordinarily the
safest loan in the world. Nothing
but an earthquake or a great flood
can take away that security. And
the homesteader no sooner got title
than he made the big farm loan. For,
beyond question, the land had raised
twenty to thirty bushels to the acre
Of the best wheat in the world, and
without doubt, it would continue to
do so, indefinitely and forever!
Great tractors the size of claim
shack were unloaded at every hamlet
and village. And every time a bic
one was unloaded, a half section of
land went back East. For the little
tractor quarter section. Horses and
machinery and wagons and plows
mowers and disks and drills, and the
old milk COW, the pigs and the chick
ems were thrown in for good measure
by means of chattel mortgages.
In most of the larger towns, the