The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1935-08-09

disturbing the peace by knocking too
loudly and too long on a neighbor's
door with, it was afterwards reported
malicious designs on a female of the
household" Gilman and Salisbury dis
cretely replaced their jerkies with Con-
cords.
Elsewhere, however, the buckboards
held favor with the travelling public.
AS early as 1887 a stage line was con-
templated between Coulson and Fort
Benton. It became a reality the next
year and jerkies were used exclusively.
In later years Robert Leavens, pres
ident of the Leavens Livestock COM
pany of Billings, held the mail con-
drove the route in a jerky.
The Coulson Oater the Billings) to
Benton stages we're promoted by T. c.
Power of Helena and they too we're
jerkies.
The lighter rig had the advantage
OF greater speed. Where both types of
vehicles made riding strenuous work,
the blackboard was preferable because
of its lightness.
Although much has been written of
the stage coaches robberies perpetrated
in. the Billings area, few of the holdups
Melted enough to keep a modern gang
ster in gasoline money.
Most of the tales of robbery have
Holdup Cut on Five-Mile creek as their
locale. The thefts were petit larceny
affairs because the countryside expected
them. Passengers left their money at
home and nothing of value was sent
by mail or express.
One of few robberies on the Gilman
and Salisbury line evoked the Editor
Walter Matheson of the Coulson Post
to dip his pen in vitrol.
On Feb. ID, 1882, three road agents
followed the ~westbound coach out OF
Miles City and snatched a mail pouch.
1T was bad enough" Editor Matheson
without the drivers knowledge, but
when the receiving postmaster does no.
notice the absence of all eastern mail,
it is time for an investigation"
The highwaymen did not get away
scot-free, it is worthy to note. A month
or so later a bucko named Henry Mir
teer, also called "Shang," was arrested
in Coulson and admitted the theft.
His accomplices apparently escaped.
Probably the last stage robbery of
importance in the Billings area occur-
red in the fall of 1887 on the Forty
Mile ranch near Fort Custer. The place
is also remembered as Halfway sta
ton.
Three men stopped the southbound
stage from Billings to Buffalo, Wyo.,
smashed open and looted its treasure
box and then relieved a MI. Sledman,
a route agent for the stage firm, of
his valuables.
A few days later c. W. Petty, D. w.
Williams and Cas- Wheeler were arrest
ed and accused of the holdup. They
were surrounded in a camp on the
Grow Indian reservation not far from
the scene of the robbery. Other evil
dence pointed to their guilt. -.
The men, however, were freed when
they proved they were IN another camp,
SO miles from Forty-Mile, at the time
of the stick-up.
Later they were tried and acquitted
on a charge of ~obstructing the United
States mail.
The last horse-drawn stage line to
give in to the advance of the steam age
was that between Great Falls and Lew
istown. It came into being in the SOS,
and continued daily in 1906. The
not the numbering Concords of earlier
years but lighter vehicles built on much
the same pattern.
Several of this type of carriage are to
be found in the vicinity of Billings.
Polytechnic has, or did have, such a
coach. It is reputed to have been once
IN the Deadwood, S. D., run. Another
lightweight veteran, used for years in
Yellowstone National park, belongs to
the Northern Pacific and is a fixture
in the Unien station park. w. E. (See
Me- Baker had a priced coach for q
long time and probably could find it
tucked away in some obscure corner of
his warehouse.
For it is in the darkened hooks that
these veterans of the early trails are
rotting away their lives.
of romance that age and rust cannot
diSpel. Worn and battered, their
springs shattered, doors unhinged, up
holstering eaten by moths, they still
stand bravely, refugees for the shades
of the glorious past.