Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1940-10-05
Days of Record Wheat Hauls
Gave Scobey Loading Title

In the good old days when wheat
grew on Montana prairfes in response
TO little scratching and q handful
OF seed, hauls Of grain and records
for loading were claimed by many
little Montana towns, then bursting
with new life.
Among the towns to back I'D its
claims with records is Scobey in Dam
iels county.
Scobey remembers banner hauls of
the first half of the twenties. when
legend, subStantiated by fact. held II
was the largest single primary wheat
loading center in North America. one
realizes today that 1t was quite a task
for a town Of less than 500 people
70 load more than 2,750,000 bushels
Of grain in one year.
This was the record in 1924 and
it was almost equaled in the two
previous years. It was done mainly
with wagon and team and a few trac-
tor outfits. In those days a horse out
fit had large haul over prairie trails
for long distance-up to As miles IN
some cases.
When they got to town, there in
variably was jam in loading and
diSpatching Railroaders recall it was
not uncommon for 300 outfits to be
waiting IN Scobey at one time to have
WAANNN NAAAACA4SGs "A Ike
ly had seven 120-bushel wagons tied
up, with shortage Of boxcars the
imminent problem.
Some days the tie-up was so seri-
GUS elevators registered the outfits and
marked the wagons ia the order in
which they had come in" Depot Agent
Fred Haun recalls. IF a trainload of
emptieS came in, whether day or night,
they would be loaded within eight
hours and sent out again"
p T. Karlsrud, then and still man
ager of the Farmers Elevator Co., re-
ports the car shortage caused greatest
difficulties in 1922 and 1928, due to
machinists' and boilermakers' strike
in 1928.
Distance also was problem. The
Opheim railroad extension was not
built until 1925 and the closest route
to market for farmers in the west end
OF Daniels county was via Scobey.
Those living in Peerless, Richland
and even Opheim had a long way
to haul by team or tractor. The west
prairie trail was rough and htlly. the
p miles to Peerless and not much
better the additional seven miles to
Richland, or % to Oheim. Experience
demonstrated that As miles from
Ophe1m was a long way to haul wheat
with horses and cost of hauling a
single bushel from Opheim to Scobey
was more than the price of a bushel
at the local market
OF course, those coming from
Opheim could not make the entire
trip IN one day and by custom they
stopped at Peerless. There what was
known as the halfway house" en-
joyed rushing business in the boom
days
Wheat hauling then was an all
year job. The rush month was from
Oct. Is to Nov. is and hauling con-
tmued until snow made trails too
difficult to travel If work stopped
around Jan. 1, it opened up again
when spring rolled around and con-
tinued during the. summer whenever
farmers had time to get away from
other work.
AS a consequence, the Great North
ern ran two trains each way nearly
all the year round, with extras in the
rush season. In one of its busiest
months at the Scobey depot, 300 cars
were loaded
In 1922, 2,225,OOO bushels were load
ed, with 100000 in 1923 and 2,75O,OOO
in 1924. These three years had bumper
crops. There also was q comparable
crop IN 1928 but there was no jam
in shipments.
In the meantime, the Great North
ern built the westward extension from
Scobey to Opheim and let the iron
horse do the hauling. Built to Peer
less in 1925, the track was extended
to Opheim in 1926. Then farmers in
the west end of Daniels county loaded
at their own stations.
Canadian trade, which amounted to
thousands of bushels each year, was
cut off by the building of branch
line parallel with the international
boundary and then north to Canadian
centers. In 1928, with an
good crop in ali parts of
Daniels county, Scobey's big wheat
loading days were past and only about
l 100000 bushels were shipped from
the local market.