Fresh Lake City

**Fresh Lake City** (colloquially *Freshlake*) was a beautiful homestead settled in the mountains of southwest **Hope County**, **Montana** in late 1881. It was two days' ride west of Big Sky, MT, and on the eastern edge of Yellowstone National Park.

## Geography

At an elevation of 5,000 feet among the Madison Mountains, Freshlake looked over the foothills of Yellowstone and was nestled amongst beautiful pristine wilderness. It was situated upon lush, arable soil which was home to dense temperate forest, mostly pine and fir. The homestead was situated on the cusp of a large lake along the river Thames (*Thay-mz*). The town received a foot of snow in most winters with averages of -5°C, but had warm (average 20°C), moderately rainy summers.

The woods were home to elk, raccoons, whitetail deer, jackrabbits, and grizzly bears. The river was home to salmon populations, trout, bluegill, and bass, among others.

## History

The land that the homestead would later be built on was inhabited or controlled in some way for 11,000 years. The area was ancestrally used throughout history by numerous groups as hunting grounds. Many groups overlapped. Namely, the Native American groups that would have been somewhat familiar with the area were the Crow, Blackfoot, Shoshone, Salish, Arikara, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ojibwe, Nakoda, Dakota, and Lakota. Settler colonialism weakened Native control over much of what was established as Montana. In the 1810s, a town named Green's Crossing was built on the same site, but abandoned and sunk into the ground by the time FLC was founded.

By the time of Fresh Lake City's settlement, most Native groups had moved *(or been moved by the Laramie Treaty*) out of the area. However, there were Ojibwe settlements to the northeast, Arikara warbands to the far north, Crow and Dakota camps to the southeast, and Shoshone groups to the southwest.

The homestead was registered in autumn 1881 by a gang of Arizonan ex-bounty hunters who joined with a small group of British intellectuals. By New Year 1882, Freshlake had a population of nine people and several fully built houses. After the discovery of the rich Fresh Lake Oilfields beneath the town and the eventual construction of a railway, the town boomed in population. By late 1883, there were over 3,000 people in town.

## Companies

The original town was the de facto headquarters of two companies - **El Tropico 5\***, a cigar brand, and **HB Oil** (Hammond-Bridleton Oil), an oil drilling enterprise. There were numerous oil subsidiaries, saloons (including the Dolphin's Delight), shops, businesses, and more.

## Residents as of 1882

1. Unity A. Spire, a timid famous musician among halls in Utah and Colorado, known professionally as Banjo Unchained
2. Fernando de Aragón, a dashing and filthy rich Spaniard following in the footsteps of conquistadors, wanting to find El Dorado
3. Requise LeBron, a well educated black ex-slave and prospector, made mute after losing his jaw in a mining accident
4. Wolf / Maa'ngan, an Ojibwe trapper and petroglyph artist on his spirit journey to become a man and warrior
5. Maxwell Hammond, a ridiculously rich Englishman, lover of trophy hunting, and enterprising oil baron
6. Professor Harlan Cress, an emeritus professor of anthroplogy from Surrey and a good friend of Maxwell's late father
7. Dr. Madeleine Jones, Harlan's sister and an incredible doctor who hid her identity and masqueraded as 'Dr Richard Dickman' to avoid industry prejudice
8. Jackalope Whitman, a highly knowledgeable miner and metal expert and crack shot with his collection of derringers
9. Jeremiah Harrison, a retired Cochise County Cowboy, gunslinger, and enterprising cigar merchant
10. Romeo & Mary Bridleton, a brother and sister from Massachusetts, and their good-natured Kansas-born butler Morris
11. Sherman Shutterstock, a photographer and newspaper reporter from Denver, Colorado
12. Margaret Johnston, a landscape surveyor from Denver, Colorado, and her small entourage of five from the Colorado Land Survey Company (CLSC)
13. (Countless workers and others)
14. Connor MacRhyde, a Gaelic priest
15. Vanessa Adams, a journalist
16. Jerry, an oil worker