Stanford
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Montana
Stanford
Directory Listings
A view from 1939:
STANFORD, (4,200 alt., 509 pop.), seat
of Judith Basin County, is a stockmen's town, neat and brisk,
with broad streets, pleasant white-painted houses, and a handsome
brick high school (L). Though it is still active as a shipping
point for livestock and grain, it had greater importance in
the days when it was the most important freighting station
in the basin.
The town began as a station on the Fort Benton-Billings stage
route. It was often visited by Charles M. Russell when he worked
on ranches in the vicinity. One employer set him to herding
sheep. To relieve his boredom he began making images of Indians
and horses out of the richly tinted mineral clay. He became
so absorbed that he forgot his charges, who wandered off over
the hills. Returning to ranch headquarters, he said to his
boss, "Jack, if you want me to herd sheep, you'll have
to get me another band."
For years stories of white wolves of prodigious strength and
cunning grew and multiplied among the folk of this region.
A huge one known as Old Snowdrift became a legendary monster,
described variously in many places in central Montana. He had
a fit mate, Lady Snowdrift. In 1921 it was reported that he
was in the Highwoods killing sheep, cattle, and wild game. Stacy Eckert, a Forest Service ranger, spent much time
on his trail. He did not catch Old Snowdrift, but he did find
his den, and with the help of a rancher took seven puppies.
One of these, called Lady Silver and trained by Eckert, played
in motion pictures with the dog Strongheart.
In two months of 1922 Old Snowdrift and his mate killed 21
cattle. In October Don Stevens, a Government hunter, set a
trap that caught Lady Snowdrift. She dragged the heavy trap,
and the 20-pound rock to which it was attached, to her den,
where Stevens found and shot her. Early in 1923 he caught Old
Snowdrift, whose pelt was the largest ever taken in the Highwoods.
These wolves were not pure white, but a very light silver gray.
Source: Montana: A State Guide Book; Compiled and Written
by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration
for the State of Montana; September, 1939.
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