Galata
Travel
Montana
A view from 1939:
GALATA, (3,096 alt., 75 pop.), a trading point and
cattle-shipping station, has a history somewhat similar to
that of many small High-line towns. In 1901 David R. McGinnis,
first immigration agent of the Great Northern Ry., impressed
by the beauty of the spot where Galata Creek, a dry wash (stream
bed without water) crossed the railroad tracks, filed claim
to the land, and engaged a surveyor to lay out a town. A year
later he brought carpenters and lumber from Kalispell, and
built a two-room house. Until 1904, when it burned, stock shippers
were glad to crowd into the tiny rooms during cold winter days,
but no one followed the lead of the city's founder by buying
land or building houses. In 1905 McGinnis began an earnest
effort to make Galata's urban existence a reality. He built
a two-room real estate office and an eight-room hotel; he induced
a storekeeper to come here and, when the man lacked funds to
erect a store, allowed him to use a room in the real estate
office. In those days a rancher would drive in with a chuck
wagon, load up $500 or $1,000 worth of supplies, pay in cash,
and return home grubstaked for a long winter. Only a few customers
were necessary to maintain a thriving business. Nevertheless,
Galata's merchant closed his shop within a few years and the
hotel was abandoned.
One day McGinnis, living in Kalispell, was astonished to receive
a check for back rent on the store. A cowhand had moved in,
and was doing a fair business among the dry-land farmers who
had settled on the former range. In 1910 Galata had four lumberyards
and five stores. During the wartime boom settlers came into
the area in droves, but with its collapse many of them went
away.
In 1925 the town made an effort to ride to importance on the
oilfield band wagon. A full-page advertisement in the achievement
edition of the Shelby Promoter extolled Galata as the center
of an agricultural paradise, and pointed out that it was the "city" nearest
the new Liberty oil dome. Unfortunately, the Liberty dome was
far out on the east flank of the Sweetgrass Arch, and all the
wells drilled into it were dry.
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. |
