The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

By Robert Lucke

I have long wondered if the Jim Kipp Lookout sign we put up on a bluff above Cow Island on the Missouri River in August of 1957 is still there.

I got the brilliant idea one Saturday morning to see if there was any mention of the sign and lookout on the internet. I looked and there were several stories about the sign. That was the good news. Bad news was that the stories were all by me.

So, I was as much in the dark as ever.

I recently discovered some pictures of that event. One was the sign with two of the famous historians from MSU there. They were Merrill Burlingame and Verne Dusenberry. Not clearly pictured on the pictures was Mrs. James Willard Schultz, the second wife of the famous Glacier National Park and Blackfoot author. What a thrill to meet her that day. Clearly in one picture standing right behind me watching the sign go up was Tavie Kipp. This newspaper has used many of her stories and events, like putting up a sign to her father-in-law must have really inspired her writing.

One man not in any pictures because he wasn't at the event was Lawrence Duncan. I got to know Lawrence Duncan well because he bought his shoes at the Lou Lucke Company and I usually waited on him. He was tall and thin and wore a huge gold ring fashioned out of gold nuggets. I drooled over that ring. After the first time I saw the ring, I quickly went down to Black's Jewelry and asked them to get me a big gold ring. For a lot of my life I have worn a large Black Hills Gold ring, not as beautiful as Duncan's but it will always remind me of him.

Lawrence Duncan owned the bar at Landusky and as the coming story relates, his bartender was Rule Horner. Well, when the Fred L. Robinson Bridge went in there was a "Y" in the highway where the Malta road met the Harlem and Landusky road. Duncan moved his bar from Landusky to that corner and called it the D Y. By most of the locals it was never called the D Y but instead referred to as Duncan's Drunken Junction. I can attest to the validity of that statement.

The following story entitied "A Saturday afternoon in 1957" was one I found on the internet that I had completely forgotten that I wrote. The recently discovered pictures compliment the story well to it is fitting that it should be in "The Mountaineer" this spring. To find the place where we put the Lookout sign, go almost to the D Y. Just before getting there take a good road to the south called the Power Plant road. Take the first right off that road and you will go right to the bluff where the sign stood. I may see you there as I am going back to that beautiful spot just as soon as I can this spring.

A Saturday afternoon in 1957

By Robert Lucke

My uncle Al Lucke told me there was a group of historians and old timers who wanted to dedicate a monument to Jim Kipp on a bluff high above Cow Island on the Missouri River. He said he was going to spend Friday night at Zortman and wondered if I wanted to go along.

Did I! I was a sophomore in high school and had never been to the Little Rockies. Dreams of Pike Landusky along with Kid Curry and the Wild Bunch danced almost nightly through my dreams. Now was my chance to see that historic country and to see it with a group of history people and even more important, to see it without my parents.

Off we drove on a Friday afternoon. We drove to Malta and the Great Northern Hotel where Uncle Al ordered thick steaks for both of us. Never had I had a steak so wonderful. I could have eaten two or three.

Then it was off to the south country on a county road, (Remember, this was a couple of years before the Robinson Bridge was put in). We turned off and drove up Bear Gulch after dark. It was obvious something was wrong as a rancher had run fences across the road in maybe a dozen places. People had cut the wire or driven around the makeshift barricades. That was my first clue about the nature of ranchers in those parts.

We got into Zortman well after dark and checked into a cabin at the Buckhorn. Spartan at best were our digs, but then we were not to spend much time there anyway. Al was told that most of our group were there and at the bar so away we went to downtown Zortman.

There was a large group at the bar. Getting well oiled would be an apt description of many of the state's noted historical figures. The group was glad to see Al as he had the sign they were going to put up. The sign had been routed in cedar by Emil Don Tigny who was well on the way of making a national reputation for himself by being the first man to really float the Missouri River and make that trip available to others. Don Tigny was always talking river talk, looking at river maps, and dreaming of his next trip. I don't know how he had time to make a sign honoring Jim Kipp.

Back to the bar. It was a busy place. Not only were all those historians there but old grizzled miners had come down from their claims to talk about the time that the mines would reopen and gold would rise above thirty dollars an ounce. Those same men talked about seeing Kid Curry in the area and hearing that he was living in Seattle these days and on and on went the stories, the like of which I had never heard in my life.

Sometime during the evening I want to the Mercantile and met Ethel Kellerman, a real character. I also met Freddie Whitcomb Donaldson, younger daughter of mining mogul Charlie Whitcomb. Almost blind, she painted on memory, Little Rockies scenes on silk scarves. I was to buy a couple of them from her and some stock in the Ruby Gulch Mining Company. I bought that stock for ten cents a share. Pegasus drove that stock up to dizzying heights. Sad to think she never saw how good her stock would be. Good she never saw the destruction heaped on by Pegasus. The silk scarves are still cherished by my mother to this day.

Finally it was time to get to bed. Visions of Pike, Kid Curry and the boys ran through my head all night long.

At first light I was up and looking around outside. I had never before seen such a beautiful village set in such a Swiss like scene, even to a white church sitting on the top of a hill as if it had always been there.

In a word, Zortman was wonderful. That first impression left me breathless and remains with me to this day.

After a huge breakfast cooked by Mrs. Kalil (I remembered her asking the night before what time we wanted her to open the restaurant that next morning! What service!

After breakfast, in older 1950 cars, we took off in a group up Alder Gulch, up roads that should never have been built, across the hump, the cabbage patch and its views of Mission Peak just across the way and down to Landusky when it still had a bar.

After the Robinson Bridge was built, Lawrence Duncan was to move his Landusky Landmark to a junction that bore his name at least informally for years. As for now, it was still in Landusky and still in the place where Kid Curry had killed Pike Landusky. Tending bar was Rule Horner, an old time stage coach driver and character who often wore several pairs of trousers so that no holes would show skin so to speak.

Rule would not make any "fancy Eastern drinks" Just shots of whisky, ditches, and Budweiser if I remember.

On the way to the Cow Island overlook, we saw the "Boot hill" where Pike Landusky was buried. It was said that he was so mean he was buried six feet deeper than normal and had four feet of rocks above his grave so he could never get out. I don't know about the depth of the grave but I saw the pile of rocks for myself.

Finally, it was over gumbo roads to the site for the new sign and lookout designation high above Cow Island.

It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The river, the island, the Little Rockies in the distance and the south side of the Bear Paws thrown in for good measure.

I often wondered if much of anyone ever say that lookout through the years and if it is still there and kept up and cherished by some few dedicated individuals.

A word about Jim Kipp. He was a larger than life trapper and trader who is attributed by some to have founded Fort Benton. Kipp opened up the upper Missouri to fur trading when he came up with a group of 44 men in the fall of 183l and established Fort Piegan at the mouth of the Marias River. Kipp's stature looms large in the history of Montana yet today. Later, the beautiful park at the Fred L. Robinson Bridge that is nestled in a forest of cottonwood trees, was to bear his name as well.

Cow Island, below the lookout and on the river, was as historical as any place in Montana. That island was as far west that boats could go in low water seasons on the Missouri. Cow Island was a trail too that took off running south of the Bear Paws into Fort Benton. That trail is still in use to this day.

Chief Joseph crossed the Missouri at Cow Island and figures greatly in the history of the island as well.

I can't remember just who was there that day to dedicate Emil Don Tigny's sign. A group of historians from MSU there I remember. A group of historians from all over Montana were there as well.

I was shocked to find that the second wife of James Willard Schultz was there. As I shook her hand, I felt I had stepped back in time to when Schultz was writing a history of his special times with the Blackfeet nation.

Huge clouds bellowed up and we all headed for better roads, knowing that if it started to rain on that gumbo, we might as well take up homesteads at the lookout site, it would be so long before we could get out of there.

Courtesy of Robert Lucke

The Jim Kipp Lookout sign.

On the way home thoughts of all sorts of history and the extreme beauty of the Little Rockies jiggled through my head and mind you, I had never even seen the Mission Canyon or St. Paul's Mission.

We took off crossing Cow Creek , headed across Bullwhacker Coulee bound for the Bear Paw Springs, then Clear Creek where we spend Saturday night at our log school house cabin where Henderson Creek joins Clear Creek.

That next morning Al went fishing up Henderson Creek. I stayed at the cabin and dreamed of things I had never imagined could be right out my back door so to speak.

That was my first journey back in time to the Little Rockies. It was to be the first of many that still occur today.

The excitement of the Little Rockies is as much with me today as it was way back in 1957 when I was first to view that place that just had to be enchanted!