Montana - MRHA

Milwaukee Road Historical Association - Part 1

Edited - Since it was a 3 day crash course, I was unable to retain all that I had heard... some this entry has since been edited. Anything in "..." is directly from a very helpful board memeber of MRHA - thank you.

"The MRHA is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to the preservation of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. There are about 3000 members [which makes this] the largest railroad historical association in the US." --- Of course there may be 3 more after that, since I talked to the shuttle driver that took me home and he wanted the website of MRHA and put it in his phone as soon as we got to the house. He asked TONS of questions about it... On top of that, I was shatting on FB with a friend of Eric's and he was asking all sorts of question about it too... wanting the website. He said his grandpa worked for railroad and when I told him that next years convention will be in Wausa, WI, he got all CAPS excited and said his dad lives 20 minutes from there.

So on with the convention---

This last weekend I was in Montana. I took the last two days of school off to take my dad on a trip which he has been waiting for for years... to a Milwaukee Road Train Convention, which happened to be in Butte, Montana. We left Thursday afternoon from Sea-Tac (the under ground train there is weird-there are three of them) and arrived in Helena, got a rental there (of course our flight got in late and Enterprise was closed, so we got Hertz instead-Nisan Pathfinders are awesome!) and drove to Butte over the Continental Great Divide - which is not the 'mountainous road' you may think. It is 75mph the whole way with one area of 'slow' which is marked at 50 mph. Wonderful scenery on the way however. Also "the Milwaukee Road crossed the divide via Pipestone Pass that is roughly 16 miles SE of Butte. It was teh highest point on the railroad at 6347 feet. The 2990' tunnel #11 (The Milwaukee numbered their tunnels in numerical order west of Chigago) carried the railroad over (or through) the summit."

Once to Butte, we pulled into our hotel, War-Bonnet Hotel. Now though their web-site says they are the 'best', the room we had did not follow that... the sheets were 'see-through', the blanket was thin, and the quilt had holes in it.... on top of that, the first morning there, I woke up with three bites on one shoulder and one on the other... they itched some but hurt way more... so I am thinking spider bites. And to top it off... our last meal at Denny's was by far way better in food quality then the hotels... I am still feeling 'it' from the whole milk and apple juice with the syrupy after taste.

OK, so the hotel was not the best in (at least) our room or the food... but the convention was great... and for someone who is novice in the railroad world, I got a GREAT 3 day crash course on the subject. There were great speakers, though some VERY long winded, these men were very entertaining, interesting and a wealth of stories and slides and wonderful old photos and videos.

Friday was busy... breakfast was so early: 6-7am then we left at 7:30 on a bus for a tour of Butte, Montana. We saw a bunch of the historical sites, such as the old train depot now turned into the channel 4 TV station; where the old tire warehouse once was-now a burned up building. We saw the base of the Berkley Pit, the largest polluted body of water in the world. Butte is in the middle of a lot of flat land, but in my opinion full of great history... not the 'butt' of Montana. I personally would have loved to walk around the historic district and gone into some of the old buildings there. After our bus tour of Butte, we went to Deer Lodge, about an hour from Butte. Once there, we got a snack of hot cinnamon buns with coffee or hot tea... it was hot out - no cold water available... hmmm. Soon after our arrival, we sat for the 100th anniversary of the driving of the Milwaukee Railroad Golden Spike ceremony. Many individuals were celebrated and honored as being relatives of those that drove in the last spike. We even bought a mini replica, but had to give it to some of my dad's friends to drive it home to WA... doubt the airlines would of let us carry it on the plane.

Deer Lodge is full of history too... "Deer Lodge was a crew change point on the railroad, meaning crews working east and westbound trains began or ended their runs at Deer Lodge. Crew change locations are always of more significance to the railroad." -- Why, I am not sure... though there may be another edited piece to explain this significance later.

My favorite museum in Deer Lodge was the Old Montana Prison. There was also a car museum too, however we only had time to visit one... so we went to the prison. It was AWESOME... and sorta creepy in some areas, like the 'hole' and solitary and the fact that the original gallows was in the 'theater.' Before lunch, we got back on the bus (we were the last ones on our bus... oops, my fault, I was enjoying taking tons of photos at the prison, lost track of time). We left for a tour of the original train depots in Deer Lodge, which is now the Depot Church. Then back to Deer Lodge for lunch and shopping/museum time. Of course, I shopped for Isabelle... an orange shirt saying 'Property of the old Montana Prison.' We left Deer Lodge about 2pm to head back to Butte. Once back, there was a presentation/speaker, then dinner, then another presentation and bed. These Railroad guys can sure stay up SUPER late listening to these presentations and gabbing away!

The next morning, up at 6, breakfast 7-8 and at 8:30 we had to all carpool to the new train depot in Butte to actually ride a two car train to Anaconda, (which incidentally was almost named Copperopolis -because copper ore, which was mined from Butte and transported to Anaconda via the rail (BA&P railroad) and then the copper was extracted from the ore using a copper smelter). The two cars of the Copper King Express were set up as they were in its original glory... booths on one side and bar style on the other. The scenery was great on the way to Anaconda. This city is, of course, very historical. And full of arsenic!

Part 2 will come shortly.

PS - All above items can be easily researched to learn more. There are some great web-sites however, I was unable to link them on blogger.