Bear Paw Meanderings
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This week I was going to advise going for a couple of days to Zortman and having a good steak dinner, staying maybe at the historic Buckhorn cabins and exploring Mission Canyon.
The terrible forest fire there stopped that travel guide. It reminds me of hearing of the great fire of 1936 that burned most all the timber in those wonderful mountains causing the forest de jour these days to be lodge pole pine due to that tree being the first to reforest itself after a major forest fire.
So, instead of the smoky Little Rockies, how about going on the Bill Fuglevand history tour of Clear Creek and Hungry Hollow?
Many years ago Bill Fuglevand put up several markers saying what happened on Clear Creek at various points. The first one is just north of the Crowley Ranch at the Mosser Bridge. It is the Felton log home. Even though Felton’s built the house and lived in it for several years, my family always referred to it as the Stringfellow house. My dad told the story and one spring after school was out, the Lucke boys rode their horses and wagon out and stayed in that house for a couple of weeks. They just fished and hiked around the Clear Creek area of the Bear Paw Mountains. On the last day of their camping trip, they were cleaning the house and found at the bottom of the wood box next to the cook stove, several rows of dynamite. It is a wonder they did not blow themselves to kingdom come!
Just above the heavily wooded area of Clear Creek, there is a large monument type marker that tells where the old town of Bear Paw stood. It too was a Felton enterprise. There was a store there and a post office. Robert Felton was the postmaster and his wife managed the store. It was a busy place not just because of summer fishermen and fall hunters but to the east up Copper Gulch was a large open pit copper mine that employed many people. And just over the hill to the west were the extensive gold mines of White Pine Gulch. Just south of the Copper Gulch area was another narrow coulee where still another Felton had his farm. Free land opened up next to Clear Creek so Mr. Felton skidded his farm house from the narrow gulch to the creek. When he got to a bend that he could not skid around, he simply sawed the house in half and took both halves down to the creek and put them together again where they stayed as a house for many years.
Up Hungry Hollow, there is a replica of the Methodist Church that was there for many years. Brother Van started the church and Robert Felton was the main preacher. To the north of the road past the church is the lilac choked cemetery where several are buried as they died of influenza between 1915 and 1920.
Good memories those markers provide on Clear Creek. Someone ought to put up a marker to Bill Fuglevand who wanted all to know what an interesting land Clear Creek is!
