i have only been checking this web site for about a year
and i have never seen it so quiet. it says i am one of 11
active sessions but i don't see any mail
anyway i hope everyone is doing well.
jeanne bole

Yes, it has been quiet lately. I think a lot of people enjoy checking this site but they don't necessarily feel comfortable posting messages.

Here's a topic that I read about recently in the Miles City Star's "Stardust" column. In the news 50 years ago apparently there was a meeting about relocating the city's dump (landfill). The Stardust column said that residents on the city's south side were protesting having the dump nearby and that they wished to have it relocated.

Now in my time I recall the landfill being located on airport hill off of Sheffield Road, and in more recent times east of town at the end of Leighton Boulevard. Does anyone know where the dump was located on the "south side" of town such that the south side residents would request it be moved?

- Dave

David - I used to love going to the dump with my dad, up airport hill - in the 50's, cause he said Elmer Fudd lived in the little shack. (smile) I too, love to look, but hesitate to write. I love the site, it's like a mini trip home.

In the early 50's I live on the South side in the 500 block on Yellowstone Ave. and as I remember the city dump was where the Country Club is now or in that area. When I was home for the Sacred Heart all 50's reunion and playing golf and thinking this is where my Dad laid the family pet to rest,emotional to say the least....Don Bissell Portland,Oregon

That's interesting, Don. Certainly seems plausible that the dump would have been in that area. I wonder when the Town & Country Club golf course opened? Apparently the Elks Club used to operate a golf course somewhere in the vicinity of Bender Park. Does anyone remember that?

- Dave

Elks golf club was behind the radio station near Carbon Hill. I have heard that people used to go out there in the winter to sled, etc. in the middle of the night. But of course I couldn't possibly confirm that.
Ken Z

I see. I think maybe I had the Bender Park idea from a late 70's to early 80's proposal to build a new course in that vicinity.

As a kid I remember doing plenty of sledding _on_ Carbon Hill in the winter time and lots of hiking on Carbon Hill in the summer time. Today I think the city has the hill fenced off and discourages kids from visiting it. That's too bad.

- Dave

Gotta straighten you"kids" out a little on this dump business. Since Don Bissell is about my vintage, I certainly wouldn't argue with him about there being a dump in the vicinity of the Town and Country Club. I just don't remember it ever being there. What I remember being there prior to the golf course was an indian camp; it was called the reservation and had a fair population. There was also a city gravel pit down there and numerous junk piles, but I'm not sure it was ever a designated dump.
For years the city dump was down behind the highway department in the corner where the dike road goes under the Milwaukee bridge. There was also a great hobo jungle down there, too. Had what I thought was some great hobo stew there a time or two. If our mothers had only known. The dump also had a resident caretaker who lived in a shack there full time. As I recall, when the dump moved from there it went op on the Yellowstone hill on the east side of highway 22; now highway 59. When that space was all used up, it went across the higway for a number of years, before it moved to it's present location. Sometime during this relocation to Yellowstone Hill, the dump was privatized and the city got out of the dump business. There was a time when there was a push to put the dump out behind the radio station, probably in the hills where the Signal Buttes estates are now, but that got shot down. If you have been following the 50 years ago items in the Stardust column in the Miles City Star lately, you might have noticed that the south side dump site proposal is getting some attention. That's how I remember the Miles City dump era. I bet Dave's mother, Ruth Schott, would back me up on some of this.
Pete

Hi Pete.
You are so right about the Indian Reservation in that area. There was a small amount of dumping there also...but it wasnt the city "Dump". And....there was another Hobo jungle down in there as well. We lived on Center Street not to far from that area and we had hobos at our back doors on a regular basis.

Recall the Indian Reservation quite clearly as Evahlia B and I played down there on the fringes. Was not unusual to see their teepees..... meat drying on lines strung between the cottonwood trees. Always lots of dogs around. Evahlia's Dad ran the old stockyards at that time so we naturally gravitated down to that area and around the Tounge. Do you recall the old CCC camp down there? Most dont.

As for the old golf course.....I seem to recall that it was situated out near Signal Butte. We would head there to build taboggon jumps on the hill sides after a deep snow. Remember? Carbon Hill was for the summer bike trips to spend the day there climbing all over it. Were'nt we fortunate to have all that freedom and security.
Guess thats all for now.
Joanne Wiemann

Didn't Ethel White Moon live in the area that is today the golf course?

My memory of Carbon Hill is that there was a Girl Scout camp out there--seemed like the back of beyond then and the area is developed now...is the camp still there? Here I live in MC and don't know. In my day, we kids used to hang out down at the slough...garter snakes and frogs and pollywogs, it was great. Haven't seen a pollywog for a long time. We used to build rafts and float around the slough...how did we not drown?????

Ethel Whitemoon, also known as "Buckskin Ethel" lived at the end of South Prairie or South Lake or one of those streets in that area, right on the bank above what is now the Town and Country club and I think the slough you are talking about ran right below her house, She was quite a character and also as I understand, quite an interesting lady to talk to. I never had the pleasure of talking to her, just knew her when I saw her.
The golf course that people are talking about was located on the road that goes to the Michels Addition and then under the interstate. It was run by the Miles City Elk's Lodge and was known as the Elk's Country Club. The term "cow pasture pool"for golf was originated there. Butch Krutzfelt's feedlot sits right on top of it now. In fact, the house that sits on top of the hill at the feedlot is the old clubhouse.
The girl scout camp sits to the right of the road a little ways after you go under the interstate and was still there the last time I looked.
Pete

Carbon Hill!! Haven't thought of it in ages and what a storm of memories that came raging through!! If what you say is true..........truly that is a shame!! Yes, times were safe back in the "when"
Heather

When we moved to Miles City about 1950 we lived on Stower Street and there was almost nothing, only a couple of houses, south of us to the alternate river channel, now called a slough, north of where the present golf course is. But I sure don't remember any 'Indian Village' down there, and since it would have been forbidden territory I certainly would remember. So it must have been before that time and I am not so old as I thought.
Ken Z

This is a great site! I have checked it out a few times and enjoy the memories that it stirs. I grew up in Miles City and it will always be home. Hey Bart...how are ya!

Ken,
The Indian camp was there alright. Tents, some teepees, dogs, meat curing on outside racks a dugout or two and it had been there a long time. As I think back on it, it probably was gone by the early fifties, though. When it was abandoned it happened pretty fast, probably due to some city ordinance. I know for certain it was there when I started high school in the late forties. You went into it on the same road that goes to the Town and Country Club now. It had a core population that pretty much called Miles City home and was the camping spot for Indians from the reservations when they came to Miles City. Not many Indians stayed in hotels in those days. Sure glad I made you feel younger.
Pete

I remember a small dump, I remember the Indian camp there and across the Tongue not far from the NP railroad bridge (which was later a boy scout encampment). But most of all, because I lived near there on Stower and Center, I remember hunting rabbits with a bb gun all over the acres that later became the golf course. I remember swimming in the Tongue and carrying on all over that land. Even though my father was happy about the golf course (his church) I missed the openness and feeling of wildness that this land held for me and my buddies. And away from the town it always gave me a sense of quietness and isolation that I still pursue in the mountains on my bike in the summer and on my skiis in the winter. Growing up in Miles City was very special, as I now look back. And the slough was a part of that specialness.

Andy Hanson