Books

Dusting Off the Old Ones

A Toll Road

We wonder how many of our readers have been obliged to pay a toll to use a certain strip of road or highway--well, we'll venture that if any have, it was not in Montana. However, there used to be a toll road in the locality, and it was not over 40 miles from Miles City. For many years the road from Miles City to Forsyth went up on the north side of the Yellowstone, crossing at Rosebud or thereabouts. It crossed on a ferry here at Miles City, then went up on the north side of the river, along and over Sadie Bottom, as the flat just west of the reservation is called. Between Sadie Bottom and Rosebud, however, it is necessary to go back into the hills, as the bluff, now called Locke Bluff, extended right down to the river. In fact, the road up the north side of the river to-day still leaves the valley, just this side of the bluff and goes back into the hills. James Kennedy, a prosperous Rosebud rancher in later years, in 1877 squatted on a piece of land back from the river at this point, which contained the only passage way around Locke Bluff. He built himself a shack and ran a fence right up to the point where it was necessary that all traffic pass, and there he built a gate to allow travelers passage, but the gate was kept locked and one had to go to the house and get Jim and the key before he could get through. In 1877, the county commissioners granted Kennedy a license to operate a toll road. In making this road, Jim spent many hours grading, and it is stated that he was well repaid from the tolls which he collected. In 1882, Kennedy sold the spread to a party by the name of Joe Wheeler, moved to Rosebud and went into the stock business.