How Livingston changed things

My wife and I lived the first time in the coulee back in 1953-55.

I was a lumber grader down at the mill located above the dam. A fellow by the name of Kirkpatick owned 90% of the operation, and a fellow who ran the logging part of the company the other 10%.

Logs were floated down the Columbia River to the mill site.

With winter coming on, Kirkpatick advised the workers that the mill would shut down until spring.

Not wanting to sit idle all winter, I answered an ad in the Spokesman for a grading job in Livingston, 

Montana. I threw a few things in the car and drove to Livingston for an interview. Luckily, I threw a couple of plates and some silverware in with other things.

I got the job at the Downer Lumber Company, and they wanted me to start immediately.

We luckily found a small apartment in the upstairs of a house in the city.

I was impressed with the town because people walked around with pistols strapped to their waist.  We were visited by a Welcome Wagon person.

The mill handled what we called sugar pine. No log was thicker than 14-16 inches, and the boards that 

came off them graded from number 2 to select, very high grades.

I met a person whose family owned a dude retreat called Snowy Ridge in the Rockies about halfway between Livingston and Yellowstone Park, with Livingston only 50 miles from the northern entrance to the park. We went to the dude retreat on several occasions, a beautiful setting. The cabins were all made of logs with door handles made from antlers. The place was very rustic, but high quality. The owners said that most of their visitors came from eastern states.

That’s when we began going to Yellowstone. It was the only time that we had been there in the winter. We could drive into the park, but the roads were only plowed for a few miles. That winter, we went to the park every chance we had. Elk and buffalo were everywhere. We were bitten by the Yellowstone bug.

Over the years, we have probably gone there 20-25 times. When we started our family, we took them to the park. On one trip, our car gave out just as we got to a service area, and the mechanic told us that they would have to order a part from Billings. We were there a week, walking around in the daytime and going to ranger talks in the evening. It was one of our finest weeks.

On one of our trips to the park, we went south and discovered Teton National Park, which we visited a number of times over the years.

We hiked, drove around and took a couple of raft trips. One was during the spring runoff on the Snake River and maybe the roughest float trip we have ever been on, with maybe the exception of the Salmon River.

We lived in Livingston for three months and only returned to the coulee when Kirkpatrick let me know that the mill was starting up again. For some reason, the coulee felt like home, and probably accounted for our return 50 years later after we had lived out a number of years in Southern Idaho and 25 miles near Seattle.

This place has been home for 32 years now and still counting.

But Yellowstone has always held a special place in our hearts and minds.