Following Charlie Russell’s Paintbrush
From Lewistown, Montana, to Great Falls, Montana.
By: Johnny D. Boggs 09/25/2009
It’s a quiet day in Utica. No practical joker has tied tin cans to a dog’s tail and sent that dog running across the street in front of the General Merchandise, spooking one cowboy’s horse and a flock of chickens.
From the looks of things, Utica, Montana, is always quiet—even during the “What the Hay” hay bale decorating contest the town holds the first Sunday after Labor Day.
Hay baling? What would the cowboys working the Judith River in the 1880s say to that?
In 1907, Charlie Russell painted an oil-on-canvas, Quiet Day in Utica (Charlie called it Tin Canning a Dog), for Charles Lehman, who owned the store. Among those witnessing the scene in the painting are Lehman; Milly Ringgold, a black man prospecting down the road in Yogo; and Charlie himself, leaning on a hitching rail, smoking a cigarette.
No doubt about it, Charlie was authentic, and today Utica is as weathered and as original—and, yep, authentic—as a C.M. Russell work of art.
I find myself in the center of Russell Country, but, criminy, all of Montana is really Russell Country. He left his mark across the state. In Helena, where his majestic painting Lewis and Clark Meeting Indians at Ross’ Hole hangs behind the Speaker of the House of Representative’s rostrum in the state Capitol. In Billings, where Rand Custom Hats offers the “Charles M. Russell” hat, complete with a skull hat pin or pen-and-ink illustration on the crown. At Glacier National Park, where Charlie drew the pictographs resting on Lake McDonald Lodge’s giant stone fireplace. Yet the state tourism department designates north central Montana as Russell Country: Choteau (which is really A.B. Guthrie Jr. Country), Harve, Shelby, Chinook, Fort Belknap, Fort Benton, Conrad, Winnett, Shawmut, White Sulphur Springs and many other towns and crossroads. Charlie has a National Wildlife Refuge named after him on the Missouri River, and a high school named after him in Great Falls. The Charlie Russell Chew-Choo (sounds more like chewing tobacco) is a 3.5-hour, train-ride dinner adventure out of Lewistown that crosses much of Charlie’s stamping grounds in the Judith Basin.
For this Renegade Road, I’m traveling the C.M. Russell Auto Tour. The state legislature has designated the roughly 100 miles of Highway 87 between Lewistown and Great Falls the “Charles M. Russell Trail,” with a “Memorial Way” loop out of Windham or Hobson that takes travelers to Utica, along the Judith River, to Old Yogo Town and Russell Point.
A couple of warnings: The trail designates 25 stops, but interpretive signage is rare, practically nil (pick up a booklet in Lewistown or Great Falls, or call 800-527-5348 for one). Trailers and large RVs are not recommended along the Memorial Way loop, which follows single-lane, narrow, gravel roads through remote country into Lewis & Clark National Forest.
Much of the country hasn’t changed since Charlie was cowboying and painting, and that makes this journey especially worthwhile.
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