Sugar beets made the valley bloom, and the landscape still shows those marks today. That place would be the Billings Sugar Factory, a huge sprawling complex of where town meets farm, ironically located about halfway between downtown Billings and the old Yellowstone River townsite of Coulson. And the legacies extend to places not often thought historic. This Queen Anne house, like the Moss Mansion, were listed in the National Register in the 1980s, and the Moss-O’Donnell storyīecame better known. With just over 1 million people calling Montana home, the average sales price of a home in Montana is 189,000, whereas the price of a modular home in Montana is approximately 55 to 75 per square foot equating to. O’Donnell also had his town house, on a more modest scale but grand as far as many homes in the “new” Billings. Montana is known as the Treasure State, and for good measure plenty of great outdoors, open skies and rolling wheat fields. The Moss Mansion became a house museum in 1983. Moss also looked to the Midland Empire, and built his grand mansion in pursuit of that dream. O’Donnell’s empire depended on others for capital, none no more so dependable that Preston Moss. Amazingly the very simple farm-vernacular building that housed the project’s office at Ballatine still stands, a little building that really conveys a huge story of a federal program that transformed a region. Reclamation Service, which made the Huntley Project its second one across the West. His enthusiasm and connections attracted other investors, and soon caught the attention of the new U.S. O’Donnell expanded the ranch at Hesper Farm and turned into a private demonstration farm for the entire region, a place of beautiful cottonwood trees and modern barns. O’Donnell, self taught in the value of land, irrigation engineering, and the possible miracle crop of sugar beets, became the Oracle of Irrigation for not only the Yellowstone Valley but for all of the northern plains. O’Donnell, to make his land valuable and to give life to the town that was named for him. When Billings lost faith in Shuart, and his own son Parmly unexpectedly passed away, Billings turned to one of his son’s workers, and friends, I.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |