Spear Siding

Spear Siding was a railway siding located between Wyola, Montana and Lodge Grass, Montana in the Big Horn valley. Without cattle trucks like there are today, or local livestock auction markets, this was where the cattle ranchers from the area brought their cattle in the fall to be shipped to markets further east..

When I was going to high school in Lodge Grass, mother and I often visited my grandparents, then retired, in Sheridan, Wyoming and we would drive past the corrals at Spear Siding on our way back to Lodge Grass. When she was still a teenager, and later, after she had her teaching certificate but was still living at home and teaching at Big Bend school, she rode with her father from the ranch, driving the cattle they were selling to be shipped out by rail.

It would have been between 30 and 40 miles from the ranch to Spear Siding and driving cattle, would probably have taken two days to get there although I don't recall actually asking how long it took. Once there, the cattle would have been penned, then loaded on cattle cars to be shipped by rail to the markets.

There were no roads across the small mountain range between the ranch and Spear Siding and Mama told me that they would stop and drink from a spring on the way. Grandpa knew where it was from years of riding the area, but they had to get off the horses and walk through the brush along a cow path to get to it. She told of following him once, only to have him stop abruptly, snapping "don't move" ... and looked down to see a rattlesnake between his feet. She said she was absolutely frozen, could hardly breathe, while the snake calmly raised his head, looked her in the eye, then put his head down and slithered off into the brush.

She said she never did walk in to that spring again without watching every single step she took.