The Ekalaka Eagle - Your Community Builder

I have a love affair with Ekalaka and Carter County. Compared with my entire life I didn’t spend much time there but it is embedded way down deep in my soul. Every time that I go there it is brought back to the forefront of my mind again. What is i...

I have written a number of things in the past about my history in or near Ekalaka and the editor was gracious enough to publish them. I have kind of run out of things that will make a good story. So today I will attempt to write a story consisting...

When I saw the news that a meat processing plant is being built in Belltower, I was happy, but somewhat perplexed. My first thought was, is Carter County growing? I mean growing in population, of course. Now when I ask that question several things...

I was very happy to see the article in the Eagle about the meat processing plant near Belltower called OCC Legacy Cuts. Probably nobody remembers but I wrote an article for the Eagle a few years ago suggesting this very thing. It is a little...

I was born in my Grandpa and Grandma Coons’ house near Boxelder Creek and about a half a mile from the Bell tower store and post office. My parents lived at various places around Ekalaka and even briefly in Washington as I was growing up. In 1944 w...

When we Lavells were frequenting our grandparents ranch near Belltower, there were three livable houses on their ranch. I have written about the first two. Today I am going to tell you about the Anderson place. It is worth repeating that Grandma and...

My Grandma and Grandpa Coons had two other places with houses on them besides the home place. Grandpa was a hard working guy but he never got excited or hurried about anything. Grandma was just the opposite. She was shorter than five feet and less th...

My Grandparents, Fred and Lena Coons, homesteaded near Belltower in 1911. Grandpa came out and homesteaded and after some time Grandpa and my Mother joined them. My Mother was born in Malvern, Iowa on January 10, 1910. She was just a little one when...

Those of you who follow Facebook probably know that I made a trip to Ekalaka last week. Actually it wasn’t so much a trip to Ekalaka as a trip to Camp Needmore for a family reunion. I did get to Ekalaka and will tell you of my impressions. First t...

I have been thinking about my Grandpa Coons and about all of the things that he did that we, his grandkids, loved. I have written a story previously where I called him the greatest man that ever lived and I stand by that. Grandpa was born in 1879, so...

Several years ago, Ernest Tooke wrote a story about all the business, present time or not, that had been in Ekalaka. It was fairly complete, but I am going to tell you about one business that he didn't mention and tell you about one that I know...

A big thing as we were growing up in and around Ekalaka was the water supply. People out in the country or on the edges of Ekalaka had wells. You usually could find ground water at 10 or 15 feet but they would go on through that and go to another...

I was looking at a memory on Facebook this morning where I had promised to write a story for the Eagle about people I had known in Carter County and those that I had met since then on Facebook. I have never written that story and really don't...

I was released from the Army in March, 1959. I worked around town, Miles City, for several months in various jobs. After working several months in these less than memorable jobs, I went to work for Jim and Bettylou Thulesen on their ranch out by...

The January 3rd issue of the Eagle had an article about the Montana Greats Project which was recently published in the Billings Gazette. This article invited Ekalaka people to give their opinions on the greatest athletes from Carter County. I...

As we were growing up in Ekalaka, Independence Day was a lot of fun and very important to us. We always went out to the Grandparents farm to celebrate. Our cousins, Hans, Gale, Ronald and Doris would always come out with their parents, Joe and...

I was so sorry to hear about the death of my classmate, Donna Sjoblom Smith. I started grade school in Ekalaka in 1944 in the first grade; we had no kindergarten then. Part of my class was Donna Sjoblom. Donna was cute as could be and was smart,...

Rattlesnakes were a definite fact of life in and around Ekalaka. At that time we killed every rattlesnake we encountered immediately. I am not so sure that I would do that now, in fact, if they were not in a position to harm me or mine I would go abo...

I think that I might have written before about my mother’s garden when we were growing up in Ekalaka. In a recent Eagle, I saw Lois Lambert’s story about their garden and how it was so late getting in so I decided to write something else. I am sur...

The forest behind our second house in Ekalaka was a source of great enjoyment to me. I spent a lot of time in it either alone or with others. We called this forest the short pine hills and the forest further south and east we called the long pine hil...

Dear Eric, I am writing to correct a mistake I made in one of my stories. I told about an airplane crash that took the lives of two local men. I correctly identified one as Bud Hansen but incorrectly identified the other as Clyde Sandon. It was...

My sheep herding experiences started at a young age. At probably age 9, I went out to my Grandparent Coons ranch on Boxelder near Belltower and stayed there all summer. I worked and they paid me something though not too much. This lasted through age...

As I was growing up in and around Ekalaka, coyotes were public enemy number one. Everyone killed them on sight. It was generally believed (and I believe it) that they were a terrible predator of lambs and even calves sometimes. They were shot on...

I have a crazy idea, I am a crazy idea sort of guy. Anyway, you know how we used to have several news columns from various parts of the county. Now we are down to Capitol News. How about having a news column about people who used to live in Ekalaka,...

I haven’t written a story for the Eagle recently and I thought some of you might want to know what I have been up to. My daughter Brenda, recently got a job in Sacramento in the field that she was in before she came up here to help me with her m...