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Golden Valley County,
Montana
TOWNS
| Lavina |
Lavina
Named for a Sweetheart
by Margaret
Lehfeldt and Mary Morsanny
Source: ""Bicentennial
Golden Valley County Heritage '76"
Lavina was
founded just forty miles north of the Northern
Pacific railhead in Billings by one of the Territory's
best known pioneers, T.C. Power.
In earlier years, T.C. Power was well established in Fort Benton at
the time that fortified fur post changed into a
thriving city when rush to the gold mines increased
river trade on the Upper Missouri.
T.C. Power knew until 1880 Central Montana abounded in
wildlife with thousands of buffalo but was
practically uninhabited. Never-the-less, he knew
with the coming of the railroad envisioned a stage line
to answer the demand for a direct over-land route
to connect the railroad with his holdings in Fort
Benton so in May of 1882 he organized the Billings -
Benton Stage Company. It was the first north-south
line to carry mail on coaches.
About midway on the stage line there was the river that cut its
age-old course through the trees and tall grass
meadows of the wide Musselshell Valley. Where there was
a good ford, he chose an ideal site for a station,
and said "With Clate Warner and other hired help,
we put up stage stables, mess house, bunk house for the
men to sleep in, a store, and of course my saloon.
That was the biggest business of them all." Even
though he was appointed as the first post master, he
made the rounds of the stage line every month but
none of the stations pleased him as much as the
one on the south bank of the Musselshell, and in memory
of a former sweetheart, Walter Burke named it
Lavina.
As the Musselshell Valley settled up thick in the summer of 1882,
the stage stop became known as Old Lavina and it
was a hub of activity.
The bell tolled for Old Lavina when the surveyors chose a new town
site a mile downstream in the wide bend of the
Musselshell that had been the old Indian campground. A
few months later on February 16, 1908, the first
passenger train steamed past the old stage stop and
pulled up to the depot in what was now
New Lavina.*
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| Ryegate |
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