RED LODGE, Mont. — A stroll down Broadway is a good way to stretch your legs, particularly after spending three hours driving the hairpin curves of the Beartooth Highway. The mountainous route carries travelers to and from the ever-popular Yellowstone National Park.
This small town has many reasons of its own to draw in tourists. Every landmark tells a story. Every story is an episode in a history that reads like an epic novel.
For the Crow Indians, Red Lodge was a place of worship and hunting. They painted their council tepee with red clay. Folklore indicates this tradition gave the place its name. Pioneers encroached on the native people's land and built homesteads. The town was founded in 1884, a short time after the Rocky Fork Coal Co. established mining operations. The enterprise quickly attracted thousands of European immigrants and then brought in the railroad.
The high-spirited frontier town, fueled by 20 saloons and mining wealth, had its share of fistfights and gunfights. The Sundance Kid (Harry Longbaugh) and the Wild Bunch attempted to rob the bank in Red Lodge in 1897. The Pollard, a hotel built in 1893, hosted many celebrity guests, including Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane.
Respectability did come, though roughhewn edges are in place. The Victorian-era neighborhood, once home to the bank president and superintendent of the mine, portrays a gentle life of wide porches and manicured gardens.
"At one time there was Finn Town and Little Italy. We still refer to the neighborhoods as that, even though other people have moved in. Red Lodge maintains a very strong Italian and Finn community," says Art Maxwell of the Red Lodge Chamber of Commerce.
It pays to keep your head up as your walk in the historic business district. Otherwise, you will miss exquisite architectural details on the two-story brick-and-sandstone buildings. Merchants prospered during the years of the coal-mining boom. The economy slacked off after 1910, but Broadway retains much of the glory of the past.
A walking tour and a visit to the Carbon County Historical Society Museum and Mercantile are ways to learn about the town's colorful story. The museum has an interactive coal-mine exhibit, vintage gun collection and rodeo memorabilia. The Carbon County Arts Guild's gallery, housed in a rail depot built in 1889 in the classic Craftsman style, showcases original artwork by local and other Western artists.
A pleasant congeries of small shops, real estate offices, recreational outfitters, craft galleries, saloons and restaurants fills the seven-block business district. We duck into the Red Lodge Pizza Co. for lunch. Hand-tossed pizzas are popped into stone-lined ovens. Waiters scramble to refill beer and tea glasses. Patrons sit in lime-green booths. A vintage delivery bicycle hangs on a bright yellow wall.
A steady stream of people flows across sidewalks. Residents weave through clumps of tourists admiring the window displays at Montana Candy Emporium. The business occupies the old Park Theater building. Its marquee advertises squirrel zippers, a delicious mixture of caramel and peanuts.
Locals catch up on news at Red Lodge Cafe, Regis Cafe and City Bakery, where a German baker prepares breads and pastries, such as bear claws. People in a hurry gravitate to the Red Box Car, an eatery with a walk-up window and picnic tables set along the creek. The converted 100-year-old red railcar offers grilled hamburgers, homemade onion rings and Indian tacos. We glimpse a deer grazing on a patch of grass behind a nearby laundry.
Later in the day we chow down on sandwiches and salads at Foster and Logan's Pub & Grill. The eatery specializes in buffalo burgers and buffalo chili. Next, we make our way to Scoops, an ice-cream parlor with an antique soda fountain. The sun starts to settle down on this brightly lit town. Across the street, music flows from the Blue Ribbon, a bar with a boisterous crowd. A few patrons scoot next door to the Snow Creek Saloon.
On weekends, people experience a revised version of the frontier's drinking-and-gambling pastime at the Bear Creek Saloon & Steakhouse. "The Bear Creek Downs pig races are fun to watch," says Maxwell, adding that part of the betting profits from the porker races are funneled into a scholarship fund.
From its coal-mining past, Red Lodge has emerged as the seat of Carbon County. It offers jobs in professional fields. It attracts financially comfortable retirees and second-home buyers.
Best of all, this town of 2,278 citizens has a sense of community. People stop and talk and smile. They wave from behind the wheel. Red Lodge is one of those quality-of-life Western towns where people want to be, particularly if they enjoy outdoor recreation: skiing, golf, fishing, hiking and horseback riding.
The Custer National Forest and Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area feature more than 700 miles of hiking trails. They boast a wide variety of terrain for rock- and ice-climbing. Local guides and outfitters coordinate horseback-riding excursions. "Paddle-and-saddle" trips incorporate rafting on the Stillwater River.
We set off on an afternoon hike in Custer National Forest by following the West Fork of Rock Creek. The fresh, piney air, the abundance of wildflowers and the peaceful sounds of flowing water are intoxicating.
Later, we hear a stronger version of the river while sitting on our room's balcony at the Rock Creek Resort. Water rushes over giant rocks, pitching spray onto ferns edging the banks. At other locations, kayakers revel in the thundering Class IV and Class V rapids found in the area.
The Red Lodge Mountain Resort's 18-hole golf course provides a challenging layout, plus 100-mile views. The place converts into one of Montana's prime ski destinations during snow season. Downhill and cross-country skiers and snowboarders pour onto the resort's vast acreage from late November until mid-April.
We experience the wide-open skies of Montana as we drive northward through hilly ranch country. A scenic loop connects Red Lodge with Absarokee, Columbus, Joliet and Roberts. It follows the Stillwater River to the Yellowstone River Valley and the Rock Creek watershed.
The brief drive relaxes, rather than dazzles, the eye. We see quietly pretty ranch houses with tin roofs and wide porches, oversized barns packed with hay bales, moss-green fields dotted with grazing horses and cows, gravel driveways marked by head gates and old-time general stores and quaint cafes filled with decidedly unpressured-looking people.