MOC26_Heritage_Pachimac

Journaling:

The year is 1917. My Great Grandparents moved to Montana from Canada to the county of Stillwater to a small, largely abandoned town named Nora, which was basically just a Mercantile, a Railroad station, and a few homes. They purchased the Mercantile, and all the buildings outright and renamed the town Wheat Basin.

By 1918, my great grandmother Frances was the Postmistress of the town, the family ran the Mercantile, and Great Grandpa Edward was the barber. Soon this little town grew and now had a developed main street with a grain elevator, a bank, stores, a dance hall, and lumber yards. The town was primarily an agricultural community with a stop and depot, and as my Grandma Peggy told us, it was a wonderful place to live. She grew up on a farm, and had many friends.

When Great Grandpa Edward decided to leave the town, she was very sad to leave it behind, but looked forward to a new life in Salinas, California, where the winters wouldn’t be so bone chilling cold. In 1936, the USPS closed the post office, the town soon followed.

Today, Wheat Basin is a ghost town, with little remaining that is easily visible except a number of concrete building foundations and depressions where buildings once stood. The streets and main road are also still present. The last surviving structure was the Grain Elevator, which burned down in 1997. A sign placard indicates the site of the former town. My mother and her cousin Barbara took a trip to see the town and took pictures of the empty lots, and the last remaining street sign.

Credits:
Dawn Inskip Hush Staple, chevrons
Dawn Inskip M3 Jan 18 background, button
Little Butterfly Wings Jan 18 ADDON Blue Flower, paint
ETc by Danyale Simple Life Numbers
A Labau Jane Ribbon, pearls