Towns in Big Horn County will be featured. Send me your
pictures and memories.

WYOLA: more to come, I am putting a few current
pictures here to give you a feel for life as it used to be in Wyola.

Wyola was started about 1910 with the “section house” as the first building
near the railroad. A Baptist Mission Boarding School for the Wyola Indians
was built on the outskirts of the town. A Miss Dowd was one of the missionary teachers.

No one seems to know why the town was called Wyola but we do know
it was built for a railway station. Water from the Little Horn river could
easily be piped to run in to a water tank to fill the steam locomotives
used on the Burlington Railroad.
A coal chute was also built at Wyola, so fuel and water could be taken
in at the same time.

Wyola grew with the years, some of the earliest businesses and
residents were the Wyola Hotel built by Dottie Niver after losing
 her husband “Kid” Niver.

A grocery store was built by Jim Wallace. In 1925 Wyola was thriving,.
It had two grocery stores, meat market, garage,
Little Horn State Bank, hotel, pool hall, barber shop, grain elevator,

 

 

 

 

cafe, blacksmith shop, hardware store and a lumber yard.
A first Bapitist Church was built in the 50’s and is still
a important force today.Al Brotherson kept bees and
a built a building for extracting honey. A two room brickschool
was built near the town. Hotel, to the left was the post office,
to the right was the lumber yard, and the residence to the right
is the old “section house.”

Over time the small ranchers were bought out by the big ranchers.
As transportation become easier, residents drove 60 miles to
Sheridan, WY. or 100 miles to Billings MT. for their shopping,
medical care and other shopping needs.
The train continued to go through Wyola. At one time there were
2500 residents.Small ranchers sold out to larger ranchers and the
town of Wyola has gradually diminished until,today,only a ghost of
what the town was at one time.

 

LODGE GRASS

 

HARDIN

CROW AGENCY

 

 

July 2005-Jan.1 2008  28,057 hits
Counter now from Jan.1, 08

WELCOME TO CROW RESERVATION.COM
 BIG HORN COUNTY, MONTANA

My name is Jo Ann Boyd Scott, your host for this web site. This is a special county in the great State of Montana. Queries are answered, in the summer I can look up obits I grew up in this county and have many reference
books. E-mail me.

Be sure to go to the Crow Fair,Questions? e-mail Albert Gros-Ventre (see picture below). Black Whistle web site

 

 

.

I welcome additions or help transcribing data. This site will be linked to a new web site, Miss Indian America.com, (not online yet) I will be working on the site this summer. If you have pictures or information you would like to share, please send it via e-mail. Remember Lucy Yellow Mule and her historic time as Sheridan Rodeo Queen. Thanks to Neck Yoke Jones at the Sheridan Press we witnessed the start of the Miss Indian America contests each year. Check around in your files and send whatever you can find. Credit will be given to any submissions.

New Crow Sign