Ya gotta get the lingo right and talk like the locals…Harlo is short for Harlowton”, Montana and that’s our next stop.
When you drive in to Harlo, you can’t miss the electric train engine known as the E57B. It made its last voyage in June 1974 when the Milwaukee Road ended their 656 mile electrified route.
The Upper Musselshell Museum has two locations on Main Street and we visited both. One houses the Avaceratops Lammersi found east of here near Shawmut, MT which earned the museum a spot on the Montana Dinosaur Trail. You could spend hours in these museums! If you’re a golfer, the Jawbone Creek Golf Course will tempt you to bring your clubs along.
We traveled west next, heading towards Martinsdale. As we passed by the turnoff for Two Dot, MT a whole lot of complaining started because we were at risk of missing a stop in this cleverly-named town! So, back we went for some photo ops.
The Two Dot Bar was our best backdrop and the cameras came out.
Our next stop was the Bair Museum one mile from Martinsdale, MT. The massive and well kept ranch home was left as a museum and you won’t believe the furnishings inside. Charlie Bair made his fortune in Alaska, came to Montana and began sheep ranching in this area. I suspect he made another fortune in Montana.
His daughters, Alberta and Marguerite, gave new meaning to the term power shoppers. You’ll see the fruits of their European shopping expeditions inside the Bair Museum.
If we had planned our timing a week later we could have visited the Crazy Mountain Inn in the town of Martinsdale…and sampled award winning pie. Tip – go for the sour cream lemon and you won’t be disappointed.