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Such a nice building. It would have been fun to look around, but it looks like great rattlesnake country so maybe not.
Just below Morony Dam east of Great Falls, Montana is the remnants of "Ragtown", once a bustling community of about 500 housing dam builders on the Backroads in the late 1920s. All that's left is this brick building, a few fire hydrants and concrete paths covered by grass/brush. A couple miles downstream is Sulphur Springs, its waters reputedly healing a "deathly ill" Sacajawea during the Lewis & Clark Expedition.
Very interesting: In order to house on-site dam operators and their families, Montana Power Company built small communities known as “operator camps”, at their isolated hydroelectric facilities at Rainbow, Ryan and Morony Dams. On-site operators were needed at the dams early in the century to provide round-the-clock monitoring and response to problems. Camps varied in size depending on the number of operators and supervisory personnel needed.
Construction of the camps occurred from 1910 to the 1930s. As automation improved, camps at newer facilities such as Cochrane Dam, built in 1958, were not needed. The camps at Rainbow and Morony Dams remained in existence for over 70 years.
Just below Morony Dam east of Great Falls, Montana is the remnants of "Ragtown", once a bustling community of about 500 housing dam builders on the Backroads in the late 1920s. All that's left is this brick building, a few fire hydrants and concrete paths covered by grass/brush. A couple miles downstream is Sulphur Springs, its waters reputedly healing a "deathly ill" Sacajawea during the Lewis & Clark Expedition.
Very interesting: In order to house on-site dam operators and their families, Montana Power Company built small communities known as “operator camps”, at their isolated hydroelectric facilities at Rainbow, Ryan and Morony Dams. On-site operators were needed at the dams early in the century to provide round-the-clock monitoring and response to problems. Camps varied in size depending on the number of operators and supervisory personnel needed.
Construction of the camps occurred from 1910 to the 1930s. As automation improved, camps at newer facilities such as Cochrane Dam, built in 1958, were not needed. The camps at Rainbow and Morony Dams remained in existence for over 70 years.