Howdy Everyone! Glad to See You

The old Montana Highway Department launched an ambitious program in 1936 to promote the state’s scenic, recreational, and historic treasures for residents and tourists. The brainchild of department engineer Bob Fletcher, the program included roadside historical markers, landscaped picnic areas, roadside museums, highway maps, and a network of port-of-entry stations strategically located at each of the main highways at Montana’s border. The stations consisted of rustic-looking log cabins, like this one, manned during the summer months by well-mannered and courteous college students duded up in blue jeans, western-style shirts, cowboy boots, and bandannas. The attendants distributed information and answered questions from visitors to Montana about its natural and historic resources, providing each out-of-state vehicle with a road map and tabloid history of the state. The highway department built this station in 1936 and it originally sat along old US Highway 91 at Monida. It was moved to Lima in the late 1940s. For two decades, thousands of visitors to Montana stopped at the cabin to learn about the state and receive a friendly welcome to Big Sky Country. The stations were an important part of Montana’s tourist industry until the highway department closed them in 1958 when the Interstate highways made them obsolete.