Thursday Evening, Sept. 25, Williston

4:00-7:00 Registration, Lobby, El Rancho Motel

7:00-8:00 Opening Reception, El Rancho Motel

8:00-9:00 Opening Program: "Country Grain Elevators of the Northern Plains," Bruce Selyem

Friday, Sept. 26, Williston

Williston (the schedule says we're leaving Williston at 8:00 am, but that's 7:00 am in Montana. We've got lots of ground to cover)

8:00 cdt Buses depart El Rancho Motel

7:45 mdt Snowden Bridge Built in 1913 by the Great Northern RR, it's a Waddell vertical-lift bridge across the Missouri River. When built, and for a few decades thereafter, it was the world's longest vertical-lift span.

9:15 Crystal Sugar Refinery, Sidney The Lower Yellowstone valley features large acreages of irrigated croplands that produce sugar beets. Crystal Sugar operates a large beet refinery in Sidney, producing granulated, powdered, and brown sugar for the national market.

11:00 USDA Experiment Station, Sidney Members will see how the USDA conducts research on the High Plains and learn something about how farmers in that part of the world grow grain using dry-land farming methods.

12:30 Lunch on the bus

1:15 Montola, Culbertson In addition to grain, many farmers grow seeds, such as sunflower, safflower, and canola, for the production of edible oils. The Montola plant in Culbertson is a small industrial operation that presses oil seeds for the national market.

3:30 West Electronics and A&S Enterprises, Poplar These are tribal enterprises on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. Both make components for the military and the automotive industry. We will learn about the challenges of running businesses like these given the cultural differences between the Indian reservation and the military/industrial complex.

5:45 Fort Peck Hotel, Fort Peck We'll stay the night in this historic hotel, which is one of the buildings of the permanent townsite adjacent to Fort Peck Dam.

6:30 Dinner in the dining room, Fort Peck Hotel.

8:00 Evening Program "History of the Fort Peck Dam & Townsite,"
Fred Quivik

Saturday, Sept. 27, Fort Peck

7:45 mdt Leave Fort Peck Hotel, tour Fort Peck Theatre

8:30 Fort Peck Dam Built during the 1930s as a WPA project, it was then the world's largest earthen dam of any kind, and it's still the world's largest earthen dam built by hydraulic means. We'll see the dam, power houses, gate houses, and spillway structures.

11:30 Lunch on the bus.

12:00 Oil Field, Medicine Lake NE Montana is in the midst of the Williston Basin, a relatively small but long-producing oil field. We'll tour a small oil field, see the pumping equipment, and learn about salt-water disposal.

1:30 Threshing Bee, Culbertson This annual threshing bee features steam-powered threshing and related demonstrations. The Culbertson club also exhibits a nice collection of early farm tractors.

4:30 cdt Fort Union A National Historical Park operated by the NPS and located on the Missouri River just above the mouth of the Yellowstone, it interprets the American fur-trading industry of the first half of the nineteenth century. SELECT HERE TO SEE FORT UNION HISTORY REPORT

5:30 Outdoor Dinner at Fort Union

6:30 Buses leave Fort Union, return to Williston

Saturday night on your own

Sunday, Sept. 28, Williston

Optional Tour: This tour will give members a chance to see a couple more industrial sites and also to explore some special sites that characterize the spectacular outdoor beauty of the region. Bring your walking shoes.

9:00 cdt Bus leaves El Rancho Motel

9:00 mdt Mondak Power Plant, Sidney Mondak is an investor-owned utility that serves North Dakota and parts of eastern Montana.

10:00 Westmoreland Coal Mine, Savage This small surface mine supplies the Mondak power plant in Sidney with lignite coal.

12:00 Picnic lunch at Kane's Grove The Northern Plains is generally a treeless landscape, except the cottonwoods that grow along the banks of streams. This is one of only two hardwood "forests" in eastern Montana. Covering only about an acre, it is an island of hardwood trees, including native American elm, that survive from a previous climatic age. Adjacent to the grove a some fascinating sandstone formations.

2:30 Garden of the Gods We'll walk along the Missouri River for about a half-mile and then up into the breaks to see some more sandstone formations. Nearby are tepee rings left by Indians who live in the area before Euro-American settlement.

Evening on your own in Williston