This is the story of a sister and brother in one of the earliest families in Roundup. Although the Kilby family eventually grows to six in number, it is this particular sister and brother who are of interest. One's reputation in building early Roundup is impeccable; the other's is highly questionable.
We start with the parents whose story begins along the Oregon Trail. Because this Trail is so important to the settling of the west, some background is appropriate.
In 1804-1806, the Lewis and Clark Expedition succeeds in finding an overland route to the Pacific Ocean. It becomes clear that passing over the Rocky Mountains will not be easy for anyone who follows (later viable mountain passes are discovered). However, because they travel first the Missouri River then the Columbia River, Lewis and Clark map out two river valleys that are tributaries of these larger rivers: the Platte River in Nebraska and the Snake River in Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon. These rivers form the beginning and ending of the Oregon Trail.
The first Europeans to travel this way are French explorers and trappers in the early 1700's. By the 1810's, there are more explorers, fur trappers, traders, mountain men, many of whom create trails and record their travels for those who follow. Trading expeditions, like the Astorians, look for "overland supply routes and trapping territory for fur trading posts". However, it is a severe depression in the Midwest that encourages multiple families to begin making their way west. Government officials now lend their voices to a chorus urging strapped farmers to go west, to consider the fertile and well-watered area of Oregon for their farms.
In 1834, a group of Methodist missionaries, accompanied by American fur traders, travel by wagon then pack horses arriving in Fort Walla Walla, Washington to start their missions. Other missionaries follow. But it is in 1843 when The Great Migration begins, with 700 to 1000 emigrants in their prairie schooners traveling 2,000 miles cross-country to Williamette Valley in Oregon. With each trip west, numbers of emigrants grow. Along this route and others later, forts and trading posts must be created to meet the supply needs of the ever-growing number of pioneers. Mines, because of gold and silver discoveries (and later, coal), also grow in the west. There must be a way to transport supplies and materials back and forth.
This is where the Kilby parents come in. They follow the Oregon Trail probably after the Civil War, in the latter 1860's-1870's. Use of the Trail continues through the Civil War but less so with the advent of steamships, sailing ships, stagecoach lines, and beginnings of the transcontinental railroad. Kilby, however, uses the Oregon Trail to freight for any mining camps that can use him. Mrs. Kilby weaves baskets. Kilby is hauling freight from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Boise, Idaho, when, in their covered wagon, Mrs. Kilby gives birth to Bellezonia, presumably the Kilby's first child. Bellezonia is named after the woman who cares for her mother when Bellezonia is born.
Another trip finds the family going west to Eugene, Oregon, and then back to Bozeman, Montana. In Coulson, a small town near the now-city of Billings, Montana, the family is living in one of the first log houses built there in 1874. At the time, Kilby is using his mule teams to work on the river grade east of Coulson. With "Custer's last stand" taking place around this time (1876), Kilby blames the "Indian trouble" on the white man's railroad going through Indian hunting territory.
Bellezonia shares the honor as first white child in Coulson with Avery Shannon, son of the druggist and, in 1874, the only white boy. Later, before her death in 1952, "Bellezonia usually wins the award at local pioneer meetings as the woman who had lived longest in Montana".
In 1880, the Kilby family homesteads near Gage on the Musselshell River, just two miles east of Roundup. Kilby builds his cabin out of cottonwood logs, with split logs and dirt used for a roof. There is not a nail in the building, which is used 70 years later to shelter stock. (The cabin, no longer there, earlier sits at the base of what is referred to now as "Kilby Butte.".) Kilby is asked, then agrees, to take his mule teams to Coulson and work on the Northern Pacific grade. Coulson at that time is only a grading camp with a druggist, saloon, post office, grocery, meat market and many tents. (Coulson exists only 1877-1882 and is replaced by Billings two miles away when the Northern Pacific Railway comes through.) "The only place for his family of six to stay is a 20-foot square log cabin at the present Midland Empire Fairgrounds" (currently Metra Park).
As she grows to adulthood, Bellezonia becomes known as the "first cowgirl on Musselshell River". She has a reputation as "top cook at several ranches where she had worked, including the '79 Ranch on Painted Robe Creek. Her brother is foreman there." (It is surmised that, during this time, Bellezonia marries a man named Gile, then loses him. Newspaper articles of 1902 and 1908 refer to Bellezonia as Mrs. Gile and Bellezonia Kilby Gile, consecutively.)
In 1908, Bellezonia Kilby Gile, with her sister, Mrs. Lizzie Bequette, start building the Roundup hospital, later known as Musselshell Valley Hospital (located at the corner of First Street West and Fifth Avenue West). The town of Roundup has been surveyed and platted previously by a surveyor named Edward Glassner. Bellezonia is the first person to purchase an entire block -- the one on which the Hospital is built.
(Photo of hospital above. More later on Bellezonia, but what about her brother? Next time...)
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