BETHANY TAFOYA University of Montana Honors College

Placed in the Big Hole Valley between the Beaverhead and Anaconda ranges and the Pioneer Mountains, Jackson and Wisdom are a vestige of the past. Old West towns with saloon dramas, rival shop owners, and fires, they had it all.

Originally called “the Crossing” for its place at the crossroads of trails leading to Gibsonville, Idaho, and the Bitterroot, Wisdom began as a small homesteading town in 1880. With a post office, mercantile, and in 1924 a ranger station, it was a place for ranch families to come to town and receive news, mail and supplies.

Jackson, named after the town’s first postmaster, Anton Jackson, was in many ways a little Wisdom. Smaller, but still having its own post office and ranger station, Jackson went through booms

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