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- <text id=89TT2443>
- <title>
- Sep. 18, 1989: American Notes:Montana
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Sep. 18, 1989 Torching The Amazon
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 39
- American Notes
- MONTANA
- A Historic Load of Bull
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Dreamed up as an "epic" and "historic" way to celebrate 100
- years of statehood, the Great Montana Centennial Cattle Drive
- turned out to be an epic logistical headache and a historic
- huckster's delight (kitschy western "art" and $3,000
- gold-plated Winchester rifles for sale). To allow 2,400 people
- (including a handful of real cowboys), 200 wagons and 2,800
- cattle to plod 50 miles and six days from Roundup to Billings,
- U.S. Highway 87 had to be closed for two days. Saturday mail
- service to 15,000 Billings residents was canceled in
- anticipation of the drive's arrival, which produced something
- unknown in days of yore -- gridlock. One human death (a
- 68-year-old spectator suffered a heart attack) occurred during
- the drive, and half a dozen injuries were reported. Another
- casualty, noted by few, was the historic fact that the legendary
- killer winter of 1886-87 wiped out the open-range cattle
- business in Montana. Great long-distance cattle drives were
- fading memories before Montana became a state.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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