Well, we finally made it to the lower 48 on September 22nd. Drove from Calgary, AB to Shelby, MT and then took Highway 2 east accross Montana. We made it as far as Havre and spent a couple of days there. Turns out that it was a good place to stop.
They have an excellent train museum as well as an underground museum.
The Havre Railroad Museum offers a brief history of the railroad in Havre with complete model railroad trains running daily. An excellent place to spend a couple of hours just looking at all the memorabilia.
Havre Beneath the Streets (Historical Underground Tour) is a recreation of Havre's history. It is a fascinating look at a little known part of the the history of the West. The city of Havre was built as a railroad supply depot by the Great Northern Railway. As such, it sprang up overnight and the collection of hastily built wooden buildings burned down rather easily. One fire took out the entire town, but residents were not to give up (after all, a steady paycheck from the railroad was at stake) and they moved into the basements of their buildings as temporary shelters. A series of tunnels was dug to connect these. This was the respectable time for the tunnel and most of the cheerful exhibits -- the underground bank, funeral parlor and drugstore (complete with soda fountain) -- reflect this middle class part of history.
In some places the underground was lit by the glass grates in the sidewalk above.
Post Office...
Dentist...
Mercantile store...
Saloon...
Brothel...
Saddle shop...
Drug store...
Chinese laundry...
And, last but not least, a mortuary...
We were impressed by the town itself - seems like a nice place to live.
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