Cow Creek (Montana) - Cow Creek Today

Cow Creek Today

Once an ancient and much used highway for migrating animals and nomadic natives, Cow Creek and the Cow Island Crossing has been reduced to dormant inactivity by the passage of time. The migrating herds of buffalo were hunted to near extinction. The nomadic Native Americans were all placed on reservations, all long removed from Cow Creek. Railroads put an end to the Missouri River steamboat. The Missouri Breaks homesteader went broke or just got discouraged and left. Highway projects through the breaks chose more conveniently located routes than Cow Island or Cow Creek. A few ranches remain along the 35 mile extent of Cow Creek, and these are in the upper portion of the creek, in or near the foothills of the Bear Paw Mountains.

Cow Creek is now one of the more remote and uninhabited spots in an area – the Missouri Breaks – notorious for its isolation. This condition is recognized by the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is currently considering the lower portion of Cow Creek for wilderness status.

The abandoned buildings of the Kipp homestead on Cow Creek bottom and the homestead on Bull bottom continue to deteriorate. For many years a snubbing post, used to tie up steamboats, was buried in the river bank between the Kipp homestead and the river. The snubbing post may have since washed into the river. It is reported that the remains of the entrenchments are still visible that used by the soldiers in the 1877 skirmish with the Nez Perce that is now known as the "Battle of Cow Island". For many years the metal wreckage from wagons burned by the Nez Perce on September 25, 1877 could be seen in Cow Creek canyon.

An unsupported (and very likely apocryphal) local rumor developed that the wagon train had been carrying gold and it was taken by the Nez Perce and buried in the vicinity.

Lower Cow Creek, where the deserted homesteads are located, is difficult to visit. A mostly dirt surfaced BLM road runs west from Montana Highway 66 for 14 miles (23 km), before dropping down into Bull Creek. Bull Creek joins the Missouri very near Cow Island, and from Bull Creek one can get to the adjacent mouth of Cow Creek. In the descent from the high ridges of the breaks into the Missouri bottom at Bull Creek, this road has steep rutted inclines and several switchbacks. The road is often cut into the side of steep cliffs. This stretch is sharply eroded with washouts, and there are precious few places to turn around, if the traveler decides he has had enough.

As for the old freight trail that went upstream from the mouth of Cow Creek, there is no longer any road to speak of in the first 15 miles. The multiple creek crossings of the old Cow Creek trail have been eroded away into cut banks, and the gravel bars where the wagons crossed have been swept down stream. Here and there the remnants of the old Cow Creek Trail can be observed along Cow Creek but it is sketchy. Upper Cow Creek is not so isolated. About 15 miles up from the Missouri, where Davidson Coulee flows into Cow Creek, Blaine County Road 330 (Cow Creek Trail) drops down Davidson ridge to Cow Creek Bottom from the west. One ranch is located near this point. The name "Cow Island Trail" is still applied to the road that goes from the junction of Cow Creek and Davidson Coulee up to the bench and on to the west, and this is probably the same route that the original Cow Island freight trail followed as it went on to Ft. Benton. Above Davidson Coulee Cow Creek is paralleled by Blain County Road 314 (Birdtail Road) for about 6 miles (10 km). In the upper reaches of Cow Creek a County road (Birdtail Road) descends to a second ranch. Blaine County Road 300 crosses Cow Creek at it upper end, near the forks of West and East Cow Creek, just under the southern flank of the Bears Paw Mountains.

Most of the roads in the breaks are simply dirt roads. Only a few are graveled. Dirt roads in the Cow Creek area (as well as most of the Missouri Breaks) can be traversed only with extreme difficulty (if at all) when wet. The breaks are partially eroded from clays of the Cretaceous formations which contain bentonite. When wet the surface of these clays becomes slick and then becomes "gumbo" which clings to and builds up on tires, wheels, feet and hooves. If caught on dirt roads in the breaks by rain the best (and sometimes the only) course is to simply wait till the surface dries out.