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June 11
Dillon is absolutely the epitome of what we think of as a small town. No big box stores, but they do have a McDonald's & Safeway. The people are incredibly friendly & helpful. Small town full of small businesses. Farmers laboring long hours. Cattlemen out mending fences & herding cattle with their ATV's. This is the county seat of Beaverhead County. You will find a county courthouse & hospital. There is a branch of the University of Montana/Western located here. It offers the only degree in the United States for Equine Studies. Also offering two & four year diplomas for horse training & Natural Horsemanship. Enrollment – 1,100 students. The town has 4100 citizens, with 60% of the county population living within 3 miles of the town, bringing Dillon & area a population to about 6,000. A ranching county, they grow a lot of wheat here & have what appears to be a large population of cattle. It is beautiful here. Not much in the way of forests until you go into their mountains. Wait 'til you see where we're parked. Quite nice. They have 3 large rivers running through the county & any number of small ones. Once this flooding settles down, the fishing will be superb. Right now, there is one river Gary can fish & he’ll be checking that out soon.
We drove through town, grabbing pictures as we went. We stopped by the Visitor’s Center to gather some info. And then, in a lonesome, windswept field in the back section of the Beaverhead County Fairgrounds we went to see Pitt. A very poignant visit to the gravesite of an elephant aged 102 at the time of her death in 1943. See story below.
(This story can be found on www.roadsideamerica.com A great resource for obscure things, & some not obscure, to see in the area you will be visiting.
Old Pitt, Military Elephant
Died 1943 - Dillon, Montana
Old Pitt lived most of her life as one of the famed elephants of John Robinson III. At its zenith, Robinson's Great Combination Show had the largest herd in the captive world, but a bank panic in 1916 forced him to sell out to Ringling Brothers.
Robinson retired to a farm in Terrace Park, a Cincinnati suburb, but kept four of his oldest elephants -- Clara, Tillie, Tony and Pitt -- with him. Neighbors became accustomed to seeing elephants pulling plows, or wandering along the roads.
Robinson still toured them from time to time, performing their old circus act, " The Military Elephants." According to news accounts, "The elephants would dash about in military garb, maneuver and fire cannons. One would fall wounded and Tillie, wearing a Red Cross nurse's cap, would rush to the rescue."
Robinson died in 1921. Over the next decade, Clara, Tillie and Tony joined him (Tillie was buried wearing her nurse's cap). Finally, in 1942, Mrs. Robinson gave Pitt, who was then more than 100 years old, to the Cole Brothers circus. In August of 1943, the circus was working its way across Montana in a series of one-nighters, on its way toward Salt Lake City. On August 6th they pulled into Dillon in the southwest part of the state. Old Pitt never left.
The elephants were grouped together at the fairgrounds when a severe storm approached. Out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning zapped down and struck Pitt, knocking her over and killing her instantly. The other elephants were badly stunned and disheveled, but recovered, as did circus owner Zach Terrell, who was attending them.
Pitt was honored with a funeral ceremony, and circus folk adorned her grave with flowers. A permanent marker was later installed, and a white fence placed around the grave.
Today, nearly sixty years later (my note: 68 years), the grave, marker and fence still can be found at the Beaverhead County Fairgrounds, back behind the rodeo stands in the middle of a field. A small sapling has been added inside the fence.
So, as Gary & I, the darlings of our parents, are learning to sit up & crawl, & our parents’ world is at war, this grand old lady is still working at the age of 102 in an obscure town in Montana where she’d never been before. She died the year of our birth. For some reason, this story just grabbed my heart & wouldn’t let go. I was glad her death was quick.
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