Montana's STRANGEST Town?
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2023
- Dive deep into Montana's unique landscape with us as we explore Saint Marie, an intriguing quasi-ghost town rooted in Cold War history. Learn about the town's origins as an Air Force base built for nuclear defense capabilities, witness the surreal juxtaposition of abandoned homes with occupied ones, and hear about its unexpected real estate scene. Curious about the most isolated and enigmatic places in Montana? You won't want to miss our journey to this town just 16 miles north of Glasgow! #MontanaExploration #GhostTown #coldwarhistory
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![TRASH or PASS! Eminem ( Houdini ) [REACTION!!!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cB1WrZcMwMc/mqdefault.jpg)
Because nothing says “Retirement” like shoveling snow when you’re in your 90s!
I am 90 Air Force vet from Havre - I remember all the towns and AF Units on the High Line - Got married to the Montana Queen in 1956 Loved Her and Montana Thankyou for the video Great Job
You probably drove right by our place to get to the base on the Simpson Route road. Lived 6 miles north of Havre and our driveway turn off was at the bottom of a large dip in the highway.
Montanan here too. Love this state! Thank you for your service 🇺🇸
Thank you for your service!
Thank you for your service!!
Places that are desolate are to be found all around this country. Check out Epping, ND where my Grandfather and his brother homesteaded in 1900. Long long ago this old man was a Private in the US Army and was hitch hiking back to my base in Washington State. After many miles of traveling across flat land in parts of Neb and Kansas I was bothered by the complete lack of trees. If you are from Wisc. that's a problem. After many hours I saw way off in the distance a lone tree along side of the road. I said "oh a tree" and the local fellow that was giving me a ride got somewhat indignant and said, "tree hell, that's Schefield National Forest. Nice guy and I appreciated the ride.
I was born and raised in Poplar, MT. Which is on the Fort Peck Reservation about 50 miles to the East of Glasgow on Hwy 2. My father moved us to the air base in 1969 but we only stayed for 3 months and then moved back to Poplar. Glasgow was one of the largest towns aside from Williston, ND close to us. We used to go to Glasgow quite a bit for shopping and they had some decent places to eat. As I got older I lived in Glasgow from May, 1983 to April 1985 working for the Valley County sheriff's office.
My dad was stationed at Glasgow AFB, 1963-65. The housing and layout is pretty standard for military bases I have lived on.
My wife and I live in OSCODA,MICHIGAN on the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base. It was the last staging area for B-52 bombers and KC-35 refueling aircraft during Desert Storm.
The base was closed for about 10 years then refurbished as you describe there, however, this is a huge success. Over 700 units restored which includes townhouse ( such as ours), single family built homes, and single family manufactured homes.
Our runway is 10,000’ long and was the backup for the shuttle because the eastern approach is completely over Lake Huron( no population) and the western approach is over miles of uninhabited National Forest. This looked similar to your town 20 years ago, but is thriving(sort of) today. All of the 8-plex units were demolished and only three side streets of quad-plex units remain.
We live in one of the bases generals townhouse We bought it 20 years ago while the refurbishment was nearing completion. We owned an aircraft then and wanted to be near our airplane.
This is a beautiful place to live and these housing units were built to be the last thing standing if nuclear war broke out!
I was stationed at Glasgow for three years, 65-68. The base was considered isolated until someone moved the gate up to the county highway which was gravel at the time. As a result, Glasow was re-designated as only remote and the MWR funding was lost. Limited recreation facilities. Very boring but I kept busy by taking college classes by extension. The base belonged to the Strategic Air Command (SAC) and was home for B 52 bombers and KC 135 tankers. There was also an Air Defense Command (ADC) unit here, 13th FIS (F 101 Voodoos) and a small MATS detachment. By the way, the whole housing area was a part of the base and when we started closing in 19968, the Crow Nation petitioned the dept of the interior for the housing area. Never happened and there was considerable bickering from influential people from Glasgow and the state which served to drive prospective parties away. I knew this since I had a part time job working behind the bar at the Officer's club and listened to these people on a number of occasions. Booze does funny things to the brain and people sometimes say things they should not.
My (then) husband was stationed at the 694th Radar Squadron in Maiden outside of Lewistown from '65-'67. Periodically he had to go to Glasgow snd he said it was totally in the middle of nowhere. Didn't realize it was it was on St Marie. Interesting video.
My dad assigned to the 13th FIS in the 60's.
It’s so sad, rather than help the indigenous people out, they chose to let all these ginormous base homes just rot, instead. I’ll never understand our “leaders” complete lack of logic and empathy.
Don’t worry about the snow because the wind blows it away
One problem with St Marie being a retirement community is the lack of medical facilities. Most retirees are of an age that need ready access to medical care.
Also, the climate in northern
Montana is brutal! The
houses are townhouses;
not so great when you're
too old/too lame to climb
those stairs!
I agree, medical care, handicapped accessible transportation for folks who use walkers or wheelchairs, and supportive services such as time health care aides would be needed for many retirees
I guess also "Meals on Wheels"is out of the question now!
What kind of law enforcement could there be as well?
I lived and worked out of that base doing Seismic Exploration back in the late 70’s. It was still in great shape and it was luxury to us as we moved every few months to a new prospect to explore for oil and we lived in motels or tents. I was amazed that this “City” was there with a huge airport that a manufacturer could have used. Sad to see it so run down.
I delivered part of a Log Barn to that area on Christmas Day back in 2010 I believe.
The folks who lived there were running a business from their Home in a Farm House that they bought cheap and fixed up to support their Home Business.
Remote work appears to become something that can support life in the most remote locations.
That place with the haze hanging in the air is sooooo creepy. I wonder what the people are like. I love that it's low pop.
I agree!
Some of the biggest freaks I’ve ever met are from that area in mt
I lived here as a kid and have visited my grandma a couple of times. Either the people are the sweetest you’ll ever meet or they’re the worst. There’s been a case of incest and a couple years ago, some a-hole dressed as a klan member for Halloween 🙄
I grew up in Cut Bank, also on highway 2 along the highline, most commonly known as the coldest spot in the nation. Great place to grow up and live if you don't mind high winds and sub-zero temperatures 😊
There are lots of ghost towns in North America, and they have interesting histories. That is a very interesting looking place. Cheers, Will!
I'm from Idaho. I worked in the oilfields around Williston and stayed in Glasgow with my daughter on the weekends. Some years ago. I also lived for a year just outside of Darby , MT on the ranch you see on the TV series Yellowstone. I started school there. That was 1961. Things have changed a lot since then.
Yes they have!
I stayed there back in 1979 while attending a government sponsored vocational training school. The housing was all in pretty good shape back then. Its a shame that something couldn't have happened to repopulate the place.
“Streets full of people, all alone; Roads full of houses, never home; Church full of singing, out of tune; Everyone's gone to the moon” [Jonathan King “Everyone's Gone To The Moon” Released: 1979]. [AFB closed in 1976” (2:58)].
I lived in Brockton for a while and I wish I knew about this place. Interesting to visit. I went to Custer County High School in Miles City and we used to go to Glasgow for basketball games. Quite a long trip!
The nearby runway appears to be fully maintained according to Google satellite images. Lots of new pavement.
A lot of good sized homes out there, too bad so many of them are abandoned :( there's a lot of potential to make them nice again. ♥
That is true
@@LivinginMontana1 We had a house on our familly homestead in Canada that was abandoned for decades (remember metal cladding). turns out it was sound and my aunt and uncle ramped it up upon retirement (wood stove first off) and lived there until they passed on. Warm and cosy, and quite large . the barn shifted and didn't make it, but it wasn't exactly built well anyway.
Those units would need to be renovated soon because they will eventually be beyond repair if left to the elements too much longer.
The thought of living in solitude is appealing to me.... so long as I have snow-capped mountains and wildlife to look at... St. Marie is completely BARREN.... I'm waiting for Jack Nicholson to come limping around one of those houses with a double bladed axe.
I know, right. Way too funny.
The place definitely has a certain charm about it though... Just think what it could be if those properties were restored and more infrastructure was built?
Still bleak@@OperationBlackSacrab
Jesus that sounds like my kind of town
Fascinating. Thankyou.
Rotorua, New Zealand 🇳🇿
Thanks for watching!
I live in Southern Montana near Billings. The winter here is more mild than up North. I like exploring small towns and ghost ones. Next time I drive to Canada I Visit that part of Montana.
Mountain Plains Economic & Educational Program Development Program thru 6 surrounding state Job Service in 1970s. Lived in enlisted quarters (the more abandoned area in video) while training for job tech via “packets”-at our own pace. Got paid $75/wk & required classes on parenting, budgeting, nutrition. At completion, helped find a job where we chose to go. Innovative! Would love to hear if any one also completed this program. Some Air Force was still there - in the bigger homes. We had use of grocery store , movie theatre, schools, clinics, rec center. It was thriving- even tho most of military was gone. Yet I have never found any comments on this program . I’d Love to write a book on the experience.
I also went through that program. I came up with my daughter from Wyoming, and completed the drafting program. It was a great program!!
The houses as you call them was housing for the Air Force Base personal. When the AFB closed of course folks moved away. Its not like this was an actual town and suddenly a ghost town. MANY fine people live at St Marie and many wish they did! Anytime a condo comes for sale it sells rather quicley. Not everyone wants to live in town or city. St Maries is an amazing community of people.
No one wants to be controlled by a condo association or HOA. So it's probably why no one wants to buy a run-down shack
I noticed these highways have some shoulder to them.
Many paved roads in Montana (except for interstates and the
other larger highways) have no shoulder.
Anyhow, this is an interesting video and I appreciate you taking the time
to drive all the way video recording a place that many people can now learn
about as I know most of us were not aware of this place. Even someone like myself
who spent his young life in Montana ( I left when I turned 20) had never heard about this place.
We visited St Marie in 1995, with an eye for retiring in a few more years. The history is that the homes were built by the Air Force, for what is referred to as "base housing". Of course, the nicer single family homes were for the officers, and the multifamily were for enlisted families. When the base closed, the runways and other air facilities were taken over by Boeing for training and for cold weather testing. Boeing will bring out an aircraft and shut it down for a couple days of -50 degree weather, then see if it will start up. The houses were left over, and sold to private parties who wanted to develop a city there, which they named St Marie. The developer and his charming wife put us up in a unit and showed us around for a couple days. We decided to pass, as my wife is a city girl, this was too far from everything, including family, and we had about 5 years to go before retirement. I later heard that the effort to develop had floundered, and the developer gave it up.
Great info!
@@LivinginMontana1 I too see nothing but potential, but you need a govt./developer/citizen initiative like the residents condo association. Get Boeing to beef up the airport runway and get Exxon!! (yeh, right) to put in an Av Gas station with regular gas as well, and the County to get some equipment in their for roads/trash and city parks, and you're off to the races. And one corner store. I'll start the Feed Store: Cantrells Feed Bin and Used Cow Lot. I'm jus tnorth in Canada. Prairie weather mean you don't deal with a lot of mold, and other coastal issue for builds. Those framed houses are probably saveable.
Thx for sharing Will!
Any time!
I'm in Canada just north of here and work with WORKING South Sudanese Christians. Good people that stay away from drugs and that entitled BS you get from a lot of other new arrivals. With all the homelessness in the US you get a cohesive group in there and save these houses, and build a community and get it rockin along.
That place looks spooky!👻 Nothing like my dear St Mary!
Yes it does!
My family lived there in the 70s . We had a small store ,doctor at the hospital,rec center etc. My daughter went to the grade school. The place was nice an well kept. I never heard it called St. Marie's . I had to have my finger prints to live there.
Interesting!
Air force base I've been there and it was empty now there's people on the base for housing.
The highline was rather nice.
Man, that is a scary place! Reminds me of the horror movie, (people of the hills). I wouldn't want to get out of my car there.
You should travel to the south to the ghost town of Elkhorn. People live there. But it has a history. If you visit the graveyard you will figure out the history.
Ill give you a million for the whole town lol very interesting! thanks for the cool video!
Sounds perfect to me.
I live in laurel Mt. I loved it. While I lived there. Great episode. Thanks for sharing
I've been to St Marie twice and I can't recall seeing anyone out and about either time.
Oh, my! Seems like a setting for an Ira Levin or a Dean Koontz novel.
I'm a retired vet with a minimal but decent monthly income. And with a very decent credit score. Lived near the opposite corner of Montana for 21 years. where my dad was from. No, sure enough, I never even heard of this really sweet little almost ghost town. I have a hud-vash worker. On Thursday I'm gonna show her this video, and maybe another one that was also an air base long since closed. But THIS town seems to even have an association and made habitable places. I'll look into it, but I may be eligible to buy one of these places, or if one only needs work and is improvable, maybe one of the abandoned ones. Think hammer, nails, rolls and rolls of pink panther, roofing shingles, bleach, soap, plumbing and electricity tools, lpg tank(?),and a lot more, like hiring help. Don't worry, I'm not one of those over entitled soverein nutcakes. A bit democrat, but don't like political arguments.
I'm wondering if this is possible. What do you think?
I formerly lived between St Marie and Glasgow. Moved away in 1992
Thank you this interesting video of this very lonely and remote Town of Saint Marie Montana. Life can be difficult even when you live in a much more developed and populated part of the United States with Grocery Stores and Hardware Stores and Hospitals close by. Remote Towns like St. Marie almost take one back to late frontier environment where people lived miles apart and still had horse and buggy transportation and the only time you saw someone is when you went to the closest town to the General Store. I wonder if they even have Cell Service or the Internet.?
Wheat growing going on? Weird and Wild
I knew it was St. Marie almost as soon as it got started. Odd place and people indeed...some of them. There's some creepy photos and videos somewhere out there of the inside of the former hospital. Looks like the inside of a horror video game.
Not sure I would go inside of that!
Wild....
I would love to visit.
Great video! You might also like Atlanta, Idaho.
The Amtrak Empire Builder rolls right along Highway 2 eastbound after it leaves Glacier Park. Miles and miles of fields, prairies and wheat fields, dotted infrequently with tiny, dying towns. I always wonder what life would be like in these towns.
If the hydrants and water mains are functional, the myriad homes in a state of decay suggest a wealth of live fire training opportunities. If not for distance and lack of available fire apparatus, it could be a firefighting wonderland. Drill sites today sport concrete buildings that are used until they become too unstable. Back in the day, we had the luxurious use of an occasional ordinary wood-framed dwelling, but nothing like the abundance in Saint Marie, Montana.
Great idea!
It might also be good as a testing ground for new or developing fire apparatus. What longevity might a fire department expect after various pieces of suppression equipment are deployed consecutively in one fire incident after the other over an extended period of time under non-artificial conditions? A manufacturer could claim the equipment was brutalized beyond the probable experience of the fire service but remained serviceable with minimal maintenance.
That may be too isolated even for me, haha.
Glasgow MT is in Valley County.
The SAC base would have been huge
In upstate NY we had a SAC base and another one up in Plattsburgh and there are many underground complexes designed to survive a nuclear strike.
We also had 12 nuclear missiles in a 30 mile radius around Plattsburgh
The airports were massive and the runways were almost 15,000 feet long.
And when the B-52s took off fully loaded they needed the entire runway to get off the ground.
They also had C130 or something like that and they were massive cargo planes
The coolest part was all the underground bunkers
The government sold the Alternative Backup Radar Bunker and when the reporters did a story on that site they talked with the farmers that had lived on the road when it was originally built back in the fifties and they said how could you not know this was here and they all said we knew it was there because the government came and talked to us when they started building and digging out this massive hole in the ground and told us never to say anything to anyone about it
But there are still the primary radar bunker and the alternate primary radar bunker and the backup radar bunker that are still classified and no one knows exactly where those are even though the base was decommissioned
Ellsworth AFB in SD is a similar base that is still in use. The housing featured in this video is virtually identical to the housing that used to exist at Ellsworth. The old housing on Ellsworth was demolished in the 2000s. The streets and sidewalks were scraped up and removed. Nothing man made was left. A fence with “keep out” signs was erected around the location because of chemical contamination. It was declared a “superfund cleanup site.” TCE, AFFF, and nuclear residue (and more) was found in the soil and/or water. The company that evaluated the site recommended no further human habitation forever.
The funniest thing about this is them having an HOA. Like why? HOA's are notoriously bad. Why would they setup an extra rent plan? And the premise of protecting property values in a totally stagnate market is hilarious. That makes no sense.
The reason for the HOA is control. The county godfathers up there don't want a community to spring up and take away tax dollars from nearby Glasgow. It's the same thing where I live now. It's all about control.
Yeah, I was wondering about that too. HOA's are usually set up to protect the value of the property. I think that ship sailed a long time ago.
Reminds me a lot of Kevin, MT.
I do work at that former base every once in a while. It's now a aircraft testing facility and was bought from the USAF a while ago.
This town reminds me of Silver Peak Nevada.
I drove through an abandoned town in Colorado, probably built for the same reason, that consisted of one main street and configured just like an Old West cowboy movie town. All buildings were right next to each other. Still in good condition because it was only a few decades old.
Affordable housing in Montana. 😊😊
It sure is!
Old base housing! These are comfortable and good old homes to fix up!
It looks like it might be an interesting place to visit for Halloween lol.
It is!
There’s an Elm street in St. Marie! Lots of kids dare each other to walk down it at night in the pitch dark
I've always thought it would be a great place to build up a sober, clean living town, for people who are in recovery because they WANT to be clean and sober and for those who don't want to be around alcoholics and drug addicts who are using..
Interesting. Sunshine?
You would think 300-400 people could support a little store / deli that sells gas and kerosene...especially 16 miles from anywhere else. IDK, maybe I'm wrong. Interesting town though & great video. Thanks for sharing.
Have you ever been to Lavina Montana? I had relatives there.
Try Yaak Montana.
What can you say about Conrad Montana?
I thought we were going to Thoeny!
Nowhere is always Somewhere to somebody else!
The single family homes were the higher ranking officer homes.
Lived in MT 1992-1995 at Forsyth, Rosebud County...150 mi due east from Billings. 1500 people, and 150 AF. (of which we were....) Average age of the towns people was 72. They didn't like the AF and put up with us, because we brought in money. (next BIG town was Miles City, 40 mins due east...where we had to buy groceries.) They closed the base at Forsyth in 1995. I have a LOT of thoughts about MT and I will not bore you with any of them...suffice it to say, it was NOT my favorite place to live....but then we moved to FL and it's not my fav either.🤐
creepy!!!!! i expect zombies any second!!!! what a weird town.i would be afraid i couldnt leave .
It was right out of a Halloween movie!
I could create some of my creepy videos there. I want to go!
Creepy!
Ummm, not quite accurate. These houses were a part of Glasgow AFB, built by the Air Force for their personnel. After the based shut down, typical of any base decommissioning, everything went on sale to the highest bidder. My father, (representing a government entity) got thousands of $$s of stuff for free (heck, I even got a N-3B extreme weather parka, Mickey Mouse boots, and N-1B Mukluks). Developers bought the housing area and tried to develop it as St. Marie. The runway and buildings that served the B-52s and F101 Voodoos that were there, were purchased by a Boeing subsidiary and is used by Boeing. In fact, Boeing landed a jet there a few weeks ago (touch-n-go) during a test flight. Also heard that while the 737-Max8 project was grounded and Boeing kept building, many Max8s were ferried to that site (along with the former Moses Lake AFB in Washington). YOu should have explored the things like the old hospital, theater, etc. It's interesting. Also, you should have gone further north to Ophiem and then out to the west of that town to see the old Cold War radar site. I grew up in that area and remember Glasgow AFB well. B-52s flying low over the prairie, F-101s breaking the sound barrier, open houses every year. Ask me about the time, as a dumb kid, how I SOSed a B-52 to investigate my distress call.
I don't see any trash, I don't see any trash standing on the corner banging their cell phone, and I see what people are there taking pride in their place, no matter what derelict is next door. The nice thing about prairie is you don't have too much vermin moving in (maybe a pack rat or two but they're territorial) and I'm jus tnorth of this town in Canada. Those houses need a Works Progress Admin and if the framing is sound (no mold as it's not on the coast) get this housing going for young families , provide the materials, and Bob's your uncle. Only work ethic types wanted.
So this is the slums or ghetto or trailer park of homes in Montana amazing they need to send the foreigners that are dropped off in New York Texas Florida there state a city there
Hollywood should pay you a scouting fee! I think you found the location of the next Halloween movie.
I agree!
This looks like an excellent place to send all those migrating Californians!
We could build a large, tall fence around them and place signs that say "Caution: Toxic People".
This would solve a lot of problems for our country. 🤣😂😅
I lived there from 1970 to 1976.
Where do people shop for food and supplies??
Glasgow, MT is about 25 minutes away and has some shopping. However nearest population big enough for a Wal-Mart is Havre, MT or Williston, North Dakota. About 2hr. 45 minutes to around 3 hrs. That's in good weather. Winters can get down - 40's with
high winds and whiteouts in the winter. Good people though in the whole region.
Wow that’s crazy I wonder if the people living there are squatters or legitimately own the property.
They own it
You must be new to Montana! This is a known cold war relic. Now Boeing operates the air field at St. Marie.
Lived here over 20 years now, still not a local!
Montana has some treasures!
I don't know if it's a place many would want to go to to retire, it might be a place people might want to go to die.
Who mows the city lawns? They look kept up, better than most cities. Doesnt make sense
Not sure
6-8 years ago there was a lot of people there
What about toxins? I know there’s a town in the Idaho-Montana area that is extremely contaminated…and how much land goes with those homes?
Is that smoke in the air?
No, low clouds
Thanks@@LivinginMontana1
Common to have fog in the morning in that area. Looks like fall weather in the video.
NOO-KLE AR...Not Nuqular.
Potato, Potaato
Nookular? 😂🎉❤ hahaha! I haven’t heard that pronounciation since George W. was president! lol
Yea. People just wanting their freedom and sovereignty back. How crazy is that ? Thanks, Capt Joe.
Take the biscuit not cake .
A year maybe 16 months before I start shooting out of boredom. Nah,I'd move away but not before taking a dump in the middle of the town square
Helena
Would you really want to retire here and get away from it all but still have to deal with and pay a condo association. So many reasons not to.
Old school military housing.
That is very interesting. And strange. Maybe sitting on some sort of nuclear debris field 😳
Let people be ! So if they want to live there how does that effect you ?