The service station industry was still in its infancy when businessman H. Earl Clack began building a network of retail gasoline and bulk oil outlets across the northern plains into the Pacific Northwest. His company headquarters were in Havre, and the orange and green Hi-Power logo could be found during the 1930s in virtually every community along the Montana Hi-Line. Prior to World War II, Clack outlets in Montana comprised the most extensive network of retail stations marketing regionally produced petroleum products. Clack was an early proponent of functional gas station design and one of the first retailers to adopt the modern flat-roof that came into vogue in the early 1930s. A rounded canopy over the pump island and three sets of raised chevrons incorporated into the design are distinctive stylistic additions that established Clack’s corporate identity. This vintage example, first operated by Walter “Timber” Woods in the early 1930s, is one of few remaining in the state. Husky Oil Company acquired Clack assets in 1955, and the station was vacant for several years after 1957. In the early 1960s, the Town of Saco leased the property. The community added a picnic shelter east of the office and repaired the inside facilities so that the former station could be used as a rest stop for weary US 2 travelers.
]]>A nearby wind-swept ridge overlooking the Cree Crossing on the Milk River was the original resting place of this ancient weather-worn effigy. There the boulder sat as the leader of a herd of reclining buffalo envisioned in an outcrop of granite. Incised markings made in the distant past define its horns, eyes, backbone, and ribs. Since late prehistoric times, native peoples of the Northern Plains have revered the Sleeping Buffalo’s spiritual power. Oral traditions reveal that is was well known to the Cree, Chippewa, Sioux, Assiniboine, and Gros Ventre as well as the more distant Blackfeet, Crow, and Northern Cheyenne. Stories passed from generation to generation tell how the “herd” fooled more than one buffalo-hunting party. While each tribe has its own culture and beliefs, native peoples share a worldview intertwining the sacred and secular. A Chippewa-Cree elder explained, “These rocks are sacred, just like our old people.” In 1932, the Sleeping Buffalo was separated from its ridgetop companions. Relocated to the City Park in Malta, the Sleeping Buffalo was said to have been restless; stories are told of its changing position and nighttime bellowing. Moved to this site in 1967 from old Highway 2, the Sleeping Buffalo was later rejoined by the larger “Medicine Rock” in 1987, also collected near Cree Crossing. These timeless objects continue to figure prominently in traditional ceremonies. They provide a link to ancestral peoples of the high plains and the long ago time when, as one elder put it, “The power of the prairie was the buffalo.”
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