Volcanic activity eons ago laid down this substantial granite deposit known as the Shonkin Sag Lacolith. Geologists Louis N. Pirrson and Walter H. Weed named the gray stone “Shonkinite” in 1894. I. E. Jenkins and W. H. Guyor began formal quarrying in 1914. They named the company after their hometown of West Quincy, Massachusetts, America’s “granite capital.” Two companies quarried granite from the two tiers of the outcrop, employing twenty-seven workers at the peak. Boulders scattered at the base of the upthrust provided enough stone for local needs and for buildings as far away as Denver. The cliff itself was never quarried. Brothers J. Arthur and Paul Rudin along with Carl Johnson, all natives of Sweden by way of Massachusetts, leased the West Quincy Quarry in 1916. They marketed their stone as “Lone Tree Granite” after the nearby ranch and former stage stop. Rudin Bros. Granite Co. supplied the stone for buildings, monuments, and engraved markers across Montana, including the boulder that marks renowned artist C.M. Russell. In 1928, the Tanners, Lone Tree ranchers, purchased the quarry land and then leased it to the Rudin Bros. After Art Rudin’s death in 1939, Johnson and Rudin’s two sons operated the quarry. Johnson purchased the business in 1943, operating it into the 1960s. Square Butte granite has fueled the local economy and has long adorned Montana’s buildings, cemeteries, and monuments.
]]>The Milwaukee Land Company laid out the neat, tree-lined streets of Square Butte in 1913. Strategically located along the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific’s route between Lewistown and Great Falls, Square Butte was for a time an important stop because it offered an abundant supply of mineral-free water and coal for the locomotives. In 1915, residents concerned about an “over supply of tramps, beggars and vagabonds” petitioned Chouteau County Commissioners to appoint a justice of the peace. The commissioners complied, and the following year hired the Harrington Granite Works to build a county jail at Square Butte. Intended as an interim holding facility, the jail was constructed on the property of rancher/businessman William P. Sullivan. Sullivan may have meant it to deter his 15 to 20 cowhands from Saturday night mischief. Perhaps his ploy was effective; there is no evidence that the jail was actually used for prisoners although legend has it that an inmate froze to death in his unheated cell. The jail did, however, later serve as road crew housing, as a bachelor’s residence, and as a granary. It also provided local children a unique clubhouse. The unusual construction of ashlar granite blocks quarried nearby illustrates the local importance of this stone, which was shipped to distant cities between 1914 and 1922. Ownership of the Sullivan Ranch passed to Dean and Donna Strand who donated the jail to the Geraldine Historical Committee in 1997.
]]>Christopher and Edward Wilson chose this narrow canyon as headquarters for their ranching operation in 1887. The brothers lived in a dugout while they built a more serviceable two-room cabin using granite hand-cut from the nearby hillside. By 1895, when Edward brought his bride to the ranch, the brothers had finished a two-story home of hand-cut sandstone complete with running water piped in from the nearby spring. In 1900, Lonetree was designated a post office and served as both mail and stage stops between the railroads at Fort Benton and Lewistown. When the “sodbusters” began arriving between 1908 and 1912, Lonetree was the mailing address for hundreds of homesteaders. New arrivals filled their wooden barrels at the Lonetree spring until their own wells could be dug. In 1912, the Lonetree School was established in the two-room cabin. On colder days, students gathered in an upstairs room of the “big house.” Lonetree had become the focal point of a community scattered over 400 square miles, but when the Milwaukee Road bypassed it in favor of the town of Geraldine, Lonetree’s importance dwindled. In 1915, the stage line disbanded, the post office moved to Geraldine, and the school closed. The 1920s offered Lonetree a new beginning when newlyweds John and Mary Tanner added the Wilson ranch to their holdings. As a child, Mary had traveled on the Fort Benton stage and stayed overnight at Lonetree. The “big house” gained new importance as home to the Tanners and their four daughters, adding yet another chapter to Lonetree’s long, varied history.
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