Welcome back once again to Joliet Montana. I've got the wagon shop here on Main Street.
Many of you know that I started back in 1979 when I
joined my brother-in-law Rick Bischoff who had the brain child
of fixing buggies and wagons.
Now very few of us ever know what will end up at the end up at the end of the journey when we take that first step.
and that's kind the deal with this wagon shop.
Who would have thought that 42 years later I'd be where I'm at today.
You know, Montana had it's centennial back in 1989 and they
and the year prior to that
I got inundated with fixing buggy and wagon wheels
in preparation for that cattle drive
so I got to now a number of farmers and ranchers in the area that were
also driving teams and wagons on the side.
Well back in those days, early '91-ish, in that area,
there was a movie being produced here locally, directed by Ron Howard,
known as 'Far and Away',
and it was about the Oklahoma Land rush.
And so because the centennial has just occurred,
my name was fairly familiar with a lot of these folks that had teams and wagons.
So the company there at Far and Away, they got a hold of many of them
and the name got around that I was here doing wheel work.
Well through the course of this movie there were a lot of wrecks
so they would bring in wheels on and evening and say I need these by morning and
we'll pick them up then, which was fine.
Well towards the end of that movie they were shooting the land race itself
supposedly that happened in Oklahoma, shooting it here in Montana.
Well I had the opportunity to go and drive on set with them
for three days so I took my team down and spent a couple of days
which was a real educational time for me.
Well because of that movie there were some wranglers that worked
there that got involved with a movie later on
in early 2005 and '06 when they were shooting the 310 to Yuma movie.
Now this 310 to Yuma movie, if you've watched it, and I'll put a link to the trailer on it,
involved a heavy wagon that was all steel bodied that was kind of a prisoner wagon.
Well, through these wranglers word got back about, I fixed wagon wheels.
so they contacted me and I built the running gear for this heavy iron prison wagon.
Well there was also another coach involved in that 310 to Yuma movie
that was built on the Concord style
Part way through this movie one of the
characters in the movie is burned up in this stagecoach.
Well this burned up remnants of this stagecoach
was brought up to see if I would give an estimate on what it would take
to repair and restore this coach.
Well, as time progressed, this coach changed hands,
one wrangler to another, and then I don't know what all happened behind the scenes,
but eventually I ended up doing some horse trading on the deal and ended up owning this coach
that was burned in 310 to Yuma.
Well in the meantime, I was going to the Small Farmers sale in
Sister Oregon and I met a man over there, the name of Tom Henrich.
Well Tom Henrich and I is also involved in the National Stagecoach and Freight wagon Association
and we became friends as he would come over and I would fix tops and buggies for him,
Well he also acquired a Yellowstone coach which was also built
by the Abbott-Downing Company in Concord New Hampshire.
So he did the body work and all the painting, but he was looking for
someone to do the lettering and the striping.
Well I showed you last week a brief video of that project.
Well, at the same time I was restoring another Yellowstone Coach
for another friend here in Montana.
and in 2015, I think it was,
the National Stagecoach Association, and freight wagon Association,
put on a show of Yellowstone coaches in West Yellowstone
and so we entered both Tom's coach,
and the coach I was working on in this display.
So in 2014-15, I began my involvement with the Death Valley Conservancy
and the Borax project was beginning in it's infancy stages .
So in my preparations of the Borax project, soon to begin,
Tom, when he picked up his coach, noticed this coach that I had
from the 310 to Yuma movie, in the back corner of my shop.
And he inquired about it, if I would be interested in selling it.
He finally talked me in to selling him this 310 to Yuma coach.
He wanted to restore it
and I knew with the Borax wagon coming on that I wasn't, in reality, going to have time to fix it,
so I sold it to Tom.
Well, in the meantime, just prior to this,
I had also met another family
the Strain family, in western part of Montana,
and they had a whole passel of kids
most of these were boys and they grew up
on the back of a horse, kind of the western style of life,
Well one of them called me and asked if
I could build the wheels, or an undercarriage, for a Concord coach.
They were driving horses to a homemade stagecoach and they wanted something a little more authentic.
Well, I remembered this 310 coach that I had sold to Tom Henrich,
and I said, well, you know it's an outside chance, but why don't you call Tom and see
what h e's going to so with this coach.
They did. Tom decided that
yeah, maybe I should sell it.
Sounds like they're a good family. They need a good project
they have a good use for it, it'll get put back together,
Good for everybody all the way around.
So Tom sold it to the Strain Family.
And if you watch, on this link that I'm going to include in this video,
another channel on YouTube, it's called E Heart Livestock
H-E-A-R-T, E heart Livestock.
Well the Strain family picked up this 310 to Yuma coach,
took it home, and began to rebuild it.
Now the reason I go through this whole rambling story
is back to the beginning, we never really know where the
journey is going to end up when we take our first step.
And such is the case with this 310 to Yuma stagecoach.
Now I don't know who initially built this coach.
Maybe somebody who is watching this video will know that part of the story that I don't know.
But I know the story from the movie on.
Came up to me through a wrangler, traded hands, I traded hands,
I ended up owning it, it went to Washington, comes back to Montana
and the interesting thing about this coach, burned up as it is,
You can see here, the side frames are exposed, the side panels are gone,
the right side is burned worse than the left side.
Well in order to get this fire to really go explosively
for the movie, they cut a big hole in the roof so it had a chimney
to draft in and just pretty well did a number on a fairly expensive stagecoach.
Well the Strain boys put it back together and they come up with this idea,
awe need to reenact the stagecoach line era of the 1800's.
So they decide to start on the Idaho-Montana border
run across the 600 some miles across Montana to the North Dakota border.
Just to see what it was like back in the day.
And that's why I bring this whole deal back up,
to encourage you to go to their channel
E Heart Livestock on YouTube,
I'll put a link to it,
They presently have 6 episodes up of that journey.
The first episode which I'll link, is kind of the predatory of how this all put together,
and then they have 5 more episodes up of the journey
and what it entails to stagecoach, just like it was back in the day,
other than we have paved roads today,
what was entailed. It's a really interesting story, and
very well documented and put together.
Kudos to the videographer and to those who are putting together in story-line.
There is one left to come. Maybe by the time of this video being posted
that will be out there also.
But this whole video is to encourage you to go watch that story,
It's the story of a stagecoach that began in, right now, an unknown shop,
went to a movie, was burnt up in the movie, literally destroyed,
the undercarriage and the body came up here. I fixed the undercarriage,
but there was a group of young men, boys in this family, that
built this stagecoach back together
and brought it back to life to where is ran across,
border to border,
west coast to east coast, across the state of Montana.
And it's a fascinating story.
So you have the time, or the interest, and you want to see what the coaching days is like,
go look up this channel and watch the progress of this journey. It's a fascinating journey.
Anyway, I hope this is of interest to you. Thanks for putting up with my ramblings.
Check out their channel, It's a great story.
And once again, thanks for watching!