“Camp Senia in the Rockies”
The Winter 2008 issue of the Montana Quarterly is hitting newsstands now with my article on Camp Senia. I have long known that the camp, located up the West Fork from Red Lodge, was a great example of Montana's dude ranching heritage. So when I was putting together "Images of America: Red Lodge," I asked descendants of Al and Senia (Pollari) Croonquist for some historic photos to include in the book.
Then this summer the Cascade wildfire burned portions of the camp, and although the news coverage was generally good, it struck me that it didn't fully cover some of the historical angles. (After all, that's the job of a magazine.) The 1920s were an odd and important time in Montana history, when the economic promise of the frontier was failing, even as its romantic promise grew.
I suggested to my editor that we take a closer look, and although the piece required more rewriting than some of mine, I was quite pleased with the end result.
If you're interested in more about the history of the camp and that era, I recommend: The Great Divide by Gary Ferguson; Dude Ranching: A Complete History by Lawrence Borne; and the files of the Carbon County Historical Society Museum.
