Conquering the Divide

The Devil's Brigade in Helena

In 1942, a secret joint American-Canadian commando unit trained in the hills outside Helena, Montana, learning to ski, parachute, and kill silently with a custom-designed knife built for one purpose. By night, the same men crowded into Last Chance Gulch bars and danced at the USO. Before they shipped out, more than two hundred had married Helena girls. They went on to fight some of the most brutal engagements of the European war. After, some of them came back to Helena, to the wives they'd married in a rush, and tried to be ordinary men again.

I Didn't Die in Montana: Hank Williams Jr. on Ajax MT

On August 8, 1975, Hank Williams Jr. set out to hunt mountain goats on Ajax Peak, on the Montana-Idaho border near Wisdom. He was 26, the son of a country music legend, and the heaviest of the three hikers crossing a late-summer snowfield near the summit. He stepped into his guide's footprint. Something under his right foot moved. What followed was a fall so catastrophic that the men who reached his body couldn't believe he was still alive.

Conquering the Divide

In the early days of aviation, Montana's Continental Divide was the prize every flyboy wanted — and the mountain range that kept breaking their planes. A barnstormer crashed in a gulch. A racing legend couldn't catch a break in Butte. Then a nineteen-year-old kid who'd built his first flying machine at fourteen arrived in Helena with something to prove. He had one month left to live. Distinctly Montana Stories brings literary journalism from the pages of Distinctly Montana magazine to life in audio. Sound effects and music sourced from Epidemic Sound.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Montana Dreams

In 1909, Frank Lloyd Wright was exhausted, trapped in a failing marriage, and desperate to run away with another man's wife. That same year, Chicago financiers hired him to design a utopian orchard town in the Bitterroot Valley—an ambitious vision that would never be built. What Wright left behind in Montana, and what was taken from it a century later, is a story of ambition, loss, and the strange persistence of dreams. Written by Joseph Shelton. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound. Subscribe to the magazine at www.distinctlymontana.com/subscribe

Who the Hell Was Montana Frank?

In this episode of Distinctly Montana Stories, join me, Joseph Shelton, as I delve into the enigmatic life of Montana Frank McCray, a figure who straddled the line between myth and reality in the American West. Known as the last of Buffalo Bill's scouts, Montana Frank claimed a storied past filled with adventure, including performances in Wild West shows and connections with iconic figures. However, as we explore archived articles and personal accounts, a more complex picture emerges. Was he a legendary frontiersman or a vaudeville performer spinning tales to captivate his audience? Tune in to uncover the truth behind Montana Frank and the allure of Western folklore.