These photos were taken in 1909 in Montana, the same year the Great Northern Railroad came through and ended this still-existing remnant of a life of open-range cattle ranches and the cowboy life of saddle horse, lariat, and branding iron.
One branch of my European ancestral family has been in Montana since beaver trapper and Indian trader days, more than 200 years. But they really didn't settle down there till the cattle business got going after the Civil War, mainly to supply the gold-mining towns, the army and the Indian reservations. To sell to markets farther afield, they had to run a trail drive down to Abilene, Kansas, and the Union Pacific railhead there, a mighty long trek. Once there, they often clashed with the Texas drovers and their tick-infested, disease-ridden longhorns. The Montanans didn't want the Texicans or their cowbrutes anywhere near their own healthy Angus and Herefords. 
There were longhorns in Montana and some ranchers interbred them with Herefords to try to improve their hardiness, especially to withstand the harsh winter weather. But my people preferred to concentrate on selectively breeding the hardiest of the Herefords and Angus. The terrific blizzards in the winter of 1886 wiped out almost all the cattle in the territory and bankrupted many ranchers, but enough of our home-bred cattle survived to keep the ranch not only solvent, but when they sold at premium prices due to the dearth of cattle brought to market, allowed us to buy out a number of distressed ranchers.When the Great Northern came through it was granted by the federal government great swaths of land on either side of the railroad right-of-way, which it sold to some local Montanans, who built towns to serve the railroad -- water and coaling stations, repair shops and the accompanying hotels, stores, saloons and brothels. But the railroad also sold land plots to eastern greenhorn farmers, locals called them "honeyockers," who brought their families with them and tried to farm the short-grass prairie and semi-arid land only to fail when the inevitable drought hit. So we were able to buy up more land for a song.
Then came World War I and a massive demand from Europe for beef to feed their armies, and also mules and horses to transport them. Suddenly, cowpokes who had become tough-minded ranchers who feared God and his elements and knew they were always just a bit of bad luck away from disaster became rich. Rich enough to withstand the price crash and droughts after the war that saw some 60,000 honeyockers abandon their farms and leave the state. Rich enough and careful enough and smart enough to avoid disaster during the long harsh drought of the 1930s that saw dust bowls develop where farming had predominated over ranching. Then came another world war and the cash avalanched on them again. But by that time they were using trucks and tractors and short-line railroad spurs, enclosed pastures and feedlots, and the open range had long been split up by barbed-wire fences and the old cowboying days had receded far into the past, already nothing but garbled legends.
Not everybody liked liked the changes. One old cowhand wrote to one of his old pals in 1913, "You wouldent know the country anymore it's all grass side down now. Wher once you rode circle and I night wrangled, a gopher couldn't graze now. The boosters say it's a better country than it ever was but it looks like hell to me I liked it better when it belonged to God it sure was his country when we knew it."
He would probably cry if he saw it now. There's a little bit of the old way left, but not much.
How well I do remember, how well I do recall
How we used to round them up, and brand them one and all.
Right on that same old spot where we used to brand the steers,
They're growing big potatoes and them little roasting ears.
I rode up on a pinnacle and pulled off my slouch hat,
Then all that I could see was farm shacks on the flat.
Said the Indian to the cowboy, "You'd better look around,"
"For you're liable to be camping on some other feller's ground."
Now the Indians and the cowboys, they used to live in peace,
Till the damned old dryland farmers came a-creeping from the East.
So we'll ride no more fat horses, and we'll have to sell our twine,
Go and eat that old sow belly cut so close to the rind.
~ Ken Atwood, an old cowpoke long gone roping in the sky
Just for the heck of it:
Some of what once was does still exist:
