Enchanted Highway

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The Enchanted Highway is an altogether American experience. In simple terms, it is a series of metal sculptures along a 32-mile stretch of road in North Dakota. In a larger sense, it is a testament to progress, one man’s determination, and a vision tailor-made to a community.

The man is Gary Greff. He returned to his hometown of Regent, North Dakota, in 1989 to find a town and community withering on the vine. He also had a chance encounter with a small metal sculpture made by a local farmer. Greff, a former teacher and principal, set to work on building a scrap metal sculpture of his own despite having no welding experience. And this sculpture was super-sized, a farming family of three towering over miles of rust-colored fields.

Titled “World’s Largest Tin Family” and finished in 1991, it was the first of many Greff envisioned dotting the modest road between Gladstone, which nestles against Interstate 94, and Regent, which had a population of 266 in 1990. With the sculptures, he reasoned, would come tourists. The towns could build businesses to cater to the tourists. And Regent and Gladstone, among others, would become destination towns rather than forgotten blips on the North Dakota map.

Every three years or so another followed: “Teddy Rides Again” (1993), “Pheasants on the Prairie” (1996), “Grasshoppers in the Field” (1999), “Geese in Flight” (2001), “Deer Crossing” (2002), and “Fisherman’s Dream” (2006). The next that was to be installed, “Spider’s Web,” has been held up by land rights issue, so Greff has since turned his attention to creating a knight and dragon sculpture to be placed in front of his Enchanted Castle, a hotel in Regent that serves as a resting stop at the end-point of the highway.

             

The sculptures are expensive, and Greff relies mostly on tourists’ donations and gift shop purchases to fund the project. The humble and down-to-earth artist still has to find time to create new works in between managing an RV park and taking care of the existing sculptures, the gift shop, and the hotel.

Every sculpture is intentional, not just whims of fancy. “World’s Largest Tin Family” represents the farmers of his community; “Teddy Rides Again” is a nod to North Dakota’s influence on our 26^th President; “Pheasants on the Prairie,” “Grasshoppers in the Field,” “Deer Crossing,” and “Geese in Flight” all portray creatures which define the region; and “Fisherman’s Dream” takes place on a prairie pond (yes, fishing does take place in North Dakota—according to the state’s tourism website it has particularly fine waters for walleye). An unofficial addition to the series is “The Whirlygig,” a conglomerate of people in a house who perform animations at the push of a button.

 The Enchanted Highway draws tourists from around the globe, and despite features in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, People, and others, the much-needed extra source of funding is still lacking. Regent’s population, meanwhile, has dipped, wavering between 159 and 172 from July 2010 to July 2016. The downtown strip is sparse, consisting of little more than the gift shop, a food co-op, a Sinclair gas station, and a saloon.

The struggle to keep the project alive and well has been documented in recent years in local papers. An article in The Dickinson Press suggests Greff may even need to tear down some of the fabled structures to save money. Certain pieces have fallen to the ground or are in need of a new paint job.

Yet there’s no doubt concerning Greff’s commitment to the project, and just how much it all means to him. It’s his baby, right down to the Enchanted Highway cap he wears. When I am lucky enough to meet him in person, he is stands outside his home along with two other men. He gives me a hearty handshake and asks me where I’m from. I have to tell him just how impressed I am.

“It wasn’t high on the list of things to do in my life,” Greff jokes. “You never know what direction it’s going to go. I came back home, saw that the town was dying, and the next thing you know I go, ‘Well, let’s start this.’

“We were a farming community, and all the farms got bigger and bigger and bigger and we had less and less people on the farms, and less kids and the school closed, so pretty quick…you ain’t got the people no more. So either gonna die or you’re going to do something different. Every town wants a big factory…well a town of 100 ain’t gonna get a factory. I saw that the road from Interstate to here was paved that same year. I said, ‘Now I got a paved road. Now I should be able to get people from point A to point B some way.’

“Then a local farmer out of town made a small man holding a bale up, out of metal. And then it dawned on me. That’s what the ranchers and farmers in the Midwest are good at, they’re good at welding. We can use it to our advantage. But no one’s going to stop for normal. But they might stop for the world’s largest. And that’s how it all started. I started welding and 28 years later I’m still welding.”

             

My recording inadvertently shut down at this point. The conversation shifted to the unsettling matter of the need for state funding—and the difficulty of leading an ordinary life while maintaining an extraordinary creation. Indeed, it’s painfully obvious that the vision has not really come to fruition. Polarizing thoughts came to mind: these majestic creations need to be preserved and deserve state funding and protection; and western North Dakota is so remote it is just hard to imagine anything here becoming a true tourist destination.

Greff’s vision may be considered a bit grandiose or unrealistic, but you can’t fault him for trying. And he continues to be radically dedicated to that vision while remaining unassuming, as if the vision has run away from the creator.

“There’s people that still come out and say that they really enjoy the sculptures,” Greff told The Dickinson Press. “I think, ‘Well, it must mean something to somebody’…I’ve put a lot of sweat and work and a lot of everything into this. Until they bury me, I’m going to keep working on this project and other projects that I might have. I’ve got a lot of things I’m up dreaming about at night that I want to see done.”

          

           

Note: I did not visit the Enchanted Castle, but certainly wish I had after looking it up on TripAdvisor. If I am ever back in the area, I am definitely staying there.

Additional sources:

http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/progress/4237155-despite-struggles-gary-greff-never-giving-enchanted-highway-project

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2155

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2013/08/02/enchanted-highway-sculptures-north-dakota/2603189/

http://www.myndnow.com/news/dickinson-news/gary-greff-i-need-help-with-enchanted-highway/550924694

    

  

Forsyth: Small-Town Montana

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One-hundred miles east of Billings, Montana, lies the town of Forsyth. With a population just under 2,000 people and a largely-decaying city center, you’d miss it completely if you didn’t veer just slightly off of Interstate 94 and follow the brown signs to the historical markers; luckily, I did.

My tour of the town starts at the Rosebud County Museum. There, a retired couple named James and Lavina Hall greet me and tell me about the features of the museum.

Looking at a map of Montana, the shape of Rosebud County somewhat resembles that of Vermont except it branches off more on the upper left than upper right. Forsyth is located smack dab in the middle, and considering it also has the county courthouse, it makes sense it’s the home of this museum.

 One of the first things I am struck by is an entire miniature of the town as it looked in the late 40’s and early 50’s. Constructed by Forsyth High graduate Roy Pabolo, the miniatures are in exquisite detail, right down to the people, cars, and advertising on the store windows. Just about everything is gone now, but the courthouse, the high school, the Howdy Hotel, and the Roxy Theater still stand.

           

 

 There’s an extensive library, with memories of the townspeople forever preserved in booklets and albums. An 18-ton giant Avery thirty horsepower steam engine, which lay buried in snow at the foot of a mountain for 50 years before being rescued, shines proudly for generations to come. There’s washers and shoe shine chairs; a one-room schoolhouse replica, a “country kitchen,” and a 1900’s bedroom.

          

 

A music room contains all sorts of instruments because, the display states, “Music was performed largely at home in the early days of settlement, as it was one of the few sources of entertainment.”

German prisoners-of-war were kept at Forsyth during World War II, and an overcoat with the letters “P.W.” is scrawled on its back.

There are pictures and artifacts of the Native American people and culture alongside family portraits of locals; an album of Rosebud County Derby winners; railroad pamphlets and memorabilia from Forsyth’s Centennial festivities; and a little corner dedicated to world champion trick roper George Pitman.

Forsyth was founded by Thomas A. Alexander. He filed a homestead in 1876, 16 years into the Homestead Act. In the business of selling firewood to steamers, he traded part of his land to the Northern Pacific and in 1882 Forsyth became a division point for the railroad.

Town historian C.O. Marcyes noted that before the division point “there was no occasion for a town. What little supplies that were required by the hunters, Indian traders and trappers were either brought in by long freight teams or by steamboats plying along the river.”

 Indeed, dividing the town from the Interstate is a railroad and station. Like many towns that once thrived on the railroads, and also those on state highways who lost out to the Interstates, Forsyth has moved on from its glory days – struggling to identify itself anew while at the same time paying homage to its past.

“We used to have clothing stores,” says Lavina. “Now it’s mostly casinos, bars, cafés…” she adds, her voice trailing off wistfully.

Lavina is a third generation Forsyth resident – her mother and grandmother preceded her. It was always more of a ranching town than a railroad town as she tells it, with the dominant production being sugar beets, wheat, and cattle. She graduated from Forsyth High in 1955. The school’s nickname is the Dogies (not doggies or a version of the canine – a dogie is a motherless calf in cattle herd). But even as Forsyth is in some ways dropping off the map, there are plenty of historical markers around town to remind you of its past.

The Roxy, for example, debuted in 1930 and it was a real beauty. “Equipped with RCA sound-producing equipment, the new theater boasted red velour curtains, spring cushion seats, Spanish lanterns in the foyer, and six small Spanish balconies in the auditorium itself,” reads the plaque. Currently the Roxy is showing It.

The Merchant’s Bank Block has a colorful history. Built by Alexander, it served as a bank and a post office in the early years. Legend has it that Hiram Marcyes (father of C.O. Marcyes) blackballed Alexander from the Masons, but Alexander incorporated a hall on the second floor for “the use of secret societies” (i.e. other fraternal organizations). The building would later feature a bowling alley tacked onto the rear, and a hotel among other pursuits.

And the McCuiston Building once headlined as “Tourist’s Headquarters” when the concept was still new. At the time, they were selling Fords, Hudsons, and Franklins there. In 1916, a young man lit a match to check the progress on an attendant filling up his gas tank; luckily the fire scarred only the car and not the building or men.

One of the more interesting current buildings is the 2^nd Hand Store. It could easily be a hoarder’s home as a combination of thrift store items and antiques are piled haphazardly everywhere, spilling into walkways and rising high off floors and shelves.

                

 

               

 

Forsyth is a mix of old and new. Although “new” in this case refers to decaying or vacant storefronts, and a proliferation of those bars and casinos, the “old” includes beautiful murals painted on several walls (including that of the fire station); the courthouse and high school still being fixtures in the community (there are several “dogie” banners hanging around town); and a pot of flowers in front of the library, planted by The Garden Club (which has been around for up to a century, as archival photos attest).

Before exiting, I thank the curators and shake their hands. I had heard them talking to what must have been their child or grandchild. James served in the Navy. They seem like the very kind of people that makes a small town one worth sticking around in, a community of comfort and down-to-earth relationships. Thousands of tourists and Montana residents must zoom past Forsyth every week. I can’t stop at every “historic town” that I encounter, but I’m sure glad I stopped at this one.