Stories from the Valley

Richard T. Harlow

A profile of the man Harlowton was named after, including excerpts from a recorded interview offering a firsthand account of the railroad's early years in the Upper Musselshell.

A.C. Graves

A leading figure in Harlowton's early development, Graves built the town's landmark sandstone hotel in the years after the 1907 fire that reshaped Central Avenue.

Thomas E. Sorboe

Harlowton's first photographer, whose thousands of studio portraits and street scenes — many on display at the museum — remain one of the richest visual records of the town's early years.

A.J. Dreyer

Arriving as Harlowton began to boom, Dreyer designed many of its early buildings — storefronts, schools, churches, and homes.

Winnecook Post Office

A small post office east of town that served the valley for decades before closing in the 1930s.

Albert Silberling

A local homesteader and self-taught paleontologist who co-discovered the Douglass Quarry in 1902, uncovering some of the region's earliest known mammal fossils.

Sheep in the Valley

Before Harlowton had its name, it had sheep — the valley's first ranching operations, and the Merino breed that gave the original townsite its name.