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Great Falls to Sun River. With 50 cents le in his pocket, he had a choice of paying to use the recently built toll wagon bridge or to use the 50 cents to buy the ham that his wife had requested. He chose to buy the ham and then to cross the river at the ford. Adams wrote, "is ford was a landmark which was near where the Great Northern Railroad bridge now crosses the stream. In he [Lile] went and had a rough passage. e bed of the stream was full of boulders and holes. e front wheel would go up and the hind wheel on the other side would go down, and then the process would be reversed. Eventually he got across but with the avowal that he would never aempt that ford again." As the years passed, any aempt to ford the river was newsworthy. e 1964 obituary of Mrs. George Bicke in the Great Falls Tribune made note that she had forded the river. "[In 1884] She came here in a covered wagon with her sister and brother-in-law [ Joe Hamilton, who was Cascade County's second sheriff ]. Upon arrival here, she forded the Missouri River alone in a buckboard at the point where the present Great Northern Railway bridge is located. She was 16 years old at the time." In 1973, as a publicity stunt, Pete Rice, decided to show how substantial Jeeps sold at Rice Motors were by fording the Missouri River just north of the Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge. "My father— John Rice—and I were flying into Great Falls on a commercial airplane. I looked down at the Missouri River and remarked to my father that the river was so low that I thought a person could drive across it." One thought led to another. Several weeks later Pete Rice got to thinking what a great Jeep commercial could be made if he drove one across the river. "I had aended the Ursuline Academy where the nuns knew a lot of Montana history. I may have goen the idea from them that there was an old ford next to the railroad bridge." "On the day that I crossed the river, I posted someone on the bridge, and they hand signaled the different directions I should steer the Jeep to keep it on the shelf. I drove into the river from the east side, and when I got half way across, I slipped into a hole that caused the Jeep to sink down to the hood and begin floating down the river. en I hit ground again. I was afraid that I would sink the Jeep, so I turned around and went back to shore. ere I encountered my brother, Mike. He said, 'What are you doing? Are you chickening out?' at did it, I turned the Jeep around and made it all the way across. I don't think the authorities would allow anyone to do it now, and I don't think I would have done it again. If it hadn't been for my brother, I wouldn't have made it across that day. Even then once was enough!" Russell Waring*, who worked for Rice Motors was there that day. "What I liked best about the crossing was when Pete drove up the embankment on the west side, the water came gushing out the exhaust." Before bridges were built people had to take their chances by fording rivers, and there were times they lost their lives. Knowing where fords were located was an important part of knowing the countryside. Aren't we glad that numerous bridges now span the Missouri River in Great Falls. *not related to the author SiG MT 40 The Buffalo Crossing next to the railroad bridge, it shows how shallow the river is even now with dams to the south of Great Falls keeping the water flow more stable. Undisturbed ruts that remain today in a pasture where the buffalo headed down to the Teton River over a century ago. Before urbanization, this is what the buffalo ruts would have looked like at the Missouri River Crossing but likely deeper and more numerous. Photo by Suzanne Waring A life-long interest in communications made Suzanne Waring first a college instructor and then a writer. She lives in Great Falls and writes about Montana people and their communities. S MT

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