Early Days in the Forest Service Volume 4

MULES OF THE REMOUNT - A LEGEND IS BORN
By Peyton Moncure

Nineteen Thirty was a good year in the Northern Region. Good because, among other reasons. that year saw the beginning of a colorful project that became closely identified with the U.S. Forest Service—the establishment of the Remount Depot with a promising program involving pack mules and saddle horses.

Here, in a beautiful location up Ninemile Creek about 30 miles from Regional headquarters in Missoula, Region 1 began the acquiring and breeding of superior pack mules and saddle horses which were to have a special destiny. Here would be headquartered the elite in pack and riding stock especially developed for the western mountains; and here would take place their training for the important role of transporting freight in the rugged forests of the Region, hauling supplies to fire lines, servicing lookouts, transporting construction materials into back country Ranger Stations and spike camps. This was the "Time of the Mule." This would be transportation with a capital "T".

Begun in 1930, phased out in 1954, the Ninemile Remount Depot saw history made, saw colorful characters and colorful events, saw the passing of the mule era with the great pack strings, witnessed the coming of the "Tin Goose"—Ford Tri-motor whose ilk was responsible, in the final analysis, for the demise of the Remount Depot. In between these dates, the Remount Depot and its neighborhood partner, the Winter Range near Perma, saw such events as the Forest Service "field days"—exhibitions put on for the public during which anyone could partake of a barbecue lunch for twenty-five cents, could watch packers load and show their pack strings in action, and could watch rodeo-type displays of bronc riding, lassoing, and other skills expected on a working stock ranch.

During these field days of the 1930s and 1940s, Dave Pronovost, the Forest Service blacksmith, demonstrated how the toughest and most stubborn of mules could be shod efficiently and without injury to either blacksmith or mule. It was during the early 1940s that Pronovost became known as the "Flying Blacksmith" when the Forest Service started flying him into Big Prairie on the Flathead to shoe the large number of mules kept there during the summer. He attained a record of 34 horses and mules shod in 1 day.

The Remount Depot acquired some new neighbors during the winter of 1933-34—a contingent of 600 CCC enrollees. Ed Mackay, the Ranger at Powell, spent that winter at the Remount Depot organizing and constructing what was to become Ninemile CCC Camp about 3 miles above the Depot. Mackay later became the Superintendent of the Remount Depot from 1940 to about 1950, following W. C. "Cap" Evans, who was superintendent from 1935 to 1939. The other superintendents were Jake Williams, who was the first, and served until 1935; and Don Chamberlain, the last, who served until the Depot was phased out.

It was at the Remount Depot that a delegation of United Nations foresters stayed for several days and nights as part of their educational field trips to forestry-oriented projects in various parts of the world. These foreign foresters, most of who could speak very little or no English, were an interesting group. One of the highlights of their stay here was the capture of a bothersome black bear in a bacon-baited bear trap made of a large culvert. The most interested observed was a German forester, a "Baron" something-or-other, who was so fascinated by the bear that the rest of his colleagues immediately dubbed him "Smokey Baron," and the name stuck with him. Lloyd Noel, Regional Supply Officer, was in charge of the Remount at the time and his cooks turned out superb—according to the visitors—meals everyday, with plenty of hot tea for the predominantly tea-drinking Europeans and Asians.

The Remount and its pack strings took part in some of the filming of "Red Skies of Montana," by 20th Century Fox. Incidentally, it was on a motorcycle ride between the Remount Depot and Missoula that the originally chosen star, Victor Mature, was involved in a wreck that landed him in a Missoula hospital for a time with a broken leg. After that happened the movie company packed up and went home to Hollywood, but were back the next summer for another try at filming the movie. (The final version was shot the following year with Richard Widmark as the star.)

It was during the late 1930s that a fleet of three giant "transporters" for mules came into existence—giant stock bodies built onto Kenworth chassis, each capable of carrying an entire pack string and its lead saddle horse. These 10-animal trucks had 10 wheels, the four sets of rear dual wheels being driven by tandem drive shaft, and were planned and developed at the Forest Service Engineering Shop in Missoula by Dave Pronovost, the blacksmith in charge of the stock. Frequently during the fire season these green behemoths—sometimes all three in a caravan—would pass through Missoula loaded with mules on their way to a fire, many pedestrians stopping to gaze at the thrilling sight of the unusual travelers whose heads and necks extended above the solid metal truck racks.

Many of the "old-timers" who were associated with the Remount Depot during its heyday have died, and information and photographs are not as complete as could be desired. But an old letter written by E. Arnold Hanson, Assistant Chief, I&E, Northern Region, bears this bit of interesting information:

For your own personal information, you might be interested to know that during the time the Remount Depot was in operation, we raised Morgan, American Saddler, and Thoroughbred horses. Heavy-grade brood mares were crossed with jacks, which in turn were crosses between Spanish and Mammoth breeds to produce the mules we needed for our fire strings. At one time there were ten pack strings at the Remount Depot utilized almost exclusively for fire suppression work. The Depot was abandoned primarily as an economy measure, but also because of our increasing use of aircraft in forest fire control and the constantly increasing number of miles of road in the Region, which cut down our need for pack stock.

Yes, "those were the days." And then it was over. The airplane had won. Planes could drop cargo by parachute onto a fire so much faster than a mule could deliver it. And fewer lookout stations needed to be supplied by pack strings—helicopters could do the job now. In fact, the airplane was even beginning to phase out the lookouts themselves. The fire-spotting plane could do the job better and cheaper.

The words "Remount Depot," "Winter Range," "mules," and "pack string" were fast fading from use. The times—in the words of a certain folksinger—"they were a-changing."

But a legend was being born.