Joe writes:

Sweetgrass Gap Filler

I was one of the first Gap Filler trained crew at Cut Bank AFS. We serviced both the Sweetgrass and Baab (Browning) Gap Filler sites. As the crow flies, or as the telephone land line went, the Sweetgrass gap filler site was about 14 miles east and about 40 to 50 by vehicle.

The main road (now Interstate Highway 15) was paved, and was the main road to Lethbridge, Calgary, etc., and Alaska. Seems to me the site was a ways off the road. It looked to be that the building and antenna and tower were maybe one or two fingers high as you looked at them at the top of the hill (butte, bluff, whatever). As you were heading south, (coming in from Canada) you could look up from the road and see the antenna up on a hill to the right, just above a sign that said `Welcome to USA... Speed Radar Controlled`. The Border Patrol said we made believers out of potential speeders.

Went to Montana Friday after Thanksgiving (2003) for a surprise birthday party for my daughter Diana. Monday she got a hold of a friend (Terry), who used to work at the border area and he knew where the building is. So he, myself, my Montana daughter, Diana, and my New York daughter, Amanda, piled into a pickup and went up the road a piece (34 miles north from Shelby). It was surprising to see that the original road to the site is no longer anything resembling a road. The (Terraserver) aerial view, however, does look like a road.

We went another mile north up to the border road turnoff, crossed back over the highway and went west about 200 ft and then turned back south onto a farmer`s property (Terry had already called and gotten permission). We then proceeded to go across the field and up the hill. We actually got bogged down in some recent snow and had to switch to 4x drive. We turned left and along a slight ravine, then right and south and up and arrived at the Radar site.

It`s a fenced-in area and now contains two (2) buildings, one the original block building, and the other evidently not an original part of the site, but something probably put there by the landowner, made of corrugated sheets and in decaying shape.

We entered the block building and saw the frames of the bunks still on the walls along with the electrical power boxes. The floor was covered in foot high stalagmites of Owl Dung. (Terry said he was scared by an owl the last time he was up there). The diesel room around back still had the diesel concrete pads there, and the antenna tower stanchions were still intact outside.

It was kinda poignant and sad for me, seeing the place looking like that and remembering all the many trips to it almost half a century ago, and the many people I worked with.

JOE SARGENT (CUT BANK AFS...JULY 57/JUNE 61)