Iconic Glendive Symbol Still on The

GLENDIVE RANGER REVIEW Thursday, June 10, 2021 • Vol. 59, No. 46 • Glendive, Montana $1.00 City pool Where’s the beef? gets late Iconic Glendive symbol still on the job By Hunter Herbaugh Ranger-Review Staff Writer opening, A seemingly normal social media post on the community’s local discussion page sent many local residents down memory lane recently, chasing after a FOUNDATION OFF fewer gigantic steer that hasn’t been around since the 1990s. The steer in question TO A GOOD START: was the Hereford steer, a large, fiber- The Love Like Justice hours amid glass statue of a steer that once stood in front of the Montana Inn, a restau- Foundation helps keep rant that operated in the same location teen’s memory alive on West Towne Street that the Daw- lifeguard son County Veterinary Clinic currently while benefiting the occupies. community, The statue stood for multiple decades, acting as a local landmark that many Page 2 shortage people in the community still remem- ber, as was apparent after local resident PJ Torres posted two images of some- By Hunter Herbaugh what similar looking steers on Facebook Ranger-Review Staff in April, asking for people’s input as CELEBRATE Writer to which one they believed was the one that used to reside in Glendive. GLENDIVE: With a shortage of life- According to Torres, he found one of guards, the public swim- The Dawson County the steers while visiting a relative in ming pool will be opening Missoula and this started the conversa- Economic Development with a limited schedule this tion about whether it was the same one. year. According to Recre- Council announced “There was this great big cow over in ation Department Director Missoula, over where my sister-in-law the addition of another Jacquie Silbernagel, the and brother-in-law live, so I wondered plan is to open the pool in event during a busy July if it was that cow that used to be over a couple weeks and follow by Glendive,” he said. “I just remem- weekend, a five-day schedule, with ber it from when we were little, so I put hours of operation being it up there and people started chiming Page 12 from 1 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. in like crazy.” from Monday to Friday The steer and the Montana Inn were beginning Monday, June 21. owned by Jack and Alice Wyse, who Silbernagel alerted city retired and sold both around 1990. officials that she was fac- According to their son, Cy Wyse, who ing a shortage of lifeguards still lives in Glendive, his parents in May, saying the situation acquired the statue sometime around would likely affect pool 1970 after a chance encounter. He said operations this summer. his father spotted the steer as a truck At that time, she reported driver was hauling it through town and she only had two lifeguards stopped to eat. From the moment Jack who were guaranteed for saw it, he knew he had to have it. Photo courtesy of Cy Wyse the summer. The situation “I don’t know where it originated has somewhat improved The steer that was once a symbol of the Montana Inn stood just off Montana 200S for many from, I know that a gentleman was since then, with Silberna- passing through with it and stopped to years. After owners Jack and Alice Wyse sold the business, the bull began a new life fronting gel saying on June 7 that eat. My dad asked him if it was for sale for a feedlot in Nebraska, where it remains to this day. she was up to 10 lifeguards, WET MAY: and he said he had to deliver it some- but that’s still short of the The Facebook conversation drew in According to Cy, it was the Wein- where and he said, ‘Well you let me talk Above average May 18 needed to operate at full well over 100 comments from people reises who bought the steer when his to the guy and see what’d he want for it capacity. saying which steer they thought was parents retired. After purchasing it, precipitation added to today because if I’m selling steaks, I’ve The shortage has already the right one. the Hereford steer was moved to their gotta have that thing,’” Cy said. snow pack while river resulted in the postpone- However, there were also plenty of feedlot where it was given a new sign Obviously, Jack managed to get the ment of swim lessons and comments from people who pointed to reading “Beef, King of Meats.” It stood flows hit normal steer for himself. From that point on, according to Silbernagel, other fiberglass cows they had found until June 7, 2010, according to their the statue became a very visible icon seasonal levels, they will be postponed until in various places as possibly being website, when a particularly rough of the community, with people stopping she is able to recruit and the one once found in Glendive. It thunderstorm severely damaged it. It to take pictures with it over the years Page 8 train an instructor. wasn’t until local resident Shannon was rebuilt in 2015 however and then and even making a few appearances in However, the pool sched- May chimed in with a picture of a painted all black, for Angus beef. The local parades. ule for the summer could steer statue standing outside a feed Weinreis Brothers company has since This all came to a stop with the change if more lifeguards lot in Minatare, Neb., once owned by sold the feedlot and the steer to anoth- Wyses’ retirement in 1995 and the auc- are recruited. Silbernagel the Weinreis family, that people began er company, Silver Star Feeders. It is tioning off of the steer. Since then it noted that she could train choosing that one as the correct steer. still standing at the feedlot. disappeared from the public eye, at May said she found the steer while on Reach Hunter Herbaugh at rrreport- See POOL, page 2 least until Torres brought it back. a trip several years ago. [email protected]. Local’s invention brought joy to kids from all over By Cindy Mullet and gave rides to the neighborhood Ranger-Review Staff Writer children to test it out, Audree said. The ride made its first appear- For years a model of the “Jolly ance at the Dawson County Fair and Jeep,” a carnival ride invented and in 1949 and 1950 Ed and his wife built by Audree Siverts’ father Ed Elsie traveled the carnival route Siverts, hung in her garage. Now it for two or three summers, going ACKERMAN ROLLS has found a new home at the Fron- down to New Mexico and working tier Gateway Museum. their way back up. Carnival life was ON: Audree is planning to move to hard, and they decided it wasn’t for Grandview Retirement Home and them, so he sold the Jolly Jeep to a Glendive native Beau was worried about what would hap- man from Denver who renamed it pen to the three-foot, built to scale the “Black Spider.” Ackerman continued to model. Feeling it was part of her Even after his retirement, Ed kept find success at national father’s legacy but also a part of busy in the small shop behind his Glendive history, she decided to see house which he called “junk hole competition, if the local museum would be inter- number two.” His father’s garage on Page 6 ested and was very happy when her the south side had already earned offer was accepted, she said. the designation, “junk hole number The model is in need of some one.” Audree, who moved back to repairs and restoration, but she A model of the “Jolly Jeep,” a carnival ride invented by a Glendive man in the 1940s, Glendive in 1995 to help her father, GLENDIVE IS ALIVE hopes that museum personnel, is now on display at the Frontier Gateway Museum. recalls often looking out the window aided by the shoebox of parts she and seeing something someone had took out with it, will be able to get it he made Glendive’s first electric carnival rides and this gave Ed the left by the shop door for him. AND WELL: running again, she said. garage door. motivation to design his own ride “There wasn’t much he couldn’t Visitors send letter The carnival ride was only one Ed had an interest in flying and which he called the “Jolly Jeep.” It fix,” she noted. of Ed’s many inventions. He left decided to build his own plane, was 70 feet in diameter, had eight In a 1994 Ranger-Review story, he touting Glendive’s school when he was 14 years old starting with a wrecked plane he arms with two carriages on the end said he had no explanation for his progress, but, according to previous Glendive found in Forsyth and adding two of each arm. If riders worked hard, special gift. “Building things just Ranger-Review stories, by then he more wrecked planes. On a family they could make the carriages rock, comes natural. When something’s Page 4 had already built a replica of a vacation trip to the West Coast, he Audree noted. no good to anybody else, I tear it World War I army tank and a go- made sure to stop at every airport Ed, with help from his son Don, apart and see how it’s built.” Thanks cart that he used to run all around along the way to hunt for spare built the ride in his father Chris to Audree’s gift, a piece of that town.

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