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Historical Note - Week of March 15th

Northern Wyoming Herald, March 20, 1918

COOKE CITY WOMAN DARES LONG TRAMP THROUGH WILDS

A truly remarkable feat of endurance in a task from which many a man would shrink was accomplished by Mrs. Joe Duret, the wife of a Cooke City trapper, better known in this vicinity as “Frenchy” Duret. Mrs. Duret, if of old frontier stock, a true descendent of the pioneer women who played their part in making this country what it is today. She traveled from Gardiner to her husband’s cabin in Cooke city, a distance of over sixty miles on foot in twenty degrees below zero weather. There is not even a sign of habitation any place between Gardiner and coke City which is an old deserted mining camp. The people of Cooke City hardly number 20 and they live on what they raise. They are mostly miners who live in hopes that some day they’ll strike it, and who come to town once every three years, who get no news, who know not of special sessions and bolsheviki, who know very little as to what is going on in this world and who are quite happy and contented. Mrs. Duret is one of the two or three women in the deserted camp. It was imperative that she get back. She made the terrible journey on snowshoes and traveled through snow that averaged from 5 to 20 feet in depth. At night she slept on a blanket in the snow under the clear sky. People did not believe that she could make the journey but now word was received that after a four-day fearful struggle the brave woman reached her destination without any ill effects.

Another feat was accomplished by Scout Brooks, from that district, who made the journey over these same steep hills.—Red Lodge Journal

Snowshoing Image 2.jpg

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Cooke City Montana Museum

206 W. Main Street

P.O. Box 1134

Cooke City, MT 59020

Museum Director: Donna Rowland

Telephone : ​406-838-2203 

Email : cookecitymontanamuseum@gmail.com

 

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