Samuel Gebo's Ranch and Other Exploits

The first requirement to discussing Samuel Wilford Gebo's exciting adventures is to learn to pronounce his surname, which is French, "Gibeau," and later Americanized. Thus, it rhymes with the name of our Montana town, Wibaux, and begins with a "zh" sound. He was born in Canada in 1862, raised near Ogdensburg, New York, lived in Minnesota, and settled in Montana early in the 1890s. He formed the Clarks Fork Coal Company and developed the Gebo Mine near Fromberg, Montana, which was named "Gebo" at the time.

In 1900 he and Henry Frank of Butte formed the Canadian American Coal and Coke Company and operated a profitable mine at Frank, Alberta. Canada must have adopted the American scheme of naming settlements after the mine owners that stimulated their existence. Since there were two in this case, Frank was the unlucky winner.

While a town named for a person would seem to be a very positive memorial, Frank, Alberta proved to be otherwise for Mr. Frank. Early on 29 April 1903, somewhere between 70 to 90 of its inhabitants were buried beneath an estimated 83 million metric tons of limestone when Turtle Mountain collapsed onto the town. Most of the bodies and supposedly the bank's very large assets are still buried under this lightning-like avalanche. Within weeks the mine reopened, the railway was cleared and running, and the town doubled its population by 1906. However, with fear of another slide, the town was relocated away from the disaster area in 1911. Profits always profit, and today the town has about 200 folks.

Interestingly, Native Americans in the area had shied away from this mountain, which, they claimed, moved and even walked. Thus, they had noted the tremors foreshadowing the disaster, whereas the settlers had ignored these superstitions. At any rate, the accident was the worst in Canadian mining history, and Frank became a frank blot on Mr. Frank's name.

After partner Frank passed away in 1908, Gebo became managing director of the firm and proceeded to create coal mines around Gebo, Wyoming, Spring Creek Mine near Lewistown, Montana, Owl Creek Mine in Gebo, Montana, and in 1910 owned the Citizens' Electric Company and the Spring Creek Power and Electric Company. These he then merged with his Lewistown Coal, Gas, and Light Company. He even caused the Great Northern Railroad to build a spur, which opened the area to ranching.

Between around 1904 and 1909 Mr. Gebo, one of the wealthiest men in Montana, turned his busy hand to agriculture and created a 300 – acre ranch, the largest in Carbon County, near Fromberg. It was this that had attracted our attention. There is a large, brick house, but the centerpiece of this spread is a mammoth barn, one of the largest in Montana and now listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Sam built this edifice to shelter his Belgian horses, along with other livestock and ranch implements. It is 154 feet long, has walls that begin with twenty feet high concrete, and reportedly has 8,000 square feet of storage space in the hayloft. He chose concrete, due to the proximity of the Gibson Concrete Works in Fromberg. The present owner, when we were there, said the barn was a high-maintenance item, and seemed not too happy with it.

In fact, to celebrate the completion of this epic barn Sam planned a magnificent dance to be held in its cavernous loft. The dance, complete with a full orchestra, attracted 300 or so invited guests, despite roads that were often impassable. According to the owner we met, this extravaganza was interrupted by federal agents indicting him for federal land fraud in Wyoming! Written sources place this apprehension after the dance, but like Josephine Doody, he did not hang around to see how that turned out but fled - in his case to Guatemala. This was rather the reverse of today's trend, which finds Guatemalans seeking to flock into our country.

Never one to remain inactive, Mr. Gebo developed a marble quarry down there, but his high-profile projects were over, and his ranch went on the auction block.

In 1927 he managed to return to the U.S. and lived in Seattle with his second wife, the first's having been lost in the financial cataclysm. Tragically, he was killed in a home gas-leak explosion in June, 1940.

Despite this inglorious end to his colorful career, Samuel Gebo, like a pharaoh, built a stupendous monument to himself. While not the size of a pyramid, the barn at Fromberg, now looks as enduring.

Not enduring, but surviving, are remnants of Gebo, Wyoming. The coal town once boasted an area population of 20,000. According to a web article, the ghost town, near Thermopolis, suffered bull-dozing in 1971, but parts still remain. Poetically, one of these is the cemetery.