As the train rolled into Bainville, Montana, the landscape remained vast, brown, and sun-dried; a lonely stretch of prairie that seemed to whisper “deserted highway” in earth tones. It felt desolate, yet somehow beautiful in its solitude.
Bainville was named after Charles M. Bain, the town’s first postmaster when the post office opened in 1904. With only about 208 residents recorded in the 2010 census, it’s the kind of place where neighbors wave from a mile away. The town wears its history with pride: The Pioneer’s Pride Museum, housed in a century-old building, has pioneer-era rooms, a fire truck from 1929, and even an old jail cell. Living time capsules on display.
Just east of Bainville, the Snowden Bridge spans the Missouri River, a vertical-lift railroad bridge completed in 1913. At the time it was the longest of its kind in the world. The same rail line threading through Bainville continues across that bridge, tying the town’s quiet present to its steel-and-timber past.
