Brockway, Montana

The board's town site is the second Brockway. When the Great Northern announced a line across central Montana in 1913, the brothers platted a new town on its expected route and moved their buildings to it, and that haphazard cluster grew into a district of some twenty businesses by the late 1910s. The railroad never came, and the town faded until the Northern Pacific's Redwater branch arrived in 1928, after the Interstate Commerce Commission let it build the 62 miles from Glendive on May 27, 1927. The first-in-the-nation claim for 1934 rests on the board alone.

What the plaque says

Brockway, Montana In 1910, the three Brockway brothers filed on adjoining homesteads along the fertile Redwater River near here. A small trading center on brother James's homestead provided supplies and other services to their neighbors. By 1913, the settlement's importance to the area had grown enough to justify opening a post office. About that time, the Great Northern Railway announced plans, which did not materialize, to build a line across central Montana and surveyed the current Brockway town site. The town became a thriving community with over 20 businesses. Brockway built a high school in 1916 and was in the running for the county seat of what is now McCone County. In celebration of a herd of dairy cows arriving in 1918, one of eastern Montana's oldest and best rodeos, the Brockway Dairy Day Rodeo was established. The Northern Pacific Railway's Redwater branch line reached the town in 1928. Brockway's economy boomed as it became a major livestock shipping point reaching number one in the U.S. in 1934. The small town even boasted a drive-in theater that operated from 1950 to 1962. Brockway is now a peaceful frontier community, proud of its past and optimistic about its future.

Where it stands

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