The Sun River Leaving

The panel spells her Plassman; her papers at the Montana Historical Society file her as Martha Edgerton Rolfe Plassmann. The daughter of Sidney Edgerton, Montana Territory's first governor, she crossed the plains by ox team in 1863 at thirteen. After her husband, Herbert Rolfe, died in 1895 she ran his Great Falls Leader, then went into insurance, and spent her last three decades writing history: more than 500 articles, most about trappers, pioneers and vigilantes. She died in Great Falls in 1936, at eighty-six.

What the plaque says

The Sun River Leaving The Mullan Road left the Sun River Valley here at a place called "The Leaving". After 1864, the road was better known as the Benton Road, connecting Fort Benton to Helena. Traffic on the road peaked during the late spring and early summers when high water allowed steamboats to off-load freight at Fort Benton. During those months, passengers and freight bound for the "States" flowed into Fort Benton. C.C. Huntley established a stage route between Helena and Fort Benton in 1866. One of the route's most important stations was located here at The Leaving. In 1879, it took a stagecoach about two days to travel from Helena to Fort Benton. Montana pioneer Martha Edgerton Rolfe Plassman wrote that "No stage driver in those days drove slowly in consideration of his passengers; his duty was simply to get them to their destination on time". Proprietors of stage stations contracted with the stage companies to provide services to the line and its passengers. The Leaving station was an important stop on the road where stagecoach drivers changed horses for the long pull to the next station. The station had a reputation for hospitality and good food. From 1877 to 1888, husband and wife Ed and Ida Reinecke ran the station. During the Reinecke's time there, the station was the center of a small settlement that included a general store run by famed Montana capitalist T.C. Power. The arrival of the Montana Central Railroad in 1887 ended the dominance of the Benton Road and Reinecke's stage station closed.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Shaw Indian School — 12 mi
  An Army post turned boarding school, whose Native girls went to the 1904 World's Fair as an exhibit and came home champions.
• C. M. Russell Museum — 14 mi
  The cowboy artist's house and log studio, and the story of Nancy Russell, who turned his bar-tab paintings into a career.
• Giant Springs State Park — 16 mi
  The spring William Clark called the largest he ever saw, and the 201-foot river a fifth-grade class got into the record books.

More markers nearby

• Sun River Crossing — 6.8 mi
• Fort Shaw — 12 mi
• Twenty-Eight Mile Station — 15 mi
• Black Eagle — 15 mi