Bits of Montana Wisdom (Part 5)

At a recent book signing, a gentleman who knew quite a bit about the Judith Basin country explained how Utica, a small town in the basin on the road into the Little Belt Mountains, received its name. He mentioned that one of the early arrivals onto that landscape thought folks would have to be crazy to live there. (We can't figure out why, as it's a beautiful piece of geography, but perhaps he showed up in the winter when strong winds were blowing and piling up drifts of snow). With that notion in mind, he picked the name of "Utica" to bestow on the community. His reasoning was that an insane...