Two Dot (population: 76) hangs on long after heyday

Not much remains of Two Dot, one of the many Montana pioneering communities that thrived in the homestead years in the early 1900s and then faltered in the farm crisis of the 1920s and the Depression of the 1930s. The census in 2000 put the number of residents at 76, and locals say the population seems to have stabilized. Almost everyone is involved in ranching — the reason most settlers found their way to Wheatland County in the early years. “A lot were displaced Southerners who came after the Civil War,” said rancher and local historian John Whelan. “There were a lot of family groups that came from Missouri.” Two Dot took its name from George “Two Dot” Wilson, Whelan said, who got his nickname from his brand — two horizontal dots. Wilson fashioned his brand from the only thing handy, a king pin out of a trail wagon. (A two-wheeled trail wagon was attached behind a four-wheeled wagon with the king pin.)...read more