Gallery

Floyd “Greasy” Takes Gun near his home along Cut Bank Creek. Photo by David Grewe.

Art DeRouche explains his attempt to rescue flood victims to Brooke Swaney and Lailani Upham. Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand.

Betty Cooper, near Birch Creek, Blackfeet Reservation. Photo by Lailani Upham.

Floyd Takes Gun on his ranch near the Cut Brank Creek. Photo by David Grewe.

Floyd Takes Gun on his ranch near the Cut Bank Creek. Photo by David Grewe.

Butch New Breast on his ranch just west of Browning, Montana, on the Blackfeet Reservation. New Breast still rides Birch Creek looking for the bodies of his mother and sister, swept away by the wall of water during the 1964 flood.Kenny Olson at the site of his family homestead near the Two Medicine River, Montana.

Naomi “Omi” Crawford in the round hall in Heart Butte, Montana.

Sunset near Heart Butte, Montana.

Butch New Breast calls for his horses on his ranch just west of Browning, Montana, on the Blackfeet Reservation. New Breast still rides Birch Creek looking for the bodies of his mother and sister, swept away by the wall of water during the 1964 flood.

Chief Earl Old Person, May 2014.

Winslow Evans stands in front of his grandfather’s cabin near the Two Medicine River. Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand.

Torsten films Kenny and Winslow near the Two Medicine River. Photo by Benjamin Shors.

Historic Photos

DDamage caused to the road at the Captain Meriwether Lewis historical highway marker on U.S. Route 89, north of Dupuyer, Montana, along Birch Creek from the flood of 1964.

The waters of Swift Reservoir, an irrigation dam on Birch Creek west of Dupuyer, Montana, poured out over the Birch Creek Valley when the dam gave way under the pressure of runoff from heavy rains. The reservoir and site of the dam are shown in the lower section of the photograph. In the background can be seen the dam material spread out over the valley below. Bureau of Reclamation photograph.

Looking upstream at the site of Swift Dam on Birch Creek, near the Continental Divide. The debris formed when Swift Dam gave way is shown in the lower section of the photograph. Bureau of Reclamation photograph.

During the June 1964 floods, the Blackfeet Indian Irrigation Project suffered disastrous damage and loss, the most important of which was Lower Two Medicine Lake Dam on Two Medicine Creek. Bureau of Reclamation photograph.

Aerial view showing all that remained of the Lower Two Medicine Lake Dam after the June 1964 floods, the control section and spillway. Bureau of Reclamation photograph.

Credit: Montana Historical Society Research Center Photograph Archives, Helena, MT

3 thoughts on “Gallery”

Rod Steckler says:
May 16, 2014 at 3:37 pm


Beautiful people in & from a beautiful place…what a terrifying, exciting, and tragic story…Lived in Gt. Falls, as a 13 yr. old kid, at the time
Anonymous says:
May 30, 2015 at 5:50 pm


I was going to spend the summer with my Aunt Violet Cobell that summer,

i would have been with my sweet cousin Galela Cobell who died with her nieces and nephews..
Michele Griffith says:
June 8, 2015 at 3:27 pm


Beautiful. Pictures.