Virgelle Mercantile

Virgelle Mercantile. . Virgil F. Blankenbaker was among the first to homestead this areas when former Indian Reservation lands along the Missouri River opened to settlement in 1889. He accumulated miles of land across the plains and along the riverfront. Blankenbaker's extensive sheep ranch prompted the Great Northern Railroad to build a loading spur here near his home in 1900. The railroad siding was named Virgelle by combining Blankenbaker's first name with the name of his wive Ella, and the Virgelle Post Office was designated in 1902. The Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 brought more settlers, and in 1912 Blankenbaker built a large, well designed mercantile with upstairs lodgings for railroad crews. The fine building, clad in stone block-patterned pressed tin, echoes the permanence Blankenbaker envisioned for his town. In 1913, he established a ferry across the river and Virgelle became a railroad flagstop. Locals eagerly awaited Blankenbaker's annual "Dakota Picnic," a political rally and social gathering. At the end of the decade a bank, lumber yard and two grain elevators served a peak population of about 30. Hard times in the 1920s reversed Virgelle's good fortune. Blankenbaker, serving a second term in the legislature, died in an auto accident in 1936; Ella died in 1940. But the mercantile, run by Ella's brother John Chancellor, among others, continued to serve the local population until the 1960s. The abandoned building became part of another enterprise under owner/outfitter Don Sorensen in 1975. Historic cabins move to the townsite and the beautifully refurbished mercantile with its store and sleeping rooms invite the modern visitor to experience the Montana homestead era.