This town took its name from the topography of the surrounding area. It was once a station on the Union Pacific and was a trading center for valley ranchers. Not much there today except for one of the quirkiest little cafes you’ll find anywhere. The Calf-A and Yesterday’s Museum appear at first glance to be an old brick building with a junk shed next door. Don’t turn away, the diner serves over 30,000 meals a year to people from all over the world.
The diner is housed in the old schoolhouse with high ceilings and bare pine floors. Memorabilia lines the walls, the menu is written on the old blackboard, and the salad is on the teacher's desk. The museum next door isn’t your run-of-the-mill gallery either. It is a warehouse of everything left behind when the mining and lumbering petered out. The original owner, Ken Berthelson, is now deceased. Before going he left a number of wildlife sculptures in an outdoor sculpture corral. No, these aren’t the magnificent bronze sculptures that seem to dominate Montana. They are created from just about anything Ken could put his hands on. There are lots of fine cafes in Montana, but not too many that you’ll take pictures of for the folks back home.
Photo Gallery Butte Area
