Heart of Wisdom

Location: Butte, MT

As the years pass there are fewer marks of the Resourceful Railroad left across the American West.  The long stretches of right of way between mountain passes seem ever disappearing; the relentless work of nature and men slowly reclaiming the spaces.  Despite this ongoing loss, there are still a few lasting monuments that point backwards.  The most famous of Butte's two Milwaukee Road passenger stations still stands as one of these lasting gifts.


Shown here in photos that are themselves twenty years old, it is the home of KXLF and, reportedly, still ordained with the marble floors that were all part of the Milwaukee Road's grand entrance to the city.  In addition to KXLF, the names that adorn the station in the early 2000s include another name that has lost ground to history: Rainier.    

One can never walk through these old places or gaze upon the old photos without remembering the vast depth of history that has unfolded before us.  People, in our smallness, always consider the present the only thing that has ever really been known.  The things that we do now are the most important simply because we live through them.  But there are these old markers that exist as monuments to a different era and different generations that knew different times and saw troubles and triumphs that are easily forgotten.  

The sun rises, the sun sets.  A springtime pushes out a winter, and summer quickly follows.  In a flurry a year has vanished and taken with it things that never return.  Yet, in great ignorance or great mercy we walk about and assume that one day will be like the one that came before it: because yesterday was fine, today also, will be fine.  But in our hearts, and surrounded by evidences like those here in these old photographs we know this is not the case.  The psalmist writes, 

'Teach me to number my days Lord, that I might gain a heart of Wisdom'  -- Psalm 90:12.

Here, along the platforms of the old station, generations walked to stately orange passenger cars propelled by the miracle of electrical power across the Rocky Mountains.  Built to last, the platform covers yet stand, waiting for the next Columbian to back its way into the station and give travelers their grand entrance to Butte.  While much seems to come and then go so swiftly, there are yet a few gifts that endure and remind us that one day is not like another.  May we gain a heart of Wisdom.

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