Flathead Lake Lodge

It all started with me, Doug, years ago. When I was single, the state of Montana liked to send people to trade shows. This particular year, there was a world trade mart in London. I went over with a few folks, and we set up a display for Montana in London, England to promote our romantic western cowboy lifestyle.

We were there for about 10 days in a big colosseum with hundreds of exhibit booths from all around the world, vacation spots, tropical isles, fishing adventures, cruises……a little bit of everything.

Directly across the hall from us, in the display area, was an exhibit from the state of Texas. They obviously had a better budget than Montana did in that they sent a Wells Fargo Stagecoach over as a prop for their display. It was a magnificent coach. We dreamed up the crazy idea to take that coach and see if we could drive it into downtown London. We had been down to the changing of the guard ceremony earlier at Buckingham Palace and toured the beautiful stables where the Queen’s horses were kept. We knew it was a long shot, but why not ask the guards if they would take that stagecoach and drive it through London for us as a promotion to kind of attract attention to our Montana and Texas displays in the trade show?

Well, unbelievably, they agreed to it. They were as excited as we were. We had a few too many cocktails that evening when we cooked up this idea, but if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

We found a trailer, loaded the coach, and headed down to the Queen’s stables. Our new best friends, the guards, brought out these eight beautiful, black, gorgeous, giant Morgan horses. The Queen’s men were wearing their full-dress uniforms and helmets. They looked fantastic. We were in our best western gear and definitely still under the influence of several drinks. The horsemen hitched up this team in just a matter of minutes.

I was traveling with Moose Miller from Kalispell. Moose was a very famous figure in Montana. He owned Moose’s saloon, which today has the best pizza and beer in Flathead Valley. He was a large man with a big handlebar mustache. Yes, he truly looked like he was right out of central casting.

The guards couldn’t stop staring at this mountain of a cowboy. Moose had been on the Centennial Train, a promotional train the State of Montana sent east to the World’s Fair. The train stopped from town to town along the way and Moose drove an eight-horse hitch on those side adventures into cities for parades. He was familiar with driving an eight-horse hitch, which is quite an art.

I wasn’t capable of that, but I was happy to be his grip. I could drive a two-horse team, but not an eight-horse. We kind of thought that the Queen’s people would jump up and drive it and when it came time to go they said, “Who’s going to drive?’ Moose did not hesitate. He said, “I will” and he climbed up there and we all piled on this coach and took off. We had no idea where we were going or how to get there, but fortunately the Queen’s horsemen were our escorting side riders. We must have looked like they do when they are doing the events for the Queen and there are always side riders along the carriage guarding traffic and watching for safety. We took off trotting down the street. We didn’t know where the excursion might go.

We spotted bus #11, which was a double-decker bus that we’d been riding down to Piccadilly Circle doing a little night partying in that area. We pulled in behind the bus #11 and began to follow it. As it moved, we moved. Up a block and we’d move up, catch up with it and then it moved again and we’d catch up. We just kept behind bus #11 as far as we could go. Pretty soon we were right down at Piccadilly Circle with eight horses hitched to a Wells Fargo stagecoach escorted by “all the queen’s men.” The coach stretched out over 50 feet, maybe more.

We got in the circle and just proceeded to plug up everything. It was a mess. We thought, oh boy, we’re going to go to jail.

The Queens horsemen jumped off and as fast as they hitched the horses to the coach, they unhitched them. They’d done this so many times in the city that they just pushed the stagecoach up on the side and gathered up everything. It was quite a show and of course it stopped the traffic in Piccadilly for a while, which brought all the TV news teams in London. We made every evening news show. It was fabulous for promotion. You couldn’t buy this kind of marketing.

We couldn’t have done a better job. When all this was going on, a gentleman walked into the area where our new friends had parked the stagecoach. He came over to me and said, “who are you guys?” “I said, “We’re just here representing the state of Montana at a trade show. We are trying to promote dude ranch and western Montana vacations.” He said, “Well, you’ve messed up my filming. I was filming a little movie set here in Piccadilly. We had all the background set up with the actors when you guys drove right in the middle of it. We’ll be forced to reset everything.” He was quite a noted producer in that area and we traded business cards.

His name was Stewart, something or other. I asked if he ever got to Montana to be sure and look me up. The next summer, sure enough, here comes Stewart over from London with his family for a vacation at Flathead Lake Lodge. That was almost 50 years ago. They had a great time.

Over the years, I’ve been telling this story about taking a stagecoach into downtown Piccadilly and my oldest son, Chase, who now manages the Lodge and ranch, always says, “Oh, dad, you didn’t take a stagecoach, you probably rode in a black Checker taxi.” Chase likes to tease me about my stories, claiming it is just my imagination. The story has been battered around by the fireplace for years.

A couple of summers ago, Chase and I at the Lodge when this elderly gentleman walks in and says, “Hello Doug, you probably don’t remember me.” I said, “Sorry, I don’t.” He says, “My name’s Stewart. I met you at Piccadilly Circle when you messed up my filming.” Sure enough, it was Stewart who had come back to the Lodge after all those years. Chase is sitting right there claiming I staged Stewart’s return. “This isn’t real. You probably paid somebody from Bigfork to walk in here with this story. You just found Stewart downtown before he’d come here to do this.” It was the real Stewart. He was the movie producer.

We reminisced once again about that event. It was a fun time.  We had a wonderful time in London and an almost wonderful trip. We got caught in a massive storm when we were over there and got stuck at Heathrow Airport when they shut the airport down.

It was a fun trip…and a delightful story.