Ubet was founded in 1880 on the
Ft. Benton–
Billings stagecoach route by
lumberman (and former
Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker of the House)
A. R. Barrows (who with his family was among the first permanent
white settlers of the
Judith Basin). The name supposedly came from Barrows' response to a challenge for a name for the settlement's proposed post office: "You bet!" At one time, it included not only a two-story log hotel, but a stagecoach barn, post office,
icehouse,
saloon,
blacksmith shop, and a
stable. At one time, there were less than ten fixed human habitations between Ubet and Billings, making the respite there (including Mrs. Barrows' cooking) particularly treasured. Clientele included
Liver-Eating Johnson and local cowboy
Charlie Russell, who would become the first well-known "cowboy artist". After the advent of railroads in the area, the stage stop became less vital, and the settlement seems to have withered away (although the railroad stops at both Garneill and
Judith Gap were initially named "Ubet" as well). In 1934, Barrows' son John (by then an attorney in
San Diego, California) published a boyhood memoir titled,
Ubet (1934; reprinted in 1990 as
Ubet: A Greenhorn in Old Montana) which was reviewed in the
New York Times as "dramatic and colorful." As of the 1939
Montana: A State Guide Book by the
Federal Writers' Project, only one or two log buildings remained, used in the earlier 1930s by sheepherders. There is a Ubet Cemetery located on the Ubet Ranch (also called Ubet-Garneill Cemetery) still extant at longitude 46°44′50″ N latitude 109°46′33″W 46.747178. == References ==