1939 Chevrolet Master Deluxe 4-Door Sedan.
Makes me wonder how many times the Chevy completed
the aforementioned fearsome trek from Wise River to Wisdom.

It seems almost unnecessary to ask, doesn't it? (05/21/60)

Despite what might seem like daunting odds, Fetty's rebuilt, and seems to still be in business. The hotel, however, seems to have checked out.

The carpenter placed the hotel windows symmetrically. The sign painter missed.

When the boys leave the bar with snootful, it's forgotten that what goes up must come down. And the nearest hospital is (probably at least) 50 miles away.

Both Russell Lee and John Vachon spent a lot of time in the region in the late 1930s and early '40s. In fall 1942, perhaps they were traveling together, as both have images of Wisdom in the archive.

Quoting Mary Murphy (Montana State professor):

Vachon drove his Plymouth into Beaverhead County in the spring of 1942 with the assignment of photographing stock raising. After several days, he wrote to FSA Director Roy Stryker that he had found “the purest most undiluted West I've ever seen.” (Source: her presentation)

Another interesting tidbit about how Vachon described his drives through the county:

From Butte, Montana, in March 1942 he wrote [to his wife Penny] of “regretting a very abject and cowardly performance about 3:00 this afternoon.” Vachon is reproaching himself for fearing to drive the road from Wise River to Wisdom, which is “one lane bumpy full of puddles holes heavy snow and cliff hanging.” It really rankles when the attendant at the Wise River gas station tells him, 'The mail stage makes it every day'.” (Source: Big Sky Journal)

Don't walk barefoot on the carpet, and sanitize the remote.

As American settlers moved west and justified westward expansion as the nation's Manifest Destiny, the Nez Perce had no alternative except to share their ancestral lands.
Eventually, Americans' interest in the land's riches and cultural conflicts between the settlers and the Nez Perce led to a series of bloody battles. One of the many battles, the Battle of the Big Hole in Wisdom, Montana changed the outcome of the Nez Perce War of 1877.

Montana: Big Hole National Battlefield

Horse sneakers!

Paul Bunyan decided to play horseshoes on Main Street and missed.

There's a Chesterfield's ad at the liquor store (the largest of the four buildings shown); but I do not see a Drink Coca-Cola sign, usually a standard feature in 1940s main street photos.

The distances to the nearest towns in either direction reminds me of the saying -- it's not the end of the world ... but you can see it from there.

At some point that horseshoe is going to be an UN-lucky horseshoe for someone.

No phone no food no pets ... Hotel Wisdom

What's with the horseshoe up on the power lines?