“Oh, all my life, it seems,” she laughed. “I was here early, in the ’nineties, when Mr. Brower came to get to the head of Hell Roaring. That was in 1895. He and my husband, Mr. William N. Culver, and Mr. Isaac Jacques went up there horseback. They called that Hell Roaring Cañon then, and I think most folks do yet, though Mr. Brower as a scientific explorer said he would call it Culver Cañon after that. He did, but his story of the exploration never got to be very widely known. I guess they were the first to get to the head, except Indians. The government surveyors never followed out the river above Upper Red Rock Lake.
“They made two tries at it. The first time was August 5, 1895. They left their horses and waded up the creek, till they came to a perpendicular rock across the cañon. It was hard going, so they turned back that day.
“On August 29th they tried it again. They went up Horse Camp Creek and left their horses at the foot of Hanson Mountain, and took one pack horse and cut across over Hanson Mountain and then went down into the Hell Roaring Creek; but they had to leave their pack horse then. Beyond that they took to the stream bed on foot, and this time they got up on top and followed the creek to its source.
“They came back all excited, saying they were the first ever to follow the Missouri to its head. They named a little lake, up near the summit, in a marshy flat, Lilian Lake, after me. Just a little way beyond that they found a big saucer-like spot in the round little hole up there—peaks all around it, like it had sunk down. Well, out of that circular marsh the creek comes. That’s the head—the utmost source. The snow from the peaks feeds into that cup, or rather saucer, up on top, back of Mount Jefferson.
“I don’t think they went as far toward the actual head as I did myself, for it was late and they had their horses to find. Now on September 26, 1895, I rode horseback up in there with Mr. Allen, and we rode right on up over Hanson, and down into Hell Roaring, and beyond where they left their pack horse. We rode almost all the way, and got into that Hole in the Mountains, as Mr. Brower calls the depressed valley up on top. But we rode on clear past it, three miles, and found the creek plain that far.
“Almost up to the top of the divide, the creek turns northeast. It comes out from under a big black rock, near a clump of balsam—like my spring here, only not so big. Mr. Brower and Mr. Culver had marked a rock and put down a copper plate for their discovery. I had a tin plate, and I scratched my name and the date on that. There wasn’t any mark of anyone else there, and we were quite beyond the place where Mr. Brower stopped. So maybe I am the first person, certainly the first woman, to see the real upper spring of the Missouri River.
“Now here I am, all alone in the world, as you see. Would you like to see my pressed flowers and my other things?”
The young explorers looked at the tiny, thin little old lady with reverence, and did not say anything for a long time, before they began to look at the treasured belongings of the faraway cabin home.
“Do you boys want to go up?” she asked, after a time.