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A Mail Carrier and More: The Lincoln Stage

The Stemple Stage Station, located near Stemple Pass in the early 1900s, was the start of the Lincoln Stage.

The stagecoach stop provided meals, a post office, and support for the stage horses. Soon, "stage" began to refer to the vehicle and service that brought mail over the pass to Lincoln.

In 1927, Julius Stoner took on the mail contract from Stemple to Lincoln and began carrying passengers and supplies along the route, in addition to the mail. Stoner's son, George, took over the business from him and operated it until 1947.

Another father-son duo later took over operations of the Lincoln Stage for fifty years. Dick Lundberg ran the Stage for 27 years before his son John Skeldon bought it from him and ran it for another 23 years.

"In all those years, there was only one day I didn't make the route. At that time, the mail went from Helena to Wolf Creek to Lincoln, and the mail didn't make it to Lincoln. There was a big winter storm," Skeldon said,

In addition to holding the mail contract, Skeldon delivered dairy products to all the businesses in town and carried liquor for the liquor store and money for the bank.

"I used to haul a lot of money for the bank. I had times where I had several hundred thousand dollars in my truck," he said.

Skeldon never worried about locking his truck and told a story about Lundberg, who also didn't lock his truck and often left the keys in it. "One day, my mom and her sister moved the truck from one side of the parking lot to the other. He had a pretty good sense of humor."

The Lincoln Stage also used to carry and deliver groceries.

"We used to have a lot of older people on the route that we used to take care of. They'd leave a grocery list in their mail box, and we'd get their groceries and drop them off the next day," said Skeldon.

Until the mid-90s, passengers could purchase trips into town via the Lincoln Stage.

"For a lot of years, it was the only way a lot of people could get back and forth from Lincoln to Helena," Skeldon said.

However, following Ted Kaczynski's arrest in 1996, the United States Postal Service disallowed the carrying of passengers.

"I gave the Unabomber all sorts of rides. He actually taught my oldest daughter how to play 20 Questions," Skeldon said,

Six years ago, Chad Sutej purchased and took over the Lincoln Stage. Sutej continues to run the mail route six days a week and run stops in Helena for the Lincoln Stage five days a week, doing everything from picking up prescriptions to visiting the bank to hauling auto parts.

The 121-mile round trip takes about six hours and starts in Lincoln, goes over Stemple Pass, through Canyon Creek twice, into Marysville, over Flesher Pass, to the base of Rogers Pass, and back into Lincoln.

"I look forward to going to work every day," Sutej said.

Sutej runs stops for the Lincoln Stage in Helena during a mid-day break in the mail route and averages about four stops a day, though some days he'll fit in up to nine stops. "I don't like to say no," he said.

In addition to Sutej, Aaron Birkholz helps out with the Lincoln Stage on Saturdays and every other Monday. "He's a godsend," said Sutej.

 

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