Most notable among those men of Burlingham who took that path was Nelson Story. Born in Burlingham in 1938, he was the youngest son of Ira and Hannah Story, who arrived there in a covered wagon from New Hampshire several years earlier. By the time Story was 18, he was orphaned, had worked his way through two years at Ohio University, and had taught school. He then “succumbed to the romance of the west, walked to the Ohio River, worked out his passage aboard a steamboat to St. Louis, took another steamer up the Missouri, and west ashore at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory, with $36 in his pocket,” according to a magazine article written by Charles Henderson whose father was a nephew of Nelson Story.

It didn’t take long for Nelson to learn about gold mines and stage coaches, and men being robbed and killed, according to the article, which went on to note that for the first time in his life he had to be armed day and night to protect himself and his possessions. Story, it was reported, had knowledge of a claim that he did not think had been worked properly. He bought it and within a few months had taken out $30,000 in gold and exchanged it for $20,000 in “depreciated greenbacks.” He held out enough for his cattle-buying enterprise, put the reset in a bank, kissed his wife goodbye and with two young men he had hired, started for Fort Worth, Texas.

“At 29 Story had a lot on his plate,” wrote Henderson. “The year was 1866. Nelson and a handful of Texas cowboys began moving a herd of 3,000 longhorns north, the first ever to do so on the Bozeman Trail, when they were abruptly stopped at Fort Phil Kearny in Dakota Territory (present-day northern Wyoming). Army orders. Too risky to go on, the commanding officer said. Sioux were everywhere and they were on the warpath. “Undeterred, the Ohio born Story and his Texas crew set off with their cattle over an oxen trail through the heart of the Sioux Nation. They repeatedly fought off Sioux Nation. They repeatedly fought off Sioux warriors who sometimes outnumbered them 10-to-1. “The trek should have been an utter disaster; instead, it became one the West’s most memorable success stories.” That cattle drive put the poor boy who had left Burlingham 10 years earlier on the road to riches.

Story bought land and started a cattle ranch in the Gallatin Valley in Montana. He became the largest breeder of cattle and horses in Montana and was tagged the “cattle king.” As his fortune grew he expanded into other businesses, establishing a bank and a large flour mill. He became a civic leader in Bozeman and erected a monument to his good friend, John Bozeman, who was killed by Indians. In 1883, he donated land for a 60-acre campus for the Montana State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. Near the turn of the century, Story began spending his winters in Los Angeles where much of his cattle money went into downtown real estate. He built the citys first skyscraper, the Walter P. Story Building, named for his son. Nelson died in 1926 at the age of 88. A tour brochure of historic Bozeman and Gallatin County complete with an artists rendering of Bozemans Main Street as it was drawn by an engraver in 1883, lists Nelson Story as one of the founding fathers. Places depicted on the guide include the Story Iron Works, the Ellen Story Theater, and the Nelson Story Flour Mill. There is a Story Street in Bozeman, and Nelson Story Towers at Montana State University. At one time there was a Story mansion on Main Street. Many members of the Story family still live in Bozeman. In fact there is still a Story Ranch of 10,000 acres - - not the biggest now but the oldest in Montana.