The Nordquist Cabins and Motor Lodge

This photograph was taken in 1967 by Valerie Wisenhunt

The Nordquist cabins were built in the early 1930's by Olive Nordquist following her divorce from Lawrence. Prior to opening the cabins, the Nordquists' owned and operated the L bar T ranch some 12 miles from Cooke city, near the Wyoming line. The L bar T was a favorite spot for Ernest Hemingway in the 1930's. The paragraph concerning Hemmingway presented below was found on the internet. A few years later, Lawrence arrived in Cooke and built a lodge and cabins to let to tourists He also built the Home Comfort Cafe, which today is the Beartooth Cafe.. He sold the Lodge to Jimmy Beavers and the lodge became the Beaver Lodge. Today, the lodge is the Bistro Cafe with five cabins behind it. Olive Nordquist is shown to the right in a photograph taken in 1982. .

"During the 20's, Ernest Hemmingway had a difficult time finding a guest lodge he liked in Montana. When he returned with his wife Pauline two years later, they hit upon a ranch called the L-Bar-T on the eastern edge of Yellowstone National Park, just south of the old mining town of Cooke City, Montana. It was run by a Swede, Lawrence Nordquist, who offered them a cabin in the woods with a view of the mountains. Hemingway loved the fishing in the nearby Clarks Fork River and he and Pauline and the family returned to the Nordquist ranch throughout the thirties, until fame and another divorce lured Hemingway to the lusher pastures of Sun Valley, Idaho."

To the Nordquists with all best wishes, Ernest Hemingway

This book is for sale on the internet priced at $45,000.00 US Dollars, or 430,565,923.79 Indonesian Rupiahs

Book Description: Scriberns, 1935, 1935. First Edition. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper "To the Nordquists with all best wishes, Ernest Hemingway." Lawrence and Olive Nordquist owned and ran the L-Bar-T Ranch east of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming where Ernest Hemingway fished and hunted throughout the 1930's. From his first stay in 1930, Hemingway found that the ranch provided an ideal environment for his writing in which "Green Hills of Africa" was written in 1933 to early 1934 after his African safari hunt. Not only does this signature have fantastic providence, but it is to the people that provided Hemingway a beautiful place to write his novels "Death of the Afternoon" and "To Have and Have Not" that were written at the ranch. Most importantly, this copy is in fantastic shape, and by far, the best copy that we have ever seen. We have been selling rare books for the last 18 years, and copies in this condition are not only incredibly rare, but non-existant. The spine on the dustjacket is unfaded, which is almost never seen, and the book has no fading whatsoever. This FINE COPY IS PRACTICALLY FLAWLESS, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF LIGHT WEAR TO THE PANELS. This first printing dustjacket, and book SIGNED BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY is a dream to even the most discerning Hemingway collector.

In 1990, the front office and cabins were demolished making room for the Grizzly Pad Restaurant and Cabins. Photo copyright 2004

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