“I stalk a moment down the long vista.”
— Don Manker
Kingsley
Creative
Works
A Most Unforgettable Character
Mr. Gring’s log home and corrals at the base of a 20 foot cliff were white washed inside and out every year. They sparkled in the sun, making an impressive setting with the evergreens he planted in front of his cabin. Inside Mr. Gring’s home was a picture gallery of hand carving. The walls were covered with this talent he had learned from his home country, Germany. These carvings were made from boards. He then proceeded to make a complete picture of trees, flowers and Montana wild life. Some were varnished showing the wood grains, while others were painted in their natural coloring.
I believe he might have had the first zoo in Montana. He built a 10 ft. fence and captured deer and antelope and kept them for his pleasure. If you go there today you may still see his fence and the coves he built in the banks of the bluff for bob cats, badgers, raccoons, and coyotes.
— paraphrased from Isabel Weipert Dunning’s entry in Echoing Footsteps
Carving Life into Wood
Ed Gring saw more than mere wood in the cottonwoods and pines of Powder River Country — he saw stories. A self-taught carver, Ed transformed rough blocks into intricate sculptures: homesteader faces lined with laughter and hardship, animals captured mid-motion, and moments of prairie life frozen in time. His work wasn’t simply decorative; it was documentary, recording the spirit of Kingsley in each whittled line. In a place where survival often took precedence over beauty, Ed’s carvings quietly insisted that art had a place, too — that amid the struggle, creativity could thrive, flourish, and endure.
In a place where survival often took precedence over beauty, Ed’s carvings quietly insisted that art had a place, too — that amid the struggle, creativity could thrive, flourish, and endure.
A Quilt of Many Stories
Few artifacts tell the story of Kingsley as tenderly as its signature quilt. Every stitched name represents a family, a friendship, a thread in the larger tapestry of prairie life. In a place where resources were scarce, quilting was an act of both necessity and expression, blending practicality with community pride. To run a hand across the quilt today is to touch history — to feel the quiet, powerful assertion that even in a hard land, beauty, memory, and fellowship could be sewn into permanence.
Poetry of the Open Range
Words came to Don Manker the way rain falls on thirsty ground — rare, essential, and celebrated. His poems captured the Kingsley landscape with simple eloquence: the heavy sky before a summer storm, the loneliness of a winter morning, the quiet pride of a successful harvest. Don’s verses were often shared at community gatherings or published in local newsletters, becoming a collective voice for a community that valued hard work over grand speeches. His poetry reminds us that even in the most remote corners of Montana, the human need to shape experience into art remained alive, pulsing as surely as the beating of a settler’s heart.
Painting Dreams
Ferdinand A. Henning homesteaded in northern Powder River County in 1926, selling to Pete Minow in 1938, shortly after his sister Elizabeth and Lee Rayner moved to the Bitterroot Valley where Elizabeth died. By the story that pictures and social columns tell, he enjoyed life fully – hiking in the hills and socializing often. Quick to join Elizabeth’s family and visit with his other sister Bertha when she visited, he also took time to master his painting. Most of his artwork is gone to history, however a few remain. In his paintings you can see a yearning for lush exotic places, in stark contrast to the dry prairie.