“We’re not a real estate company,” Aasved explained. Today Shodair Children's Hospital has pivoted to becoming Montana’s leading source of specialized psychiatric care and medical genetics services for children and adolescents.Īccording to hospital CEO Craig Aasved, Shodair’s Board of Directors knew from the outset that they would end up selling the Allen property, but there was common agreement that they wanted the property to enter the public domain. A later contribution of $200,000 from Shodair in the 1930s enabled the completion of Montana’s first children’s orthopedic hospital. Shodair gifted a home in Helena for the establishment of an orphanage. Shodair Children’s Hospital was founded as result of a similar donation 126 years ago. Upon his death in 2019, Allen bequeathed his share of the family ranch in Golden Valley County to Shodair Children’s Hospital. But Allen never forgot his ties to central Montana.
Born in Big Timber in 1921, Allen was a World War II veteran who relocated to a homestead near Cody, Wyoming in the 1950s. The story begins with Forrest Allen, a Montana farmer/rancher who grew up working on his family’s sheep and cattle ranch on the southern edge of the Big Snowy Mountains. I can’t think of a better place for these funds to go. Working with amazing, generous, visionary landowners like Shodair Children’s Hospital. “The founders of the Elk Foundation - which was started right here in Montana in 1984 - this is what they envisioned. “We’re proud and honored to be working with this great entity here Shodair Children’s Hospital, to pull this project together,” Mueller said. Mike Mueller, Lands Program Manager for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation described the potential deal as “a historic story for Montana.” The “Big Snowy Mountain Acquisition” as it is currently referred to, would forever preserve critical elk habitat while adding access to more than 100,000-acres of public lands that is largely blocked by private property holdings. If approved by the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission and the Montana State Land Board, the sale would create a new 5,677-acre Big Snowy Mountains Wildlife Management Area on the southeast corner of the island mountain range. On Tuesday, representatives of Shodair Children’s Hospital, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks gathered to promote and encourage public support for a proposed land sale that would greatly expand public access to the Big Snowy Mountains while simultaneously ensuring Shodair's ability to complete a new children’s hospital in Helena. Twenty miles south of Lewistown, where the central plains of Montana rise to meet the trailing edge the Big Snowy Mountains, the causes of providing vulnerable children with mental healthcare, and preserving Montana’s century long elk hunting legacy intersect. It’s not often to see one piece of property serve the needs of two such noble objectives.
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