KULR 8's Home Experts: Local News

We Built This City Series

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By Katie Ussin

Story Updated: Mar 23, 2009

BILLINGS - KULR is starting a new series looking into the pioneer families who helped shape Billings into what it is today, and who still live and work in the Magic City.

They helped create perhaps one of the best shortcuts from the Yellowstone Valley to atop the Rimrocks, but are you familiar with the family behind it? "My name is Wayne Bromenshenk and I'm the great grandson of Frank Zimmerman and the great grandnephew of Joseph Zimmerman," said Wayne.

As the family historian, Wayne said brothers Frank and Joseph immigrated to the Billings area from France in the mid 1870's. "They were hard working people," said Wayne.

Joe was the businessman. He started a clothing shop on Montana Avenue, and later a bank that failed due to tough economic times in 1915. His homestead stands today on private property just south of Avenue D.

"And there he owned about 1,900 acres between there and Rehberg Lane and on up top the rims," said Wayne. About a mile west is Frank's homestead. The sandstone building sits off Grand Avenue past Shiloh Road.

Five generations of Zimmermans, including Wayne, have called it home. "Frank Zimmerman was basically in agriculture," said Wayne. "He owned land west of Shiloh Road." The brothers built the original Zimmerman Trail as a shortcut to their sheep camp at Alkali Creek.

"They didn't have trucks and bulldozers and that kind of thing, so it took them two summers 1890 and 1891 to finish building it," said Wayne. There are now seven generations of Zimmermans, "So, yeah, we're spread out all over," said Wayne.

The families still possess some acreage of original land rooted in a now urban Billings. "If they were here today I think they would like what they see," said Wayne. Taking in the view from, fittingly, Zimmerman Park, Wayne said he will keep this history alive, as Billings blazes new trails in the years to come.

"Not only about the Zimmerman Family, but other families that did things in the Billings area at the turn of the century," said Wayne. A few years ago Wayne helped put up a historic marker that retells the history of the Zimmerman Trail at Zimmerman Park.

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