"Fitzgerald's trip to Montana came in the precise middle of what turned out to be a watershed year in his life, one that divided a time of blossoming promise from his most bitter disappointments. Surprisingly, despite the exhaustive scrutiny given to virtually every stage of Fitzgerald's life, the details and consequences of his visit to Montana have remained unknown and unexamined."

- Landon Jones

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS -- It seems unlikely that a small cattle town in the middle of Montana could keep a literary secret of historic proportions for nearly a century.

Yet the fact that a young F. Scott Fitzgerald spent a summer here at the former Castle Mountain Ranch without anybody remembering it may be one of the most significant pieces of biographical trivia ever overlooked in the history of American literature.

So argues Landon Jones, former editor of People and Money magazines, who recently authored a groundbreaking piece on Fitzgerald's overlooked Montana summer. The article appears in Montana: The Magazine of Western History, published quarterly by the Montana Historical Society.

Jones, who lives part time in Bozeman, believes the new information has the potential to reshape the way Fitzgerald is viewed by scholars, and how he came to be one of America's literary giants.

"I've gotten letters from a couple Fitzgerald scholars," Jones said last week. "I think anyone who writes about him now has to take this into account. I think it makes us look at Fitzgerald differently."

Jones' curiosity began to bubble while reading "Crack Up," written by Fitzgerald in 1936. The story, Jones said, was filled with references to Montana and White Sulphur Springs.

"I noticed the word Montana kept appearing," Jones said. "I never thought about it before. From there, it became a detective story."

Like every good detective, Jones dug deeper. He followed his findings in "Crack Up" by reading several Fitzgerald biographies to learn more about the author, who often wrote about the corruption of wealth. The pieces began falling into place one by one -- the makings of a literary puzzle.

Jones learned that Fitzgerald studied at Princeton University. Thus, it was only logical that he explore Princeton's rare books collection to see what he could find. The school keeps many original manuscripts, drafts and papers on file in its special Fitzgerald archive.

"I went and found some of his papers," Jones said. "They had more details about his roommate at Princeton. Suddenly, that became interesting to me."

In 1915, at the age of 18, Fitzgerald stepped off the train in White Sulphur Springs; a rough-and-tumble town of 500 people. The time that followed likely shaped Fitzgerald's vision and contributed to the work he's now remembered for.

"It raises some interesting questions on what influenced the young Fitzgerald," Jones said. "This trip to Montana happened when he began seeing himself as a serious writer. It was influential. Marcus Daly shows up under a different name in the 'Great Gatsby.' The two daughters at the ranch end up as sisters in 'The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.'"

Despite the influences the summer of 1915 had on Fitzgerald's work, his time in Montana remains "unknown and unexamined" by scholars. Jones can only speculate why that's the case more than 90 years after the fact.

"It doesn't fit with the official version of his life," Jones said. "He was a product of the jazz age and the speakeasies back east. Montana doesn't fit that image. It's like no one wanted to go to Montana to find out otherwise."

Tracing Fitzgerald's footsteps brought Jones back to Montana. Armed with the knowledge he uncovered at Princeton, he visited the library at Montana State University, hoping to find out more about the Castle Mountain Ranch and Fitzgerald's closest friend and prep-school roommate, Charles Donahoe.

In a 1936 article in Esquire Magazine, Fitzgerald wrote that Donahoe was "the man (who) represented my sense of the good life." Fitzgerald had met Donahoe at the Newman prep school in New Jersey before visiting Donahoe's boyhood home in White Sulphur Springs.

"I found the name of the ranch -- the Castle Mountain Ranch -- and I just drove up there," Jones said. "Nobody was there when I got there, but I tracked down the foreman (Ed Fryer). I found him in a restaurant in town. He gave me a little more background about the ranch. But no one at the ranch knew Fitzgerald had been to Montana. No one at the Historical Society or in Meagher County knew it, either."

Molly Holz, editor of Montana: The Magazine of Western History, said few if any in Montana knew that Fitzgerald had spent a summer here.

"I don't think there's been any whisper of this before," she said. "Everyone I've talked to, it's all news to them. It's the beauty of doing history, how new facts and facets of the past reveal themselves."

Jones called himself lucky that the ranch was still intact. Nearly 93 years after Fitzgerald stayed at the so-called "Castle," the ranch remains in operation under a different family. It's still one of the largest working ranches in the area, though it bears no evidence of Fitzgerald's visit.

Fitzgerald based his 1922 novella, "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," on his time in White Sulphur Springs. There, Jones says, the burgeoning writer flirted with women and played cowboy.

Released six years after Fitzgerald's visit, the novella focuses on a young man invited by his prep-school classmate to visit his family's ranch in Montana. The family lives in a castle, thanks to a fortune amassed from a mountain created by a single gigantic diamond, an analogy to Butte's "richest hill on earth."

Upon release, the story wasn't a hit with publishers. The manuscript was rejected more than once. Today, it's considered one of Fitzgerald's best short stories.

"Despite the exhaustive scrutiny given to virtually every stage of Fitzgerald's life, the details and consequences of his visit to Montana have remained unknown and unexamined," Jones said.

Reporter Martin Kidston: 447-4086, or at mkidston@helenair.com