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Montana Territory. The Territory of Montana was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 26, 1864, [1] until November 8, 1889, when it was admitted as the 41st state in the Union as the state of Montana.
Montana Territory is a 1952 American Western film directed by Ray Nazarro and starring Lon McCallister, Wanda Hendrix, Preston Foster. It is a classic western movie, with bandits, a corrupt sheriff, and a hero who falls for a beautiful woman.
- Indigenous Peoples
- Louisiana Purchase
- Lewis and Clark Expedition
- First Settlements
- Military History
- Montana Territory
- Indian Wars
- Railroads
- Women
- Agricultural History
Archeological evidence has shown indigenous peoples lived in the area for more than 12,000 years. The oldest dated human burial site in North America was located in 1968 near Wilsall, Montana at what is now known as the Anzick site (named for the discoverers). The human remains of a male infant, found at the Anzick site along with Clovis culture ar...
On April 30, 1803, the Louisiana Purchase Treaty was signed by representatives of the U.S. at Paris, France. The United States Senate ratified the treaty on October 20 and President Thomas Jefferson announced the treaty to the American people on July 4, 1803. The area covered by the purchase included much of the present-day United States between th...
The Louisiana Purchase sparked interest in knowing the character of the lands the nation had purchased, including their flora and fauna and the peoples who inhabited them. President Thomas Jefferson, an advocate of exploration and scientific inquiry, had the Congress appropriate $2,500 for an expedition up the Missouri River and down the Columbia R...
St. Mary's Mission was the first permanent European settlement in Montana. Through interactions with Iroquois between 1812 and 1820, the Salish people learned about Christianity and the Jesuit missionaries (known as "blackrobes"), who worked with Native tribes teaching about agriculture, medicine, and religion. Interest in these "blackrobes" grew a...
Fort Benton
One of the first permanent settlements in Montana was Fort Benton, established as a fur trading post in 1847. It was named in honor of Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who encouraged settlement of the West. The U.S. Army took over the commercial fort in 1869 and a detachment of the 7th Infantry remained in the town until 1881. Its location on the Missouri River marked the farthest practical point upriver that steamboats could navigate. With the arrival of the first steamboats in 1860, the town of...
Fort Ellis
Built near the head of the Gallatin Valley, Fort Ellis played an important role in many of the early Indian conflicts in the territory. Elements of the 2nd Cavalry stationed here took part in both the Marias Massacre and the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. It also provided a staging location for many missions of exploration and survey into the region that became Yellowstone National Park.
Fort Shaw
Fort Shaw was established in the spring of 1867 located west of Great Falls in the Sun River Valley. Two posts built at the time were Camp Cooke on the Judith River and Fort C.F. Smith on the Bozeman Trailin south central Montana Territory. Fort Shaw was built of adobe and lumber by the 13th Infantry. The fort had a parade ground that was 400 feet (120 m) square, and consisted of barracks for officers, a hospital, and a trading post, and could house up to 450 soldiers. The soldiers mainly gua...
After the discovery of gold in the region, Montana was designated as a United States territory (Montana Territory) on May 26, 1864, and, with rapid population growth, as the 41st state on November 8, 1889. Montana territory was organized from the existing Idaho Territory by Act of Congress and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 28,...
Battle of the Little Big Horn
The Battle of the Little Bighorn—also called Custer's Last Stand and the Battle of the Greasy Grass—was an armed engagement between a Lakota (Sioux)-Northern Cheyenne-Arapaho combined force and the 7th Cavalry of the United States Army. It occurred June 25–June 26, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River in eastern Montana Territory near present-day Hardin, Montana, on land that today is part of the Crow Indian Reservation. The Crow tribe sided with the U.S. army. George Armstrong Custer, with 25...
Northern Cheyenne exodus
Following the Battle of the Little Bighorn, attempts by the U.S. Army to capture the Cheyenne intensified. A group of 972 Cheyenne was escorted to Indian Territory in Oklahoma in 1877. The government intended to re-unite the Northern and Southern Cheyenne into one nation. There the conditions were dire; the Northern Cheyenne were not used to the climate and soon many became ill with malaria. In addition, the food rations were insufficient and of poor quality. In 1878, the two principal Chiefs...
The flight of the Nez Perce
The Nez Perce people were settled what today is Washington and Oregon, though made hunting forays into western Montana. However, in 1877 pressure from white settlers led to several incidents of violence and a significant number of the Nez Perce were forced from their home region and fled rather than submit to being moved to a reservation. With 2000 U.S. soldiers in pursuit, 800 Nez Perce spent over three months outmaneuvering and battling their pursuers, led by General Howard. They traveled 1...
The railroads were the engine of settlement in the state. Major development occurred in the 1880s. The Northern Pacific Railroad was given land grants by the federal government so that it could borrow money to build its system, reaching Billings in 1882. The federal government kept every other section of land, and gave it away to homesteaders. At f...
In Montana, very few single men attempted to operate a farm or ranch; farmers clearly understood the benefits of marriage and family. A wife and numerous children could help the head of the household handle many chores, including child-rearing, feeding the family, manufacturing clothing, managing housework, feeding the hired hands, and, especially ...
Cattle ranching
Cattle ranching has long been central to Montana's history and economy. Cattle ranching came early to Montana with the entrepreneurship of Johnny Grant in the Deer Lodge Valley in the late 1850s, who traded fat cattle to settlers in exchange for two trail-worn (but otherwise healthy) animals. He later sold his ranch to Conrad Kohrs, who developed a major cattle empire in the area. Today, Grant's core homestead is the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site on the edge of Deer Lodge, and is m...
Farming
By 1908, the open range that had sustained Native American tribes and government-subsidized cattle barons was pockmarked with small ranchers and struggling farmers. The revised Homestead Act of the early 1900s greatly affected the settlement of Montana. This act expanded the land that was provided by the Homestead Act of 1862 from 160acres to 320 (65 to 129 ha). When the latter act was signed by President William Taft, it also reduced the time necessary to prove up from five years to three ye...
2 days ago · The United States acquired territory including Montana through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The first non-Native American explorers known to have set foot in Montana were the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–06). Fur trappers and traders followed, setting up forts to trade with the Native Americans.
Oct 24, 2023 · Saloons, dance halls, and other buildings sprang up along the river for over a mile. However, as time passed, the fort’s importance waned. The Montana Territory continued to grow, and the fort’s purpose diminished. In 1881, it was decommissioned and abandoned. But it had already left behind a powerful legacy by then.
Learn how Montana Territory was created in 1864 from Idaho Territory, influenced by the mining boom and the Civil War. Discover the history and geography of the new territory and its western border.
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May 29, 2018 · On 26 May 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Organic Act, which created the Montana Territory. The territorial period was one of rapid and profound change. By the time Montana became a state on 8 November 1889, the remnants of Montana’s Native American culture had been largely confined to federal reservations, following the surrender of the Nez Perce tribe to federal forces.
