Montana

For centuries before European contact, Montana was the ancestral territory of many Native American tribes, including Crow, Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Assiniboine, Gros Ventres, Kootenai and Salish. When Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery arrived in Montana in 1805, most of the territory they passed through was controlled by the Blackfeet.  

After Lewis and Clark, fur trappers were some of the few Europeans to venture into Montana in the early decades of the 19th century. Catholic missionaries arrived next and established St. Mary’s Mission among the Salish people in 1841, the first permanent white settlement in the region. 

Disease, war and broken treaties decimated Montana’s Native American population and forced them onto reservations. Today, 12 recognized tribes in Montana make up more than 6 percent of the state’s population. Only the Blackfeet live on part of their original ancestral land. 

Montana was a sleepy frontier outpost until 1863, when gold was discovered at Alder Gulch in southwest Montana. As with other gold rushes in the West, the Montana gold strike attracted a swarm of prospectors to the far-flung destination. Montana officially became a U.S. territory in 1864. The territorial capital was Virginia City, one of several boomtowns, like Helena, that seemed to spring up overnight. 

Among the fortune-seekers who arrived in Montana in the 1860s were thousands of Chinese migrants. Discriminatory laws made it difficult for Chinese miners to own claims, so the Chinese people who stayed in Montana often opened laundries and restaurants. By the late 19th century, Chinese-owned businesses became the target of boycotts related to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

The 1876 battle commonly known as “Custer’s Last Stand” was really the last stand of the Lakota chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse against the encroaching U.S. Army.  

In the spring of 1876, more than 10,000 Lakota and Cheyenne gathered at a camp along the Little Bighorn River in Montana. They had been driven from their land in South Dakota after gold was discovered in the Black Hills. The camp at Little Bighorn—which the Native Americans called Greasy Grass—was organized by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, who defied from the U.S. government to relocate to reservations.  

In June, federal troops led in part by Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, arrived at Little Bighorn with orders to round up the Lakota and Cheyenne holdouts and force them onto reservations. The plan was for Custer and several other generals to surround the encampment, but Custer made the rash decision to launch his own “surprise attack.”  

On June 25, 1876, Custer led the charge at Little Bighorn and was immediately outmanned and outgunned. Custer was killed along with all 210 of the men under his command. The Battle of Little Bighorn was the worst U.S. defeat of the Plains Indian Wars.  

The arrival of railroads in the 1880s transformed Montana and tied it to the rest of the fast-growing country. Building them was a massive undertaking that relied heavily on immigrant labor from China, Japan and European countries such as Italy, Sweden, Norway and Bulgaria, some of whose workers stayed and settled in Montana. 

Montana became the 41st state on November 8, 1889. Around the same time, rich silver and copper deposits were discovered near Butte, launching a boom in hardrock mining. Over the next few decades, the Anaconda Copper Company of Butte grew to become one of the largest mining operations in the world. 

Homesteaders came to Montana in droves in the early 20th century after Congress doubled the land allotment in the Homestead Act from 160 to 320 acres. Railroad companies ran advertisements promoting the fertility of Montana farmland and the ease of growing wheat.

Severe drought struck in 1917, leading to massive dust storms in the 1920s. Many of the new arrivals abandoned their claims and moved farther west.

Montana’s population topped 1 million for the first time in 2012. Roughly two-thirds of residents live in the western part of the state. While ranching and farming remain the state’s biggest industries, tourism became its second-largest revenue source in the 1970s. Most tourist dollars are concentrated in gateway communities serving Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park, which Montana shares with Wyoming and Idaho.  

Date of Statehood: November 8, 1889 

Capital: Helena 

Population: 1,084,225 (2020) 

Size: 147,039 square miles 

Nickname(s): Treasure State; Big Sky Country 

Motto: Oro y Plata (“Gold and Silver”) 

Tree: Ponderosa Pine 

Flower: Bitterroot 

Bird: Western Meadow Lark