MONTANA HISTORY PORTAL

Downtown Helena is a captivating blend of Wild‑West grit and Victorian elegance, where the legacy of the gold rush is etched into every brick and cornice. Laid out along “Last Chance Gulch,â€...

For over two hundred years African Americans have played a role in our great state’s history. They came as explorers, trappers, miners, railroad workers, soldiers, homesteaders, and printers. S...

The Yellowstone Nature Notes were a series of newsletters focused on the natural history and history of Yellowstone National Park that were published from the 1920s to the late 1950s. They were a...

With the Lewis and Clark Expedition shedding light on Montana’s wealth of resources, fur companies flocked to the state to establish business. By the late 1820s, the American Fur Company had ma...

The trans-continental Northern Pacific railroad completed its route between Rock Creek, Montana and Missoula, Montana in June of 1883. This accomplishment triggered a chain reaction that position...

The primary railroad lines that became central to the story of Montana in the 19th century were the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, and the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific (Milwau...

During the winter of 1862, a Georgian entrepreneur named John Merian Bozeman discovered a shortcut to the Montana gold fields that would transform regional transportation in the Rocky Mountains, ...