Montana - Tidbits of History

Header image from National Park Service, Montana Glacier National Park

Montana joined the union on Nov 8,1889 as the 41st State

Meadowlark

The western meadowlark is a member of the blackbird family. A male usually has two mates at the same time. The females do all the incubation and brooding, and most of the feeding of the young.

The male meadow lark uses visual display behaviors to attract a mate. When he finds a female that he wants to mate with, he points his bill in the air, puffs out his yellow throat and flaps his wings above his head. If that doesn’t get the female’s attention, he hops up and down. The western meadowlark builds its nest on the ground. The female finds a depression in the ground and shapes it by digging in the dirt with her bill. She lines the depression with soft grass and makes a roof by pulling grass and plants over the depression. She then weaves in grass to make a waterproof dome, leaving enough space for an opening. The female lays between three and seven eggs. It takes about 12 days for the eggs to hatch. The meadowlark usually has two broods a year. The male protects the nest by noisily chasing intruders away.

A male’s home range is usually about six or seven acres. If another male invades his territory, he may get into a fight with the intruder. Fighting meadowlarks lock their feet together and peck at each other with their beaks.
State bird of Kansas, Oregon, Nebraska, Wyoming, North Dakota, and Montana

Flower: Bitterroot flower

In 1805, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark “discovered” the plant in the western Montana valley that now bears its name. The roots were consumed by tribes such as the Shoshone and the Flathead Indians as an infrequent delicacy. Traditionally, the Ktunaxa cooked bitterroot with grouse. For the Ktunaxa, bitterroot is eaten with sugar; other tribes prefer eating it with salt. The Lemhi Shoshone believed the small red core found in the upper taproot had special powers, notably being able to stop a bear attack.

Tree: Ponderosa Pine

Ponderosa Pine – also known as the yellow pine It is the most widely distributed pine species in North America. The bark has a distinctive scent of vanilla or butterscotch.
This stately western Montana resident has figured heavily in the development of all the West. American Indians traditionally ate the seeds and inner bark, dug out logs for canoes, and used the pitch as waterproofing and ointment.

State Quarter
From theus50.com

The reverse of Montana’s quarter features a bison skull depicted above the diverse Montana landscape with the inscription “Big Sky Country.” The coin also bears the inscriptions “Montana” and “1889.”

The bison skull is a powerful symbol, sacred to many of Montana’s American Indian tribes. This symbol can be seen across the State on schools, businesses and license plates, and reflects the rich native tradition of Montana, which was once home to large tribes such as the Crow and the Northern Cheyenne. After a visit from Lewis and Clark, Montana became a destination first for fur trappers and later for gold prospectors following the discovery of gold in the 1860s. Cattle ranchers also made their way west to Montana. This rapid growth in population led to boomtowns. The nickname “Big Sky Country” reminds residents of Montana’s open lands and pioneering way.

Capital: Helena, Montana
Montana’s first territorial capital, Bannack, has been preserved as a ghost town state park along once gold-laden Grasshopper Creek.

Nickname: Treasure State, Big Sky Country

Motto: Gold and Silver

The state’s official animal is the grizzly bear. Only Alaska has more grizzly bears than Montana.

Montana Facts and Trivia
Montana’s name comes from the Spanish word mountain.
Montana is 255 miles north to south and 630 miles east to west (145,552 square miles).

The state’s topography is roughly defined by the Continental Divide, which splits much of the state into distinct eastern and western regions. Montana has a “triple divide”, one of only three in the country.
Triple Divide Peak (8,025 feet) is located in the Lewis Range, part of the Rocky Mountains. The peak is a feature of Glacier National Park. The summit of the peak, the hydrological apex of the North American continent, is the point where two of the principal continental divides in North America converge, the Continental Divide of the Americas and the Northern or Laurentian Divide.
From this peak water runs in three directions – Hudson Bay (Arctic), Gulf of Mexico (Atlantic), and the Pacific Ocean.

The first Europeans to venture into Montana were French fur traders in the 1700s. They set up trading posts and traded with the Native Americans for beaver furs. In 1803, the United States bought the majority of Montana (east of the Continental Divide) from the French as part of the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1804, American explorers Lewis and Clark traveled through Montana following the Missouri River. When they returned to the east they told of the beautiful land and the abundance of furs in the Montana region. Soon after, trappers and missionaries from the United States began to move into Montana.

In 1846, Fort Benton was established on the Missouri River by the American Fur Trading Company. Many more people came when gold was discovered in 1858. Boom towns such as Virginia City and Helena sprung up almost overnight. The Bozeman Trail was established as a route for people to take from the Oregon Trail to Virginia City.

Between 1848 and 1864, parts of Montana were included in a number of U.S. territories including the Oregon Territory, Washington Territory, Dakota Territory, and the Idaho Territory (1863). In 1864, the Montana territory was established with its first capital at Bannack. The capital city later moved to Virginia City in 1865 and then to Helena in 1875.

As more and more settlers arrived, the Native Americans were pushed out of their traditional lands. In the 1870s, tribes such as the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Sioux began to organize and fight back. In 1876, the U.S. Army suffered one of its greatest defeats at the Battle of Little Big Horn. At this battle General George Custer and his men were soundly defeated by Native Americans led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. This battle is sometimes called “Custer’s Last Stand.”

In the 1880s, the railroad arrived, bringing even more growth to the state. Cattle ranching had also become a large industry and farming grew as a result of homesteading in the area. On November 8, 1889, Montana was admitted as the 41st state.

In 1939 portions of Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota contemplated secession from their states to form a new state of Absaroka. The region’s complaints came from ranchers and independent farmers in remote parts of the three states, who resented the New Deal and Democratic control of state governments. Sheridan was to be the Capital. Increasing tourism to the region was also a motivation for the proposed state, as Mount Rushmore (constructed 1927–1941) would be within Absaroka according to some plans. The movement was unsuccessful and fairly short-lived. However state automobile license plates bearing the name were distributed, as well as pictures of “Miss Absaroka 1939”.

Every spring nearly 10,000 white pelicans with a wingspan of nine feet migrate from the Gulf of Mexico to Medicine Lake in northeastern Montana. At Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge it is possible to see up to 1,700 nesting pelicans.
The state boasts the largest breeding population of trumpeter swans in the lower United States.
At the Rocky Mountain Front Eagle Migration Area west of Great Falls more golden eagles have been seen in a single day than anywhere else in the country.
North of Missoula is the largest population of nesting common loons in the western United States.
Near the Pines Recreation Area as many as 100 sage grouse perform their extraordinary spring mating rituals.
The Freezeout Lake Wildlife Management Area contains as many as 300,000 snow geese and 10,000 tundra swans during migration.

Montana has the largest migratory elk herd in the nation.
The moose, now numbering over 8,000 in Montana, was thought to be extinct in the Rockies south of Canada in the 1900s.

More gem-quality sapphires are produced in Montana than anywhere else in North America. It is estimated that at least 28 million carats (5.6 t or 5.5 long tons or 6.2 short tons) of Yogo sapphires are still in the ground. Yogo sapphires were not initially recognized or valued. Gold was discovered at Yogo Creek in 1866, and though “blue pebbles” were noticed alongside gold in the stream alluvium by 1878, it was not until 1894 that the “blue pebbles” were recognized as sapphires. Jewelry containing Yogo sapphires was given to First Ladies Florence Harding and Bess Truman; in addition, many gems were sold in Europe, though promoters’ claims that Yogo sapphires are in the crown jewels of England or the engagement ring of Princess Diana are dubious. Today, several Yogo sapphires are part of the Smithsonian Institution’s gem collection.

46 out of Montana’s 56 counties are considered “frontier counties” with an average population of 6 or fewer people per square mile.
The average square mile of land contains 1.4 elk, 1.4 pronghorn antelope, and 3.3 deer.

Yellowstone National Park in southern Montana and northern Wyoming was the first national park in the nation.

The most visited place in Montana is Glacier National Park, known as the crown jewel of the continent. It lies along Montana’s northern border and adjoins Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada, forming the world’s first International Peace Park.
The Going to the Sun Road in Glacier Park is considered one of the most scenic drives in America.

Historically, Montana is a swing state of cross-ticket voters who tend to fill elected offices with individuals from both parties. Montana was the first state to elect a woman to Congress. (Jeannette Rankin in 1916) In more recent presidential elections, Montana has voted for the Republican candidate in all but two elections from 1952 to the present. The state last supported a Democrat for president in 1992, when Bill Clinton won a plurality victory. Overall, since 1889 the state has voted for Democratic governors 60 percent of the time and Republican presidents 40 percent of the time. In the 2008 presidential election, Montana was considered a swing state and was ultimately won by Republican John McCain, albeit by a narrow margin of two percent. The 2016 United States presidential election in Montana was won by Republican Donald Trump and running mate Mike Pence, on November 8, 2016, with 56.2% of the vote.

From Reader’s Digest The 50 Funniest Jokes About All 50 States
Montana: Four women are driving across the country together, each one from a different state: Idaho, Nebraska, Montana, and California. Shortly after the trip begins, the woman from Idaho pulls potatoes from her bag and throws them out the window. “What are you doing?” asks the Nebraskan.

“We have so many of these things in Idaho, I’m sick of looking at them.”

A moment later, the gal from Nebraska pulls ears of corn from her bag and tosses them from the window. “What are you doing?” asks the gal from Montana.

“We have so many of these things in Nebraska, I’m sick of looking at them.”

Inspired, the Montanan opens the car door and kicks the Californian out.

And From Reader’s Digest – The Most Difficult to Pronounce Names from each state
Montana: Not only is Elalaka, Montana, hard to pronounce, it’s also considered to be one of the strangest town names in Montana, joining the ranks with Crow Agency, Nimrod, Pray, and Two Dot. It’s pronounced EE-ka-LAH-kah. About 350 people call Ekalaka, Montana, home, making it a very small town.

Strange Laws

In Montana, it is illegal for married women to go fishing alone on Sundays, and illegal for unmarried women to fish alone at all.
In the state of Montana, you must have a chaperone when you are driving with a sheep.
It is a felony for a wife to open her husband’s mail.
Seven or more Indians are considered a raiding or war party and it is legal to shoot them.(Repealed)

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