In Tracing Artistic Memories and Mysteries of Yellowstone and Glacier, retired MTHS historian Dr. Ellen Baumler explores how painting,photography, literature, oral culture, and music have given us powerful incentives to visit Montana’s parks and preserve these majestic resources.By MontanaHistoricalSociety

Chief Earl Old Person, Life-Time Chief of the Blackfeet Tribe, sat for an interview in 2002 to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of North American Indian Days in Browning on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Norma Ashby interviewed Chief Old Person for KRTV of Great Falls as he commented on the meaning and celebrations of Indian Days, one of the lar…

University of Colorado PhD student Kerri Clement examines horse herd restoration efforts on the part of Crow Agency superintendent Robert Yellowtail. While Yellowtail concentrated on particular breeds and worked to obtain high-bred horses, this short-lived project reflects the longer and deeper history between Crow people and equines. Between 1875 …

Retired MHS museum technician Vic Reiman begins with a short sketch of the development of black powder and firearms—going all the way back to China—and then concentrates on the first four models of lever-action rifles made by Oliver Winchester and their use by American Indians, settlers, and bad men on the western frontier.…

Early railroad companies quickly realized that the beautiful scenery along their routes would be an attraction to Americans enthralled by the romance of the West. Montana Historical Society outreach and interpretation program manager Kirby Lambert illustrates how advertising campaigns featuring beautiful promotional art lured adventure-seekers—and …

Before 1889, Montana exerted little oversight of those who claimed to be healers. Starting that year, however, the state required all medical practitioners to register with the newly formed State Board of Medical Examiners. Dr. Todd L. Savitt, historian of medicine at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine, reveals a group demographic …

To attract workers, entrepreneurs, and tourists, a community needs positive brand identity. When well presented, local history is a powerful tool that can be used to distinguish your town from “Everywhere U.S.A.” Billings’ Mayor William Cole tells the story of how the Yellowstone Kelly Interpretive Site was designed, funded, and constructed on the …

Irish and Chinese immigrants played a significant role in the development of nineteenth-century Montana. While the scholarship on Irish in Montana is extensive and there is a sizable body of work on Chinese in Montana, yet to appear is a study of these diasporic groups in Montana from a comparative perspective. Addressing this gap in the literature…

Dr. Timothy McCleary presents recent archaeological findings at the home of Chief Plenty Coups, the last principal chief of the Apsáalooke. McCleary—head of the General Studies Department at Little Big Horn College—analyzes these findings within the context of both historical documents and contemporary celebrations to allow for an understanding of …

It is said that newspaper reporters, in their hurried, inevitably flawed way, are writing the first draft of history. Veteran reporter Ed Kemmick talks about some of his favorite history-tinged newspaper stories, from the tale of the so-called Petrified Man discovered near Fort Benton to the exploits of Horace Bivins, buffalo soldier, top army mark…

MSU history professor Dale Martin draws upon themes and stories from his 2018 book “Ties, Rails, and Telegraph Wires: Railroads and Communities in Montana and the West,” published by the MHS Press. The book explores how railroads shaped and sustained the human landscape and economy of the West, Montana, and Billings well into the middle of the twen…

Mardell Hogan Plainfeather, who is retired from the National Park Service, shares the story of her mother, Lillian Bullshows Hogan (1905–2003). Hogan grew up on the Crow Indian Reservation, learned traditional arts and food gathering from her mother, survived the bitterness of Indian boarding school, and grew up to be a complex, hard-working Native…

Montana Department of Transportation historian Jon Axline explains how the Bearcreek Cemetery is a time capsule that provides a wealth of information about a once-thriving coal town that, essentially, no longer exists. The cemetery also contains the remains of many of the men who were killed in the 1943 Smith Mine disaster, the worst coal mining di…

On Montana’s Indian reservations—where severe economic hardship began long before the 1930s—Native women often played key roles in helping their communities survive. MHS associate editor Laura Ferguson, M.A., tells how tribal members like Indian CCC employee Lucille Otter (Salish) and community organizer Julia Schulz (A’aniniin/Gros Ventre) worked …

Paul Shea, director for the Yellowstone Gateway Museum, discusses the rapid growth of Livingston and the reasons for creating a new county. Shea looks at how, beginning in 1883, the railroad’s plans for shops and a spur line to Yellowstone National Park shaped the growth of Livingston and continued to impact the town for the next 104 years.…

Kevin Kooistra, executive director of the Western Heritage Center, explains how the railroad impacted the planning, designing, and promoting of the settlement of Billings. Kooistra demonstrates the ways in which the city of Billings is still affected by choices made by the Northern Pacific Railway in 1882.…

Lesley Gilmore, director of Historic Preservation Services for CTA Architects Engineers, discusses how CTA has contributed to the growth of Billings since the company’s founding in August 1938. Gilmore details the philosophical and chronological history of CTA, the progression of styles as evidenced by the firm’s projects and client preferences, an…

Moss Mansion historian Jim Decker examines how Billings became a commercial hub as the result of the early efforts of entrepreneur P. B. Moss. Decker shares stories relating to businesses and institutions still very prominent in the Magic City today, including the Northern Hotel, the sugar beet factory, Rocky Mountain College, the Billings Gazette,…

Retired MHS interpretive historian Ellen Baumler discusses how much of what we know about the rituals and beliefs of Montana’s earliest people comes from happenstance encounters with burials and mortuary practices. From Park County’s 12,600-year-old Anzick site to Dawson County’s Hagen Site National Historic Landmark and the more recent “Face on th…

MSU PhD candidate LaTrelle Scherffius looks at wildlife photography in eastern Montana in the years between 1880 and 1920, when many increasingly saw nature as something to protect, rather than conquer or control. In 1892, George Bird Grinnell called for hunters to put down the gun and take up the camera. The shift toward “camera hunting” is marked…

Tim Lehman, professor of history at Rocky Mountain College, examines the wolves of Fergus County and their effects on local economies in Central Montana. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Montana passed bounty laws to create incentives for killing wolves and other predators in an attempt to transform the landscape from a Native …

MHS reference historian Zoe Ann Stoltz uncovers the stories behind livestock brands and how their histories are vital to Montana history. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the people and brands associated with eastern Montana, including Will James, Peter Yegen, the XIT, Two Dot Wilson, the Circle Qtr Circle, the Greenough family, and many mor…

Iker Saitua, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Riverside and University of the Basque Country, examines the life of Basque immigrant John Etchart. In 1912, Etchart traveled from Nevada to northeastern Montana looking for new grazing lands. He eventually built up one of the most prominent ranches in the state and ultimately play…

Yellowstone History Journal general editor Bruce Gourley tells the story of socialite tourist Florence Keyser as the Great Depression shadowed her while she traveled from Pennsylvania to Yellowstone National Park in Montana in August 1931. Gourley uses not only Keyser’s own words, but also those of park superintendent Roger W. Toll, rangers, natura…

Yellowstone Historical Society member and map expert Ralph Saunders provides a brief history of early mountain climbing in southern Montana, focusing on the unique role played by mountaineering pioneer Fred Inabnit. Among his many other accomplishments, Inabnit is best known today for a namesake mountain in the Beartooth Range and his extraordinary…

Jennette Rasch, curator from Billings’ Moss Mansion, shares information about the collections and the new self-guided tours of the historical house museum. About the series: Three historians offer glimpses into the Yellowstone Valley memories they have preserved using grant funds from the Montana History Foundation (MHF). Kevin Kooistra, executive …

Trudie Porter Biggers, business development director for the Pompeys Pillar Historical Association, shares oral histories from the original descendants of the Huntley Irrigation Project—stories she collected and preserved for the Huntley Project Museum of Irrigated Agriculture. About the series: Three historians offer glimpses into the Yellowstone …

Kevin Kooistra, executive director of Billings’ Western Heritage Center, discusses a variety of documents and photographs from its collection that tell the story of the Yellowstone Valley. About the series: Three historians offer glimpses into the Yellowstone Valley memories they have preserved using grant funds from the Montana History Foundation …

Western Heritage Center’s Joyce Jensen tells the story of German and Italian soldiers who were captured in north Africa and Europe during World War II and sent to Montana to work in the sugar beet industry. Jensen uses oral interviews, newspaper articles, and county extension agent reports to detail the stories of these prisoners of war.…

Amy McKinney, associate professor of history at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming, discusses Harriette Cushman and her efforts to create a comprehensive poultry program in Montana. The first female poultry specialist in the United States, Cushman crossed many boundaries throughout her thirty-three-year career (1922–1955) with the Extension Servi…

Todd Harwell, administrator for the State of Montana’s Public Health and Safety Division, addresses the toll of the Spanish influenza pandemic on Montana communities. Data from 1918 and 1919 Montana death records and other historical information is presented, as well as the national and state public health response to this epidemic.…

Todd L. Savitt, historian of medicine at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine, discusses attempts at regulating medicine in early Montana. During its territorial and early statehood years, Montana did little to regulate healers of many varieties. In an effort to protect Montana’s citizens from what they saw as unscientific and unscru…

MonDak Heritage Center executive director Dan Karalus tells the story of the agricultural landscape created by irrigation from eastern Montana’s Lower Yellowstone Project. Karalus focuses on the ways in which local and national forces intertwined to develop the project and how irrigation changed eastern Montana and influenced people’s perceptions o…

As the longest free-flowing river in the lower 48 states, the Yellowstone River is a national treasure. Montana State University Billings professor of geography Dr. Susan Gilbertz utilizes historic photographs to illustrate how, over time, the Yellowstone’s channels have meandered, both rejuvenating fisheries and riparian areas and causing erosion,…

Using resources from the Billings Public Library Archives, library director Gavin Woltjer explores the life of Will James. Over the course of several decades, James—artist, storyteller, writer, and cattle rustler—invented a new persona for himself, evolved this persona, and used it to separate himself from his past to tell his stories and share his…

MHS Research Center director Molly Kruckenberg and state archivist Jodie Foley discuss the evolution of KOA—Kampgrounds of America. In 1962 the thousands of Americans driving through Montana en route to the Seattle’s World Fair caught the attention of Dave Drum, a Billings resident and entrepreneur. He set up campsites on his land north of the Yell…

Retired Billings teacher Marlene Saunders details the evolution of the Yellowstone Trail, an important early byway started in South Dakota in 1911 that became a significant route between the East and West Coasts. The road went through Montana, and specifically through Billings, where official Yellowstone Trail signs have been installed to mark the …

Fort Benton’s Overholser Historical Research Center historian Ken Robison unveils new and neglected stories of Montanans in the Great War. Robison shares tales from Montanans serving around the world, focusing on the role of Montana’s women U.S. Navy yeomen, nurses, and “Hello Girls”; Montanans in the Russian Railway Service Corps; the unknown role…

Randy Schoppe, executive director of the Big Horn County Historical Museum, discusses the history of Fort Custer on the Big Horn near present-day Hardin. Operating from 1877 to 1898, Fort Custer was often hailed by military leaders as the finest cavalry fort in the world. Schoppe talks about the events leading up to the fort’s construction, notable…

Chief Dull Knife College instructor Linwood Tallbull examines why certain places are significant to indigenous culture groups that have special ties to lands, and explains how they were given their traditional place names.By MontanaHistoricalSociety

From prehistoric travel routes to a figure—first seen as a cross and later viewed as an angel—that has watched over the Magic City for the past sixty-one years, there’s more going on in the rimrocks than meets the eye. The Yellowstone Historical Society’s Prudence Ladd unveils five of these secrets from the past.…

Listen carefully for some alternative medicine involving a chicken.By MontanaHistoricalSociety

This Helena city park has at least 1,300 full-time residents.By MontanaHistoricalSociety

Still open for business; featuring pig races on the summer!By MontanaHistoricalSociety

Cold-blooded killer or "Tarzan of the Tetons"?By MontanaHistoricalSociety

In Billings, the spirit of the West lives on. Literally.By MontanaHistoricalSociety

The 1923 World Heavyweight Championship event didn't exactly turn out as expected.By MontanaHistoricalSociety

And rising from the ashes, wait, is that a phoenix?By MontanaHistoricalSociety

Freedom of speech can be suspended.By MontanaHistoricalSociety

Horror film buffs will recognize the work of this early special effects master who hailed from Deer Lodge.By MontanaHistoricalSociety