Montana: A Brief State History
The first people to inhabit what is now Montana were the American Indians, or Native Americans as they are often called, and they had been around for some time before anyone else showed up interested in the land. Whether they knew that there were other people in the world who might want to live there someday can be speculated on, but it’s really not known. Just like in other states, the Native Americans in Montana hunted, fished, raised families, and grew crops as well as participating in other activities in their daily lives. There were different groups, but they all had their own land that they stayed on.
While they didn’t always get along, most of them co-existed because they had enough space to do so. Tribes included the Cheyenne, Crow, and Blackfeet, among others. Some of these tribes were very large and had a lot of influence, while others were very small and kept to themselves. They generally just tried to stay out of the way of the larger tribes.
The part of Montana east of the continental divide was included with the Louisiana Purchase back in 1803. At that time, it was very easy to buy huge swathes of land for what was thought to be very little money. Land wasn’t worth that much then, because there weren’t any other people trying to get it. No one saw the importance of buying land for resale or for having a lot of land so that they would have something of value later.
With the Louisiana Purchase, though, things started to change and it was discovered that there were many different climates in this new country. There were also valuable minerals in some of the land, making it more important at that point than other areas. In the 1860s, after people found gold in Montana and Lewis and Clark went exploring, the area was made into a United States Territory. It remained so for years, even as other areas were becoming states in the newly-created United States of America.
In the latter part of the 1880s Montana did become a state, and it was the 41st one in the union. Soon army installations like Fort Shaw, as well as other construction projects, were started. The Civil War used Fort Shaw as a valuable base of operations for some of the men. A hospital was there, as well as a parade grounds, stores, a barracks, and other things that the men needed to get by.
Any areas that were build up by settlers had to be mostly self-sufficient because there wasn’t much around and getting to another town to get something could take a very long time. In 1891 Fort Shaw was closed down because it was obsolete and no longer needed. Its useful life didn’t end there, however, because it was turned into a school instead of a military base. Having it decay or tearing it down would have been the other options, so it was thought to be a great idea to use it for schooling instead.
American Indian children and young adults were given industrial training at the school where Fort Shaw used to be. When it first opened there were more than 300 students in attendance and there were 20 of the old military buildings in use. That wasn’t the only change that Montana experienced, though, because the early 1900s also brought a revised Homestead Act that changed the way people lived in the state. The land that had been offered by the Homestead Act of 1862 was expanded from 160 acres to 320 acres.
It was signed into law by then-President Taft, and the Sun River Irrigation Project was also opened for homesteading in 1908. That was located just west of Great Falls, and was a Reclamation Act that allowed people to claim anything up to 40 acres so that they could build a home – but they had to live there, and there were strict requirements for how long they had to remain and how long they could be gone from the property at any one time. Most people who moved there were couples, they were young, they wanted to live near the mountains, they came predominantly from the Midwest, and they were ready to hunt and fish. Custer’s Last Stand was also in Montana, when the Native Americans fought to keep their land and were eventually defeated.
Another issue for the state was the Nez Perce Wars, but it’s much more peaceful there now. Cattle ranching plays a big part in the history of Montana, as well as its modern-day economy. There’s more to do and the state has grown, but cattle ranching and the Native American influence are still strong and popular there.
Tags: Destinations, History, leisure, montana, state history, travel
August 23 2009 05:30 am | Destinations