The Montana rail stops of Brockton, Glasgow, Malta, Havre, Zurich, and Dunkirk beckoned immigrants to come, stay, and settle, though those burgs bore no resemblance to the originals. And settle they did.
The fire was set by a 14-year-old elevator boy, the son of one of the Club's employees. The boy was named Harry Anderson. He was what modern parlance calls a pyromaniac: or rather, he liked to see all of the firemen and their horses come to the hotel.
The Baker Massacre—what many Blackfeet call Bear River Massacre because they would rather not speak Baker’s name—is still too vivid and raw for Guardipee to paint. Pepion has never painted it either.
Imagine investigating unknown territory without map or guide. As the point person, you make the first astounding discovery. A hundred-foot waterfall. A herd of tiny striped ungulates gathered around a lake. You call to your companions: wow, look at this!
The phrase "words can't describe it" is often used when a person is trying to articulate something either extremely good or extremely bad. And mere words definitely could not describe the extremely bad winter of 1886-87 for the Montanans who experienced it.
The Big Director gets on his chair with the camera attached to the hydraulic crane and yells, “Back to one!”, meaning everyone is at their starting position. For me, it’s sitting in front of my keno machine, ready to repeatedly push a button. “Masks off!” the Big Director yells.
Major Eugene Baker of the Second Cavalry was sent to punish the Piegan (Blackfeet) village of Mountain Chief who was thought to be harboring the murders of Malcolm Clarke, prominent Montana rancher. Instead, the Calvary mistakenly attacked the village of Heavy Runner, known to be peaceful.
In 1886 the U.S. Cavalry was assigned the protection of the park, and they took the assignment very seriously, patrolling the park throughout the year.
To see all of the grain elevators in Blaine Hadfield's gorgeously photographed and researched coffee table book, you'd have to travel thousands of miles. And even if you did see them with your own eyes, it probably wouldn't be as pretty as the photos Hadfield has included here.
What was this world, where men's shirts could never keep their pecs in check, and women’s heaving bosoms were always in danger of exploding from their bodices like a stop-valve under too much pressure?
I’ve worked for more than 20 years as a newspaper reporter, and the last seven years as a television news reporter for KXLF in Butte. It’s important to note that it takes a dedicated and talented team to put together the daily broadcasts. Each day we start from zero to produce what, at times, seems like a daily miracle.
The debut collection from author Michael Carter marks him as a Montana writer to watch, someone so good at mixing genre elements that he might just be unfairly overlooked in a field that too often confuses realism with seriousness.
Erik Ole Nelson, Ole to his friends, creates one-of-a-kind sculptures and signs all over Montana. And if you've been to Bozeman or Missoula recently, chances are you've seen and admired his work.
Yet become citizens many of them did, including some whose descendants still live and prosper in Montana to this day. Johnson's book tells the story of the Chinese immigrant experience in Montana in the late 19th century, drawn from a cache of recently translated material from the Montana Historical Society.
The mine’s employees were often paid in “shin-plasters” and “brass checks.” A shin plaster was a derogatory name for paper scrip. Often of absurdly low denominations, they had the reputation of being as worthless as any slip of paper the men used as padding in their socks to keep their boots from rubbing on their shins.
