Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A charming historic mining town lined with fun bars, restaurants, interesting shops and art
galleries, and with great hiking, camping and skiing nearby, Red Lodge is the kickoff
point for the scenic Beartooth Hwy and well worth a stop in its own right. The town gets
its name from the painted red tepees of local Crow (Absaroka) Indians.
The early town grew up so quickly around the coal mines that by 1910 the town's
largely immigrant population was twice the size it is today. The hard-drinking, fist-fight-
ing, bootlegging town must have been pretty rough-edged to have required one Jeremiah
'Liver-Eating' Johnson as its first constable, but this was perhaps spurred more by the
1897 attempted robbery of the central bank by Butch Cassidy's partner, the Sundance Kid.
Most of the mines were closed by 1932, after years of depression and mine disasters, but
the Beartooth Hwy opened four years later, just in time.
Red Lodge celebrates its cosmopolitan early Scottish, Scandinavian and Slavic mining
population in the annual
Festival of Nationals
(
www.festivalofnations.us
)
in August.
On the west bank of Rock Creek, Red Lodge is 60 miles south of Billings and 65 miles
northeast of Cooke City and the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park. US 212
runs north-south through town as Broadway Ave, the main street, and becomes the Bear-
tooth Hwy south of town.
Sights
MUSEUM
Carbon County Museum
( 406-446-3667;
www.carboncountyhistory.com
; 224 N Broadway; adult/student $5/3;
10am-6pm Mon-Sat, 11am-3pm Sun, closed Sun & Mon winter)
Antique guns and
mining disasters dominate the exhibits here, but it's the 1912 Model T Ford, Yellowstone
stagecoach and horrifying early electroshock machine that really grab the attention. Check
out the antique Yellowstone buses in the garage a couple of blocks north.
Beartooth Nature Center
( 406-446-1133;
www.beartoothnaturecenter.org
;
615 2nd St E; adult/child $6/2.50;
10am-5pm May-Sep, 10am-2pm Oct-Apr; )
Families will love this nonprofit refuge
for 71 animals that can't be returned to the wild, including bears, cougars, wolves, eagles,
a lynx and a very vocal sandhill crane (called Niles).
ZOO
GALLERY
Carbon County Arts Guild Gallery
