Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
U.S. Army and Native Americans. Perhaps no battlefield in the country is better known than
the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where Custer made his infamous last stand. The Crow and
Sioux tribes continue to have a strong presence in the region on both the Crow Reservation
near Hardin and the Fort Peck Reservation in the northeast corner of the state.
Lewis and Clark traveled through eastern Montana on their journey back from the West
Coast in 1806. They left the only physical sign of their entire journey—Clark's signature
and the date—on a 200-foot rocky outcropping that Clark named Pompeys Pillar, not far
from Billings.
Coulson was the first town established in the area by white settlers, in 1877. When the
Northern Pacific Railway was looking to extend its tracks, landowners in Coulson saw a
quick way to make a lot of money and demanded exorbitant prices of the railroad. Rather
than acquiesce to the requests, the railroad established a new town as the railhead for their
western line, two miles southeast of Coulson, and named it after the Northern Pacific Rail-
way's president, Frederick Billings. Within six months the city was bustling with a popu-
lation of 2,000. Its rapid growth gave rise to the city's moniker, “the Magic City,” which
stands today. The open prairie around the city continued to attract many homesteaders and
their families. When the Yellowstone Valley was irrigated in 1879, hundreds of sugar beet
fields popped up, and by 1906 a sugar refinery was built in Billings. Soon migrant labor
(including Japanese, Russo-Germans, and Mexicans) arrived to work in the fields. During
the 20th century, Billings grew and thrived as an industrial center with a diverse economy
in agriculture (grains, sugar beets, beef, and dairy cattle), energy (coal, natural gas, and oil),
and transportation (air, rail, and trucking). Today, Montana's largest city is a major health
care hub for eastern Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas and is home to the state's second-
busiest airport (it was overtaken by Bozeman's airport in 2013).
The vast open stretches of eastern Montana, interrupted by small agricultural or railroad
towns, were long home to massive herds of bison and the Native Americans who lived
in pursuit of the animal. Miles City, which grew into a town in 1876 thanks to a handful
of wayward civilians fired by Col. Nelson A. Miles from his nearby military encampment
along the Tongue River, became one of the largest shipping points for bison hides. Other
towns in the region—Glendive, Fort Peck, Plentywood, and Scobey, among others—sprang
up as the result of the railroads, the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific, as well as the
various homestead acts that lured settlers with the promise of plentiful land. Today, these
communities continue to shift and change with the economic and social implications of the
massive oil boom in North Dakota and its powerful impact on life in these parts.
