Getting Lost in Montana - Fort Benton

We had an overnight in Havre (pronounced "have-er"), Montana. As we left the next morning we came upon grain silos with a map of Montana inscribed, "Get Lost in Montana". (Promoting a Montana tourism site.) 

If you look at a map of our route through Montana, one might think we were lost!

On our route we passed through Big Sandy (Population ~700). They were preparing for their Memorial Day Parade and the school band was in position, standing on a flatbed trailer, ready to play! Not something most towns/schools would condone!

We stopped in Fort Benton, the oldest continuously occupied settlement in Montana. At one point it was the most upstream navigable port on the Missouri. The Fort, like others we saw, began as a trading site and with the decline of the fur trade, was used bay the army from 1868-1881. Lewis & Clark passed this way and a memorial depicting Lewis, Clark and Sacagowea with baby Jean Baptiste. The statue was cast in New York and traveled across country standing upright on a flatbed trailer. Apparently it turned heads!

Thomas Meagher, the acting governor of Montana fell overboard at Fort Benton and drowned in 1867. His body was never recovered. Meagher had an interesting history in Ireland before arriving in the US, and there are conflicting reports and rumors about his demise.

There are several museums in Fort Benton, besides the fort itself. Next to the fort there was an excellent exhibit (and docent) describing the trading process and chronicling Indian life. One exhibit demonstrated how the Indians captured Eagles to get their feathers for ceremonial clothing. Something I had never seen before.

The Museum of the Northern Great Plains had a lot of information about trading and agriculture in the area. The addressed the decline of the fur trade, explaining that silk hats became more popular than beaver and were easier to make. and that the supply of beaver was waning. Buffalo robes (tanned hides) were still valuable trade items, until their population declined due to overhunting, especially by white hunters trying to remove food sources for the Indians between 1870-1873. 

James Hill, railroad tycoon for Northern Pacific, along with banks, agents and state governments  promoted homesteading in western lands. Anyone could get 160 acres of land for free, if they built a house on the land and farmed it for 10 years. All went well for a few years, until drought and grasshoppers spelled out failure. 

Plowing up the native prairie grasses led to huge dust storms.

Canadian farmers faced similar conditions and came up with three practices to help combat harsh conditions of the midwest.

The Museum of the Northern Great Plains also had a wide collection of historic buildings covering a span of years, beginning with homesteading.