Montana The Magazine of Western History

09/02/2025

As we welcome kids across Montana to the 2025-26 school year, we owe much to the inspiration for this classic brick school building located in the town of Terry about 35 miles northeast of Miles City.

Its namesake, Charles W. Grandey, arrived in Terry in 1907 to teach in a two-room schoolhouse. “The budding community quickly embraced Grandey’s energy and enthusiasm, and in January 1908, the school board offered to build a new grade school if Grandey would stay on. He agreed, and voters passed a $15,000 bond issue,” writes historian Christine Brown in our newly released book, “A History of Montana in 101 Places: Sites and Stories from the Montana Historical Society.”

Grandey went on to influence public education statewide, helping revise Montana school law in 1912, rewriting Montana’s high school English curriculum, and stopping proposed cuts to humanities instruction during World War II. He was a founding member and president of the Montana Education Association (now the Montana Federation of Public Employees) and the Montana High Schools Association.

Writes Brown: “A newspaper reporter wrote of Grandey’s accomplishments in 1947, ‘To be sure there was a Terry before Grandey came west. There would have been a Terry if he had never migrated, but it would have been a different Terry.’ And without Grandey, it would have been a different Montana.”

The Grandey School is just one of the educational institutions featured in “A History of Montana in 101 Places” alongside train depots, theaters, homestead cabins, and numerous other buildings and landscapes that have made and remade Big Sky Country. Get your copy today at https://loom.ly/KiKiGmQ or visit your local bookstore.

Photography by Tom Ferris.



Farcountry Press

08/29/2025

Will your holiday weekend itinerary take you to Logan Pass? If so, you’ll be among throngs who visit every day to experience one of the world’s greatest marvels of road engineering.

While heavy traffic is now a daily occurrence at Glacier Park’s biggest attraction, the crowd of thousands that gathered there on July 15, 1933, was something to write home about. The visitors came to witness the dedication of the new Transmountain Highway across the “Backbone of the World,” as the Piikuni (Blackfeet) called the Continental Divide—a remarkable feat accomplished with only one switchback.

“Constructing a road over such mountainous terrain presented a variety of unique challenges: Sheer cliffs, a short construction season, sixty-foot snowdrifts, and overwhelming amounts of trees, stumps, and solid rock that had to be removed or excavated. The physical labor was backbreaking and treacherous. Surveyors had to climb three thousand feet to reach work sites where they perched along narrow ledges or had to be suspended over cliffs to take measurements,” writes historian Kirby Lambert in our newly released book, “A History of Montana in 101 Places: Sites and Stories from the Montana Historical Society.”

The “Going-to-the-Sun Road,” as the highway was christened, along with the Logan Pass Visitor Center are among the tourist destinations, industrial sites, churches, schools, bars, battlefields and other destinations featured in this exciting new guide to some of Montana’s most formative buildings and landscapes.

Add “101 Places” to your Montana must-reads! Get your copy today at https://loom.ly/KiKiGmQ or visit your local bookstore.



Farcountry Press

08/29/2025

Going car camping this Labor Day Weekend? Perhaps you have a nifty new car tent like this one, albeit a bit more waterproof?

The 1920s saw the advent of car camping in Montana. “While some tourists continued to arrive by train, increasing numbers came by car. Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908, and by 1915, there were over twenty thousand cars, trucks, and motorcycles registered in the Treasure State,” writes Martha Kohl in our newly released book “A History of Montana in 101 Places: Sites and Stories from the Montana Historical Society.”

Get your copy today and learn how the automobile transformed Montana’s fledgling tourism industry. Buy online at https://loom.ly/KiKiGmQ or visit your community bookstore.



Farcountry Press

08/27/2025

Congratulations to Madeline Pomeroy and Triston Feller of Bigfork High School for finishing 2nd in their Senior Group Documentary preliminary round at the NHD National Contest. Their website, “Signing and Shouting: Standing and Sitting-in: Rights and Responsibilities of the 504 Sit-in,” ranked among the top 20% of senior group websites at the National Contest. They were named the Senior Outstanding Affiliate from Montana.

Their teachers are Annmari Sikon and Cynthia Wilondek, a Montana Historical Society Teacher Leader.

08/27/2025

Congratulations to Emily Knauth, Lily Hill, and Taylor Howlett for finishing 2nd in their Senior Group Exhibit preliminary round at the NHD National Contest. Their website, “Fighting for Safety: Mining Strike in Butte,” ranked among the top 20% of senior group exhibits at the National Contest. The group was selected to exhibit their project at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Their teachers are Annmari Sikon and Cynthia Wilondek, a Montana Historical Society Teacher Leader.

08/27/2025

Save the dates for the 2006 Regional & State Contests!

08/27/2025

There's a brand-new book from the Montana Historical Society...A HISTORY OF MONTANA IN 101 PLACES! Just in case you are wondering what to get for everyone's birthday this year....

08/27/2025

08/26/2025

Attention aspiring historians! Our soon-to-be-published autumn issue of "Montana The Magazine of Western History" features three young people doing outstanding work in the field.

Lolo Junior High sixth-graders Quinlyn Frank, Cierra Hadnot, and Quora Miller recently took home two prestigious state awards for a documentary exploring US federal Indian policy in the West. Specifically, the young scholars examined the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie and its detrimental impacts on Indigenous people like the Lakota and Tsétsėhéstȧhesenaa Suhtaio (Northern Cheyenne), as well as their means of resistance, including the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

The trio presented their 10-minute film, "The Treaties and Laws that led to the Battle of the Little Bighorn," at the National History Day in Montana State Contest at Montana State University Bozeman in April, winning the Montana Historical Society Dave Walter Travel Scholarship from the James H. Bradley Trust as well as the Future Leaders Award. Their project was named Montana’s top-ranked junior division (6-8th grade) entry across all categories, which includes documentaries, exhibits, papers, performances, and websites. At the National Contest at the University of Maryland in June, their documentary placed third in its preliminary round, ranking it in the top 30 percent of all junior group documentaries at nationals. As a result, the group was named the Junior Outstanding Affiliate from Montana.

The students conducted their research at the Lolo School Library and the Missoula Public Library and used WeVideo editing software to produce their documentary. Watch their film here: https://loom.ly/NHV3uTs

"As I have had the opportunity to view each new version of their project, it is clear that the girls have a deep personal connection and investment in their topic; the wide research they performed has impacted their understanding of a difficult chapter of Montana's history," reflected Lolo Middle School teacher Jacqueline Marshal.

Congratulations Quora, Quinlyn and Cierra!

Read more about their documentary project in the autumn issue of "Montana." Subscribe at https://loom.ly/lwcwRC0

Photo left to right: Quora Miller, Quinlyn Frank, Cierra Hadnot. Photographer: Kelly Gorham, Montana State University.

Lolo School District National History Day in Montana

08/25/2025

Attention Teachers! We have exciting news to share about a popular classroom tool.

The "Montana Place Names Map" is now located on the Montana History Portal at https://loom.ly/mba48k4

This interactive map is a companion to the book, "Montana Place Names from Alzada to Zortman," written and published by the Montana Historical Society. The book is available to purchase at https://loom.ly/mCf_jlM

From A(lzada) to Z(ortman), we wish you a fantastic 2025-26 school year!

Contributing Institution: Montana Historical Society Library and Archives | Read the full record details for Collection: Montana Place Names from Alzada to Zortman

08/22/2025

When choosing locations to feature in our newest book, “A History of Montana in 101 Places,” the authors were careful to reflect the best and the worst of our state’s history.

“Through it all, we kept in mind that while so much of Montana’s past is worth celebrating, other aspects of it are truly tragic; and in many cases it is the buried story, not its present-day appearance, that makes a site noteworthy,” writes Historian Christine Brown in her author’s note.

Such was the case with the Reed and Bowles Trading post near Lewistown.

The simple structure was once among five cabins surrounded by a square stockade with large entrance gates. Inside the foreboding compound, described by a visitor as “very untidy and dirty,” traders Alonzo Reed and John Bowles ran a notorious supply depot.

“From 1875 to 1880, Reed and Bowles provisioned freighters and travelers along the trail and conducted an illegal trade in liquor and fi****ms with passing Indian bands,” writes Historian Christine Brown. “Stories abound of Reed and Bowles’s drunken sprees, underhanded business practices, and murderous reprisals. One visitor reported that Reed shot various men for small transgressions and buried them across the creek.”

Learn more about Montana’s territorial era in “A History of Montana in 101 Places,” now available in Montana bookstores. Or buy your copy today at https://loom.ly/KiKiGmQ

Photo: In 2023, excavations at the Reed and Bowles Trading Post unearthed a pit forge with a tuyere (blower/bellows) visible in the lower left corner of this photograph. Photo by Tom Ferris.

08/21/2025

One of life’s simple pleasures is the smell of a new book, being the first to crack it open and carefully break in the spine. But the best books are the old familiars—the ones with the coffee stains and worn corners, the ones that fall open to your favorite page, the ones with your name in them.

Our newest release, "A History of Montana in 101 Places" is made to be enjoyed again and again—coffee stains, dog-eared pages, and scribbles in the margins if you wish.

Buy your copy and see how many destinations you can check off the Historic Montana Places Checklist. Make it yours and order today! https://loom.ly/KiKiGmQ