Related Research Articles
Fort Benton is a city in and the county seat of Chouteau County, Montana, United States. Established in 1846, Fort Benton is the oldest settlement in Montana. The city's waterfront area, the most important aspect of its 19th-century growth, was designated the Fort Benton Historic District, a National Historic Landmark, in 1961.
Cow Creek is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 35 miles (56 km) long, in north central Montana in the United States. Cow Creek rises in the southern foothills of the Bear Paw Mountains in western Blaine County and flows east and then south, joining the Missouri approximately 25 air miles (40 km) northeast of Winifred, Montana—or 22 miles (35 km) upstream from the Fred Robinson Bridge. Cow Creek flows down to the Missouri in a canyon that passes through the Missouri Breaks, which are severely eroded badlands that extend out on either side from the Missouri River. The floor of Cow Creek canyon provided a pathway of travel from the Montana plains north of the river, down to the Missouri – at the mouth of Cow Creek, Cow Island made fording the Missouri easier – a steep but short trail on the south bank of the Missouri opposite Cow Creek completed this route which led from the northern Montana plains to the central and southern Montana plains. This pathway was used by migrating buffalo/bison and nomadic American Natives for centuries. During the steamboat era on the Missouri River, when low water prevented riverboats getting up to Fort Benton, the mouth of Cow Creek became a river landing and freighting depot, and it was the start of the Cow Island Trail by which freight was moved on to Fort Benton by going north up Cow Creek and then west. In 1877 the Nez Perce Indian Tribe, fleeing to Canada, had several skirmishes along Cow Creek including the "Battle of Cow Island", and several days later at a camp on Cow Creek the Nez Perce, thinking themselves now beyond the reach of the U.S. Army, made the fateful decision to slow down, rather than push on for the Canada–US border. Today, modern highways have by passed Cow Creek, and the buffalo and the nomadic Indian are gone. Cow Creek is dormant, in one of the most remote spots of the isolated regions of the vast area known as the Montana Missouri Breaks.
The Bozeman Trail was an overland route connecting the gold rush territory of Montana to the Oregon Trail. Its most important period was from 1863–68. Despite its name, "the major part of the route in Wyoming used by all Bozeman Trail travelers in 1864 was pioneered by Allen Hurlbut". Many miles of the Bozeman Trail in present Montana followed the tracks of Bridger Trail, opened by Jim Bridger in 1864. The flow of pioneers and settlers through territory of American Indians provoked their resentment and caused attacks. The challengers to the route were newly arrived Lakotas and their Indian allies, the Arapahoe and the Cheyenne. The United States put emphasis on a right to "establish roads, military and other posts" as described in Article 2 in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. All parties in the conflict had signed that treaty. The Crow Indians held the treaty right to the contested area and had called it their homeland for decades. They sided with the whites. The U.S. Army undertook several military campaigns against the hostile Indians to try to control the trail. Because of its association with frontier history and conflict with American Indians, various segments of the trail are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
Fort Reno also known as Fort Connor or Old Fort Reno, was a wooden fort established on August 15, 1865 by the United States Army in Dakota Territory in present-day Johnson County, Wyoming. The fort was built to protect travelers on the Bozeman Trail from Native American tribes.
The Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition of 1869 was the first organized expedition to explore the region that became Yellowstone National Park. The privately financed expedition was carried out by David E. Folsom, Charles W. Cook and William Peterson of Diamond City, Montana, a gold camp in the Confederate Gulch area of the Big Belt Mountains east of Helena, Montana. The journals kept by Cook and Folsom, as well as their personal accounts to friends were of significant inspirational value to spur the organization of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition which visited Yellowstone in 1870.
The Washburn Expedition of 1870 explored the region of northwestern Wyoming that two years later became Yellowstone National Park. Led by Henry Washburn and Nathaniel P. Langford, and with a U.S. Army escort headed by Lt. Gustavus C. Doane, the expedition followed the general course of the Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition made the previous year.
Fort C. F. Smith was a military post established in the Powder River country by the United States Army in Montana Territory on August 12, 1866, during Red Cloud's War. Established by order of Col. Henry B. Carrington, it was one of five forts proposed to protect the Bozeman Trail against the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), who saw the trail as a violation of the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie. The fort was abandoned in 1868 and burned by the Sioux under Red Cloud.
The history of Idaho in the American Civil War is atypical, as the territory was far from the battlefields.
The steamboat Bertrand, carrying cargo up the Missouri River to Virginia City, Montana Territory, sank on April 1, 1865, after hitting a snag in the river north of Omaha, Nebraska. Half of its cargo was recovered 100 years later. Today, the artifacts are displayed in a museum at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge near Missouri Valley, Iowa. The display makes up the largest intact collection of Civil War-era artifacts in the United States.
The Montana Trail was a wagon road that served gold rush towns such as Bannack, Virginia City and later Helena, Montana during the Montana gold rush era of the 1860s and 1870s. Miners and settlers all travelled the trail to try to find better lives in Montana. The trail was also utilized for freighting and shipping supplies and food goods to Montana from Utah. Bandits and Native Americans, as well as the weather, were major risks to travelling on the Montana Trail.
Confederate Gulch is a steeply incised gulch or valley on the west-facing slopes of the Big Belt Mountains in the U.S. state of Montana. Its small stream drains westward into Canyon Ferry Lake, on the upper Missouri River near present-day Townsend, Montana. In 1864, Confederate soldiers on parole during the American Civil War made a minor gold discovery in the gulch, but the discovery of the sensationally rich Montana Bar the following year—one of the richest placer strikes per acre ever made—led to other rich gold strikes up and down the gulch, and touched off a frantic boom period of placer gold mining in the area that extended through 1869. From 1866 to 1869, the gulch equaled or outstripped all other mining camps in the Montana Territory in gold production, producing an estimated $19–30 million worth of gold. For a time, Confederate Gulch was the largest community in Montana. In 1866, Montana had a total population of 28,000, and of these, about 10,000 (35%) were working in Confederate Gulch.
Brevet Brigadier General Lester Sebastion Willson,, was a U.S. Civil War officer in the Union Army, Assistant Quartermaster General of New York, and a Montana merchant and politician in Bozeman, Montana. He was married at Albany, New York, on March 2, 1869, to Miss Emma D. Weeks, a native of Vermont. He died in Bozeman, Montana on January 26, 1919.
Nelson Story Sr. was a pioneer Montana entrepreneur, cattle rancher, miner and vigilante, who was a notable resident of Bozeman, Montana. He was best known for his 1866 cattle drive from Texas with approximately 1000 head of Texas Longhorns to Montana along the Bozeman Trail—the first major cattle drive from Texas into Montana. His business ventures in Bozeman were so successful that he became the town's first millionaire. In 1893, he played a prominent role in the establishment of the Agricultural College of the State of Montana by donating land and facilities. He built the first Story Mansion on Main Street in Bozeman in 1880 and later built today's Story Mansion at the corner of Willson and College for his son, T. Byron Story in 1910. In his later years, he became a prominent real estate developer in Los Angeles, California.
The historic town of Rocky Point was on the south side of the Missouri River in Fergus County, Montana, in the Missouri Breaks. Rocky Point was located at a natural ford on the Missouri River. In prehistoric times, American bisons trailed down through the breaks to Rocky Point to cross the river. During the Missouri River steamboat era, the buffalo trail system leading to and from the ford caused Rocky Point to become a steamboat landing, which received freight for mining camps in the Judith Mountains and in the Little Rocky Mountains and also for Fort Maginnis built in 1880. In the 1870s and 1880s, Rocky Point had a store, hotel, two saloons, a feed stable, a blacksmith shop and a ferry. Due to its remote location in the Missouri Breaks, in the 1870s and 1880s Rocky Point became a refuge for outlaws who turned to rustling cattle and horses until rancher-vigilantes took punitive action in 1884. From 1886 to 1936 it had a post office near by which was known as Wilder and so the community of Rocky Point was sometimes also called Wilder. The community at the Rocky Point ford continued through the homesteading years from 1900 to 1918, but faded away when the ferry ceased to function in the 1920s, and it finally disappeared in 1936 when the Army Corps of Engineers condemned and bought up land adjacent to the Missouri River that might possibly be affected by Ft Peck Dam, then being built. Today some historic but deteriorating structures still remain on the site, which is now on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Being on public lands the Rocky Point ford area may be approached by "dirt" roads and visited, but the roads become impassable when wet.
Cow Island lies in a left turning bend of the Missouri River, in the area known as the Missouri River Breaks. The island is formed by sediments that are seasonally washed out from the mouths of Cow Creek and Bull Creek, which enter the Missouri River just upstream from Cow Island. The island is about 1.2 miles long and averages about 150 yards in width. It is located in extreme northern Fergus County, but lies across the river from extreme southern Blaine County, to its east.
The history of vigilante justice and the Montana Vigilantes began in 1863 in what was at the time a remote part of eastern Idaho Territory. Vigilante activities continued, although somewhat sporadically, through the Montana Territorial period until the territory became the state of Montana on November 8, 1889. Vigilantism arose because territorial law enforcement and the courts had very little power in the remote mining camps during the territorial period.
The Trabing Station or Crazy Woman Crossing is a historic place on the Bozeman Trail, in Johnson County, Wyoming, United States, about twenty miles southeast of Buffalo. Crazy Woman Crossing was one of three major fords used by travelers across creeks and rivers in this area. It is significant as the site of the Battle of Crazy Woman, a skirmish during Red Cloud's War in 1866. The United States pulled out of this territory after negotiation with the Lakota and allies of the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868.
The Department of the Northwest was an Army Department created September 6, 1862 by the Union Army to put down the Sioux uprising in Minnesota. It was composed of the forces within the territory of the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, and the Nebraska and Dakota Territories . Nebraska Territory was detached to the Department of the Missouri on Oct. 11 1862.
This is a Timeline of pre-statehood Montana history comprising substantial events in the history of the area that would become the State of Montana prior to November 8, 1889. This area existed as Montana Territory from May 28, 1864, until November 8, 1889, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Montana.
Grant Marsh was a riverboat pilot and captain who was noted for his many piloting exploits on the upper Missouri River and the Yellowstone River in Montana from 1862 until 1882. He served on more than 22 vessels in his long career. He started his career in 1856 as a cabin boy and continued his career for over 60 years becoming a captain, riverboat pilot and riverboat owner. During his career he amassed an outstanding record and reputation as a river steamboat pilot and captain. His piloting exploits became legendary and modern historians refer to him as "Possibly the greatest steamboat man ever", "possibly the greatest [steamboat pilot] ever", "possibly the finest riverboat pilot who ever lived", "the greatest steamboat master and pilot on both the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers"
References
- ↑ "Camp Cooke". Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey.
- ↑ Huckabee, Rodger Lawrence (Winter 2012). "Camp Cooke-Montana Territory's Forgotten First U.S. Army Post". Montana: The Magazine of Western History. Helena, MT: Montana Historical Society. 62 (4): 60–67.
- ↑ Fort Claggett was actually a civilian trading post established near Camp Cooke but later moved to the north side of the Missouri after Camp Cooke closed. Huckabee, Rodger Lawrence (Winter 2012). "Camp Cooke-Montana Territory's Forgotten First U.S. Army Post". Montana: The Magazine of Western History. Helena, MT: Montana Historical Society. 62 (4): 60–67.
- 1 2 "History of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, Fur Trade and Forts, Camp Cooke". U.S. Department Of The Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Montana/Dakotas. Archived from the original on 13 December 2012. Retrieved 16 December 2011.
- ↑ Monahan, Glenn (1997). Montana's Wild and Scenic Upper Missouri River. 315 West Fourth Street, Anaconda, Montana 59711: Northern Rocky Mountain Books. pp. 255, at 121. ISBN 0-9711214-0-0.
