Lost Dakota was a small, uninhabited portion of land that was left over after the division and organization of the large former Dakota Territory into new territories in the late 19th century, which was overlooked by the federal government for years. [1]
Lost Dakota was approximately 11 square miles (28 km2) in size, roughly a third the size of Manhattan. The exclave was located at the tripoint between the current states of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. [2] Lost Dakota was located 360 miles (580 km) west of the territory, which by then consisted of the current Dakota states. Its borders ran along the Continental Divide, parallel 44°30' North, and the 111th meridian West.
Officially, the land was still a remote part of the Dakota Territory; however, it had been forgotten by the government, wiped from any potential public view that it could have had for around five whole years due to faulty maps and surveys. [3] [4] It has retrospectively been speculated to have been a superb tactical area for criminals to escape the law from, due to its forgotten location and lack of development; however, there is no evidence proving that criminals ever sought refuge in the exclave. [4] [5] In 1873, it was annexed and thereby incorporated into Gallatin County, Montana Territory, [6] and has remained part of that county in the state of Montana ever since. Lost Dakota is extremely distant from settlement to this day and is completely undeveloped. It is without a street, road, or even a footpath as of 2010, and lacks any signs or maps to locate the uninhabited area. [7] [8] It is also reportedly "plagued" by grizzly bears. [9]
Helena is the capital city of the U.S. state of Montana and the seat of Lewis and Clark County.
Park County is a county in the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 29,624. The county seat is Cody.
Butte County is a county in the U.S. state of South Dakota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,243. Its county seat is Belle Fourche. The county was established in the Dakota Territory on March 2, 1883, and given the descriptive name based on the French word for a hill.
Buffalo County is a county in the U.S. state of South Dakota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,948. Its county seat is Gann Valley which, at 10 people, is the least populous county seat in the United States. The county was created in 1864, and was organized in 1871 as part of the Dakota Territory.
Williams County is located on the western border of the U.S. state of North Dakota, next to Montana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,950. making it the fifth-most populous county in North Dakota. Its county seat is Williston.
McKenzie County is a county in the U.S. state of North Dakota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,704. Its county seat is Watford City.
Park County is a county in the U.S. state of Montana. At the 2020 census, the population was 17,191. Its county seat is Livingston. A small part of Yellowstone National Park is in the southern part of the county.
Gallatin County is located in the U.S. state of Montana. With its county seat in Bozeman, it is the second-most populous county in Montana, with a population of 118,960 in the 2020 Census.
Dawson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Montana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,940. Its county seat is Glendive.
Island Park is a city in Fremont County, Idaho, United States. The city's population was 286 at the 2010 census, up from 215 in 2000. The city was incorporated by owners of the many lodges and resorts along U.S. Route 20 in 1947, primarily to circumvent Idaho's liquor laws that prohibited the sale of liquor outside of city limits. It is only 500 feet (150 m) wide in most locations yet, at 33 miles (53 km), claims to have the longest "Main Street" in the world.
Glendive is a city in and the county seat of Dawson County, Montana, United States, and home to Dawson Community College. Glendive was established by the Northern Pacific Railway when they built the transcontinental railroad across the northern tier of the western United States from Minnesota to the Pacific Coast. The town was the headquarters for the Yellowstone Division that encompassed 875 route miles (1,408 km); 546 (879) in main line and 328 (528) in branches with the main routes from Mandan, North Dakota, to Billings, Montana, and from Billings to Livingston. The town of Glendive is an agricultural and ranching hub of eastern Montana sited between the Yellowstone River and the Badlands. Makoshika State Park is located just east of Glendive.
Virginia City is a town in and the county seat of Madison County, Montana, United States. In 1961 the town and the surrounding area were designated a National Historic Landmark District, the Virginia City Historic District. The population was 219 at the 2020 census.
Livingston is a city and county seat of Park County, Montana, United States. It is in southwestern Montana, on the Yellowstone River, north of Yellowstone National Park. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 8,040.
The Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 692 miles (1,114 km) long, in the Western United States. Considered the principal tributary of upper Missouri, via its own tributaries it drains an area with headwaters across the mountains and high plains of southern Montana and northern Wyoming, and stretching east from the Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of Yellowstone National Park. It flows northeast to its confluence with the Missouri River on the North Dakota side of the border, about 25 miles west of present-day Williston.
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 area that eventually became the U.S. state of Montana played little direct role in the American Civil War. The closest the Confederate States Army ever came to the area was New Mexico and eastern Kansas, each over a thousand miles away. There was not even an organized territory using "Montana" until the Montana Territory was created on May 26, 1864, three years after the Battle of Fort Sumter. In 1861, the area was divided between the Dakota Territory and the Washington Territory, and in 1863, it was part of the Idaho Territory.
The Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 explored the region of northwestern Wyoming that later became Yellowstone National Park in 1872. It was led by geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. The 1871 survey was not Hayden's first, but it was the first federally funded geological survey to explore and further document features in the region soon to become Yellowstone National Park, and played a prominent role in convincing the U.S. Congress to pass the legislation creating the park. In 1894, Nathaniel P. Langford, the first park superintendent and a member of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition which explored the park in 1870, wrote this about the Hayden expedition:
We trace the creation of the park from the Folsom-Cook expedition of 1869 to the Washburn expedition of 1870, and thence to the Hayden expedition of 1871, Not to one of these expeditions more than to another do we owe the legislation which set apart this "pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people"
Miles City is a city in and the county seat of Custer County, Montana, United States. The population was 8,354 at the 2020 census.
The Regional designations of Montana vary widely within the U.S state of Montana. The state is a large geographical area that is split by the Continental Divide, resulting in watersheds draining into the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Hudson's Bay. The state is approximately 545 miles (877 km) east to west along the Canada–United States border and 320 miles (510 km) north to south. The fourth largest state in land area, it has been divided up in official and unofficial ways into a variety of regions. Additionally, Montana is part of a number of larger federal government administrative regions.
The Zone of Death is the 50-square-mile (130 km2) area in the Idaho section of Yellowstone National Park in which, as a result of a reported loophole in the Constitution of the United States, a person can avoid conviction for any major crime, up to and including murder.