Western Heritage Center

Last updated
Parmly Billings Memorial Library
Parmly Billings Memorial Library.jpg
The building in 1920.
USA Montana location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location2822 Montana Ave., Billings, Montana
Built1901
Architect Charles S. Haire
Architectural style Richardsonian Romanesque
NRHP reference No. 72000740
Added to NRHP26 October 1972

The Western Heritage Center is a regional museum located in historic downtown Billings, Montana, United States. The museum is housed in the historic Parmly Billings Memorial Library, built in 1901. The building is a stately Richardsonian Romanesque structure with twin towers, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Western Heritage Center displays original exhibits about south-central Montana and the Northern Plains and houses oral histories and artifacts about the history of the Yellowstone River Valley. The museum celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2021.

The Western Heritage Center, a former affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, [1] is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. [2] The museum opened in 1971 after a organized group of leading citizens prevented the building from being torn down. The founders established the museum as an interpretive center with an emphasis on changing exhibits, outreach programming, and the incorporation of new technologies.

In 2001, the Western Heritage Center received the Montana Governor's Humanities Award, the second organization to receive an honor usually reserved for individual contributions to the Humanities. [3] In 2002, the WHC became the first Smithsonian Institution affiliated museum in the Northern Plains. Beginning in 2004, and running through 2009, WHC received federal appropriations from the United States Department of the Interior for the American Indian Tribal Histories Project, a program contributing to the preservation of Crow and Northern Cheyenne tribal histories. The museum is one of six museums in Montana accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

The Western Heritage Center programs include a monthly High Noon lecture and video series, a walking tour program (Hoof It with a Historian), fourteen traveling exhibits, partnerships with regional museums, schools, and businesses, and active participation in local events. The WHC displays six to seven exhibits annually, most based on original research. The Western Heritage Center publishes books, video materials, and education kits relating to regional history. The museum cares for 40,000 artifacts illustrating and documenting Yellowstone River Valley history. The museum is open to the public between early March and late December, Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5. The museum receives annual funding and support from Yellowstone County.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Montana</span> U.S. state

Montana is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan to the north. It is the fourth-largest state by area, the eighth-least populous state, and the third-least densely populated state. Its state capital is Helena, while the largest city is Billings. The western half of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges, while the eastern half is characterized by western prairie terrain and badlands, with smaller mountain ranges found throughout the state. The state has a reputation for a libertarian bent in popular opinion and policy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crow people</span> Indigenous ethnic group in North America

The Crow, whose autonym is Apsáalooke, also spelled Absaroka, are Native Americans living primarily in southern Montana. Today, the Crow people have a federally recognized tribe, the Crow Tribe of Montana, with an Indian reservation located in the south-central part of the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billings, Montana</span> Largest city in Montana, United States

Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Metropolitan Area, which had a population of 184,167 in the 2020 census. With one of the largest trade areas in the United States, Billings is the trade and distribution center for much of Montana east of the Continental Divide. Billings is also the largest retail destination for much of the same area. The Billings Chamber of Commerce claims the area of commerce covers more than 125,000 square miles. In 2009, it was estimated to serve over 500,000 people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buffalo Bill Center of the West</span> American West museums in Wyoming, United States

The Buffalo Bill Center of the West, formerly known as the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, is a complex of five museums and a research library featuring art and artifacts of the American West located in Cody, Wyoming. The five museums include the Buffalo Bill Museum, the Plains Indians Museum, the Whitney Western Art Museum, the Draper Natural History Museum, and the Cody Firearms Museum. Founded in 1917 to preserve the legacy and vision of Col. William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West is the oldest and most comprehensive museum complex of the West.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture</span>

The Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, formerly the Cheney Cowles Museum and the Pacific Northwest Indian Center, is located in Spokane, Washington's Browne's Addition. It is associated with the Smithsonian Institution, and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of the Rockies</span> General History Museum in Montana, United States

Museum of the Rockies is a museum in Bozeman, Montana. Originally affiliated with Montana State University in Bozeman, and now also, the Smithsonian Institution. The museum is largely known for its Paleontological collections as well as having the largest collection of North American Dinosaur fossils in the United States. They also possess the largest Tyrannosaurus skull ever discovered, as well as the thigh bone of a Tyrannosaurus Rex that contains soft-tissue remains. The museum is part of the Montana Dinosaur Trail and is Montana's official repository for Paleontological specimens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crow Indian Reservation</span> Indian reservation in United States, Crow

The Crow Indian Reservation is the homeland of the Crow Tribe. Established 1868, the reservation is located in parts of Big Horn, Yellowstone, and Treasure counties in southern Montana in the United States. The Crow Tribe has an enrolled membership of approximately 11,000, of whom 7,900 reside in the reservation. 20% speak Crow as their first language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pictograph Cave (Billings, Montana)</span> United States historic place

Pictograph Cave is an area of three caves located 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Billings, Montana, United States, preserved and protected in the 23-acre (9.3 ha) Pictograph Cave State Park.

The Yellowstone Art Museum (YAM) in downtown Billings, Montana is the largest contemporary art museum in Montana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Little Big Horn College</span> Tribal college in Crow Agency, Montana, U.S.

Little Big Horn College is a public tribal land-grant community college on the Crow Indian Reservation in Crow Agency, Montana. It has an open admissions policy and welcomes enrollment from any adult with a high school diploma or GED. The student body is composed of Crow Tribal members, members of American Indian Tribes from around the intermountain west, and non-Indian residents of the Big Horn County area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation</span> Indian Reservation in Montana, United States

The Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation is the federally recognized Northern Cheyenne tribe. Located in southeastern Montana, the reservation is approximately 690 square miles (1,800 km2) in size and home to approximately 6,000 Cheyenne people. The tribal and government headquarters are located in Lame Deer, also the home of the annual Northern Cheyenne pow wow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">High Desert Museum</span> Regional museum in Oregon, USA

The High Desert Museum is located near Bend, Oregon, United States. Opened in 1982, it brings regional wildlife, culture, art and natural resources together to promote an understanding of natural and cultural heritage of North America's high desert country. The museum includes indoor and outdoor exhibits of wildlife in natural-like habitats along with traveling exhibits and living history demonstrations. The museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. It is also a Smithsonian Affiliate institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HistoryMiami</span> Museum in Miami, Florida

HistoryMiami Museum, formerly known as the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, is a museum located in Downtown Miami, Florida, United States. HistoryMiami Museum is the largest history museum in the State of Florida. HistoryMiami houses four permanent galleries and up to three traveling exhibits, Archives and Research Center, the South Florida Folklife Center, the Education Center, and City Tours program. Each February, HistoryMiami also hosts the annual Miami International Map Fair, the largest map fair in the Western Hemisphere.

The Northern Plains Resource Council (NPRC) is an American grassroots conservation and family agriculture group. The organization was established in 1972 by ranchers in Montana who united in opposition to coal industry efforts to strip mine in the Powder River Basin.

Bently Spang is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, writer, curator and an enrolled member of the Tsitsistas/Suhtai Nation in Montana. His work has been exhibited widely in North America, South America, and Europe.

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Billings, Montana, USA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smithsonian Affiliations</span> American museum partnership organization

Smithsonian Affiliations is a division of the Smithsonian Institution that establishes long-term partnerships with non-Smithsonian museums and educational and cultural organizations in order to share collections, exhibitions and educational strategies and conduct joint research. Partner organizations are known as "Smithsonian Affiliates".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessie Wilber</span>

Jessie Spaulding Wilber was an American printmaker and educator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conservation of American bison</span> Effort to increase bison in North America

The conservation of bison in North America is an ongoing, diverse effort to bring American bison back from the brink of extinction. Plains bison, a subspecies, are a keystone species in the North American Great Plains. Bison are a species of conservation concern in part because they suffered a severe population bottleneck at the end of the 19th century. The near extinction of the species during the 1800s unraveled fundamental ties between bison, grassland ecosystems, and indigenous peoples’ cultures and livelihoods.# English speakers used the word buffalo for this animal when they arrived. Bison was used as the scientific term to distinguish them from the true buffalo. Buffalo is commonly used as it continues to hold cultural significance, particularly for Indigenous people. Recovery began in the late 1800s with a handful of individuals independently saving the last surviving bison.# Dedicated restoration efforts in the 1900s bolstered bison numbers though they still exist in mostly small and isolated populations. Expansion of the understanding of bison ecology and management is ongoing. The contemporary widespread, collaborative effort includes attention to heritage genetics and minimal cattle introgression.#

References

  1. "Western Heritage Center". Smithsonian Affiliations. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
  2. "List of Accredited Museums April 2013" (PDF). American Alliance of Museums. p. 15. Retrieved 3 May 2013.
  3. "State to honor Western Heritage Center, 6 others with humanities awards". Billings Gazette. Associated Press. 25 December 2000. Retrieved 3 May 2013.

45°46′50″N108°30′20″W / 45.780619°N 108.505488°W / 45.780619; -108.505488