This article was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 1 August 2022 with a consensus to merge the content into the article List of people from Montana. If you find that such action has not been taken promptly, please consider assisting in the merger instead of re-nominating the article for deletion. To discuss the merger, please use the destination article's talk page.(October 2022)
This is a list of notable figures in the history of pre-territorial Montana, Montana Territory and the state of Montana, including those with significant roles in the exploration and settlement of the region as well as the cultural, economic, military, political, and social development of Montana.
Montana is a state in the Western United States. Added to the U.S. in 1803 and shortly thereafter explored by Lewis and Clark, the territory was home to numerous Native American peoples for millennia. In the mid-19th century the discovery of gold and other valuable minerals led to successive mining booms. Settlement by farmers and ranchers expanded as railroads raced to build networks of tracks linking Montana to Utah to the south, Minneapolis to the east, and Seattle to the west. Montana produced numerous important politicians from both political parties, as well as entrepreneurs who founded cities and built large mining, timber, cattle and other related industries. Individuals have been placed in the period in which they most contributed to Montana history.
Sacagawea, Indian guide for Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806)
Father Pierre-Jean De Smet (January 30, 1801 – May 23, 1873), also known as Pieter-Jan De Smet, was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest and member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), active in missionary work among the Native Americans of Western Montana in the mid-19th century.
Montana Territory (1864–1889)
Portrait of John Bozeman
The Territory of Montana was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 28, 1864, until November 8, 1889, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Montana. This era was characterized by fighting between the Plains Indians and the U.S. Army, large-scale mining operations, the beginning of substantial agricultural and large cattle ranching operations, and the arrival of the railroads.
Sidney Edgerton (1818–1900) served as Montana Territory's first governor after playing a leading role in its founding. He left Montana in 1865 to petition the Federal government in Washington, D. C. for more support for the fledgling territorial government.[2]
William H. Clagett
William Horace Clagett (1838–1901) was Montana Territorial Congressman (1871–1872) and introduced the Act of Dedication bill into Congress that ultimately led to the creation of Yellowstone National Park.[3]
Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, (1839–1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Defeated and killed during the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Southeast Montana. Custer's defeat made him one of the most famous military figures in American history.
Wilbur F. Sanders, (1834–1905) frontier lawyer, founding member of the Vigilance Committee of Alder Gulch and first U.S. Senator from the state of Montana.
Granville Stuart, (1834–1918) was a pioneer, gold prospector, businessman, civic leader, author, cattleman and diplomat who played a prominent role in the early history of Montana Territory and the state of Montana.[5]
James Stuart, (1832–1873; brother of Granville) was a gold prospector, pioneer, businessman, explorer and Indian agent who played a prominent role in the settlement of Montana Territory.[4]
William Andrews Clark, Sr. (1839–1925) was an American politician and entrepreneur, involved with mining, banking and railroads. He is known as one of the three "Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana and was also a U.S. Senator from Montana.
James Jerome Hill, (1838–1916), was a Canadian-American railroad executive based in St. Paul, Minnesota. He headed a group of lines especial the Great Northern Railway, which served Montana and a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains, and Pacific Northwest. Because of the size of this region and the economic dominance exerted by the Hill lines, Hill became known during his lifetime as The Empire Builder.
Joseph Kinsey Howard, (1906–1951) was a journalist and historian who wrote about the history, culture, and economic circumstances of Montana and the West. Howard's landmark 1943 book, Montana: High, Wide, and Handsome is an animated account of Montana history that has influenced later generations of historians.
Charles Marion Russell, (1864–1926) was an artist of the Old American West. Russell created more than 2,000 paintings of cowboys, Indians, and landscapes set in Montana in addition to bronze sculptures. Known as 'the cowboy artist',[7] Russell was also a storyteller and author. The C. M. Russell Museum Complex located in Great Falls, Montana houses more than 2,000 Russell artworks, personal objects, and artifacts.
Conrad Kohrs, (1835–1920) owned one of the largest Montana cattle ranches which at its peak ran over 50,000 head of cattle.
Harvey Logan (1867–1904), also known as Kid Curry, was a notorious Montana outlaw and gunman who ran with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid's infamous Wild Bunch gang. He killed at least nine law enforcement officers in five different shootings, and another two men in other instances, and was involved in several shootouts with posses and civilians during his outlaw days.
Jeanette Rankin, February 1917, just before becoming the first woman in Congress
Jeannette Pickering Rankin, (1880–1973) was the first woman in the U.S. Congress, elected statewide in 1916 and again in 1940. A lifelong pacifist, she voted against the entry of the United States into both World War I and World War II, the only member of Congress to vote against the latter. To date, she is the only woman to be elected to Congress from Montana.[8]
James Willard Schultz, or Apikuni, (1859–1947) was a noted author, explorer, Glacier National Park guide, and historian of the Blackfoot Indians.[9] Schultz is most noted for his prolific stories about Blackfoot life and his contributions to the naming of prominent features in Glacier National Park.
George F. Grant, (1906–2008) was an angler, author and conservationist from Butte, Montana. He was active for many years on the Big Hole River.[10] In 1988 Grant established the Big Hole Foundation to focus conservation efforts on the river he had saved through his earlier conservation activities.
Lee Metcalf (1911–1978) was a politician from the Democratic Party who represented Montana in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1953 to 1961 and the U.S. Senate from 1961 to 1978. He was a noted supporter of environmental and liberal social legislation during his time in Congress.
Kenneth Ross Toole, (1920–1981) was an historian, author, and educator who specialized in the history of Montana. Perhaps the best-known and most influential of the state's 20th-century historians, Toole served as director of the state's historical society, authored several noted volumes of state history and social commentary, and was a popular professor at the University of Montana for 16 years.
Robert Craig Knievel, (1938-2007) known as Evel Knievel a daredevil from Butte, Montana. Best known for his jump across the Snake River and Grand Canyon. He suffered many injuries during his career and entertained and inspired many people.
Montana (21st century)
Max Baucus, (1941–present) is a politician and was the longest serving U.S. Senator from Montana (1978 to 2014). He was the U.S. Ambassador to China.
↑ Hebard, Grace Raymond; Brininstool, E.A. (1922). The Bozeman Trail-Historical Accounts of the Blazing of the Overland Routes into the Northwest, and the Fights with Red Cloud's Warriors – Volume II. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company. frontispiece.
↑ Thane, James L., Jr. (October 1976). "An Ohio Abolitionist in the Far West: Sidney Edgerton and the Opening of Montana, 1863–1866". The Pacific Northwest Quarterly. 67 (4): 151–162. JSTOR40489499.
↑ Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden and the Founding of the Yellowstone National Park. Washington, D.C: United States Department of the Interior Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office. 1973.
1 2 Bonney, Orrin H.; Bonney, Lorraine (1970). Battle Drums and Geysers-The Life And Journals of Lt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane, Soldier And Explorer of the Yellowstone And Snake River Regions. Chicago: Swallow Press. pp.3–158.
↑ Lucey, Donna M. (2001). Photographing Montana 1894–1928: The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron. Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing. ISBN0-87842-425-3.
↑ Hanna, Warren L. (1988). "James Willard Schultz-The Pikuni Storyteller". Stars over Montana-Men Who Made Glacier National Park History. West Glacier, MT: Glacier Natural History Association. pp.95–111. OCLC19568576.
Helena is the capital city of Montana and the county seat of Lewis and Clark County.
Nathaniel Pitt Langford was an American explorer, businessman, bureaucrat, vigilante and historian from Saint Paul, Minnesota who played an important role in the early years of the Montana gold fields, territorial government and the creation of Yellowstone National Park.
This is a broad outline history of the state of Montana in the United States.
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 D. 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.
Yellowstone National Park has over 1,100 miles (1,800 km) of blazed and mapped hiking trails, including some that have been in use for hundreds of years. Several of these trails were the sites of historical events. Yellowstone's trails are noted for various geysers, hot springs, and other geothermal features, and for viewing of bald eagles, ospreys, grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, bighorn sheep, pronghorns, and free-ranging herds of bison and elk.
Fort Ellis was a United States Army fort established August 27, 1867, east of present-day Bozeman, Montana. Troops from the fort participated in many major campaigns of the Indian Wars. The fort was closed on August 2, 1886.
The following articles relate to the history, geography, geology, flora, fauna, structures and recreation in Yellowstone National Park.
Gustavus Cheyney Doane was a U.S. Army Cavalry Captain, explorer, inventor and Civil War soldier who played a prominent role in the exploration of Yellowstone as a member of the Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition. Doane was a participant in the Marias Massacre.
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"
Truman C. Everts was the first federal tax assessor for the Montana Territory and a member of the 1870 Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition, which explored the area which later became Yellowstone National Park. He was lost in the wilderness for 37 days during the expedition and a year later wrote about his ordeal for Scribner’s Monthly.
Shoshone Lake is a U.S. backcountry lake with the area of 8,050 acres elevated at 7,795 feet (2,376 m) in the southwest section of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. It lies at the headwaters of the Lewis River a tributary of the Snake River. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service believes that Shoshone Lake is the largest backcountry lake in the lower 48 states that cannot be reached by a road. The Yellowstone Caldera is located within the lake.
First Peoples Mountain el. 10,551 feet (3,216 m) is a mountain peak in the Absaroka Range in Yellowstone National Park. The peak was formerly named for Lieutenant Gustavus Cheyney Doane, a U.S. Army cavalry officer who escorted the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition into Yellowstone in 1870. During that expedition, Doane and Nathaniel P. Langford ascended several peaks east of Yellowstone Lake. The name was changed to First Peoples Mountain in 2022.
This list summarizes the major expeditions to the Yellowstone region that led to the creation of the park and contributed to the protection of the park and its resources between 1869 and 1890.
The following works deal with the cultural, political, economic, military, biographical and geologic history of pre-territorial Montana, Montana Territory and the State of Montana.
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.
The following works deal with the cultural, political, economic, military, biographical and geologic history of pre-territorial Wyoming, Wyoming Territory and the State of Wyoming.
The following works deal with the cultural, political, economic, military, biographical and geologic history of pre-territorial Idaho, Idaho Territory and the State of Idaho.
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.
The Society of Montana Pioneers was founded on September 11, 1884 in Helena, Montana, to honor and document the histories of Montana pioneers who were resident in the territory at the time it became a Montana Territory, May 26, 1864. In 1909, the society changed its membership rules to admit pioneers who were resident the territory prior to December 31, 1868. In 1899, the society boasted 1536 active members out of a one time total of 1808. The society did not consider individuals who were assigned to Montana on military duties, individuals who were deemed outlaws such as Henry Plummer of Bannack, or Indians as eligible for membership in the society.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
