Montana Trivia & Tidbits - Page 17

Looking for Montana trivia? Try our list Montana little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula offers an interpretation of the area’s one-room schoolhouses, along with a restored 1907 one-room schoolhouse. The Grant Creek Schoolhouse was once located north of Missoula.

first appeared: 7/14/2002

A stone arch named after President Theodore Roosevelt marks the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park at Gardiner (pop. 851). The president dedicated the Roosevelt Arch in 1903.

first appeared: 7/7/2002

Montana’s first state park is named after two men who never saw the park’s main feature. Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park near Three Forks (pop. 1,728), created in 1837, features a large limestone cavern network that the two explorers passed by when their expedition went through the area in 1805 and again in 1806.

first appeared: 6/30/2002

The Pictograph Cave State Park near Billings contains ancient paintings of buffalo, elk, and prehistoric animals drawn by American Indians who inhabited the area for more than 10,000 years. The drawings were made with paints made of crushed flowers, roots, and animal fat.

first appeared: 6/23/2002

Early prospectors didn’t get all the gold in Montana. There’s enough left for people to try their hand at panning at the Libby Creek Gold Panning area near Libby (pop. 2,626). The U.S. Forest Service has set aside a one-quarter mile stretch of the creek for those who want to search for the gold left behind after the boom years of the late 1800s.

first appeared: 6/16/2002

Virginia City (pop. 130), Montana’s second territorial capital, was born because of the spending habits of a few miners from Bannack in 1863. They had tried their luck in the Adler Gulch and struck gold. They returned to Bannack for supplies, vowing to keep their find a secret—but their spending habits gave them away. Other miners followed them back to the gulch and within a year, Virginia City had up to 35,000 residents.

first appeared: 6/9/2002

Jordan (pop. 364) holds the distinction of being the most isolated county seat in the continental United States. The community is 115 miles from the nearest train line and 185 miles from the nearest major airport.

first appeared: 6/9/2002

Hundreds of blacktailed prairie dogs live at the Greycliff Prairie Dog Town State Park near Big Timber (pop. 1,650). The critters can be seen in their natural habitat, popping out of the ground, looking around, and giving a shrill bark of warning before disappearing back into their underground homes.

first appeared: 6/2/2002

Explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, upon finding what would later be called Jackson Hot Springs in Jackson (pop. less than 100) in 1806, used the 138-degree water in the springs to cook their expedition’s dinner.

first appeared: 5/26/2002

Residents of Riverside didn’t like the town name, since the closest river was two miles away. So in 1910, the community’s name was changed to Yellowstone. But that created some problems with the delivery of mail destined for nearby Yellowstone National Park. So in 1920, a direction was added to the name—creating West Yellowstone (pop. 1,177).

first appeared: 5/19/2002

The Yellowstone River, running from Wyoming into Montana, is the longest free-flowing river in the lower 48 states. The river stretches 670 miles without the presence of a dam.

first appeared: 5/19/2002

The town of Circle (pop. 644) traces its name to one of the largest cattle ranching operations in the area. The ranch used a simple circle as its brand. The settlement that would spring up next to the ranch took its name from the brand.

first appeared: 5/12/2002

The Missoula Children’s Theatre sends two-member teams to various schools each year, where they spend a week preparing 50 to 60 children to perform a full-scale children’s musical for their community. This year, the theater plans to send 24 teams to 800 locations around the world.

first appeared: 5/5/2002

Rocks eroded into fantastic shapes dot the landscape at Makoshika State Park near Glendive (pop. 4,729). The park covers 8,800 acres, much of it filled with sandstone shaped by millions of years of wind and water erosion.

first appeared: 4/28/2002

Glacier National Park is half of the world’s first international park. In 1932, the governments of Canada and the United States named Glacier and Canada’s adjoining Waterton Lakes National Park the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park to mark the friendly relations between the two countries. The action also recognized the international character of wilderness and the cooperation required to protect it.

first appeared: 4/21/2002

The state flag was actually designed as a flag for the 1st Montana Infantry to fly during the Spanish-American War in 1898. Since the state had no flag at the time, the infantry commander commissioned a banner to be made with the state seal on a field of dark blue. By the time the unit returned to Montana in 1899, the design had won wide public acceptance, and it was officially named the state flag in 1905.

first appeared: 4/14/2002

The Big Hole Valley in southwestern Montana is nicknamed the Valley of 10,000 Haystacks because of the number of huge piles of hay—often reaching as high as houses—that dot the landscape. The area is Montana’s biggest producer of hay.

first appeared: 4/7/2002

The United States’ only producer of platinum and palladium metals can be found near Nye. Most of the metals produced by the Stillwater Mining Co. are used in high- tech industries.

first appeared: 3/31/2002

Members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition thought giant limestone cliffs lining the Missouri River near what is now Helena (pop. 25,780) would narrow, blocking their passage. But as they moved closer, the cliffs widened instead, opening the way to the Pacific. So the expedition named the 1,200-foot cliffs the “Gates of the Rocky Mountains.”

first appeared: 3/31/2002

The frequent earthquakes that shake southwestern Montana in the Yellowstone National Park area can sometimes change the landscape. An earthquake in 1959 sent 80 million tons of rock sliding across the Madison River near West Yellowstone (pop. 1,177), and the resulting dam created Quake Lake.

first appeared: 3/24/2002

jump to page: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22

newspaper partner login create account

Recent

Popular

Recipes

Below are the most recent American Profile articles:

Below are the most recent, highest rated American Profile articles:

Below are the most recent, highest rated American Profile recipes:

Relish

Spry

Below are the most recent articles from our Relish sister site. Click on the "Spry" tab above to see the most recent articles from our other sister site.

Below are the most recent articles from our Spry sister site. Click on the "Relish" tab above to see the most recent articles from our other sister site.