current issue
Tidbits

Montana Trivia & Tidbits - Page 2

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

<< view another state's trivia

The U.S. Forest Service’s Missoula Ranger District has opened for overnight visits the cabin of Annie Morgan, a cook for Gen. George Custer’s 7th Cavalry, and her common-law husband, Joseph Case. Morgan moved to the homestead near Philipsburg (pop. 914) in the 1880s. The two-bedroom Morgan-Case Homestead has been restored to its 1940s appearance.
first appeared: 2/22/2009
—Pitcher Leslie Ambrose Bush, dubbed “Bullet Joe” because of his throwing speed, was until 2002 the youngest pitcher to win a World Series game. When his team, the Philadelphia Athletics, triumphed over the New York Giants in 1913, he was 20 years and 315 days old. The year before, he played for the minor league Missoula (pop. 57,053) Highlanders.
first appeared: 2/8/2009
Located on the west bank of the Kootenai River, Troy (pop. 957) is the lowest-elevation town in Montana, at about 1,900 feet above sea level.
first appeared: 2/8/2009
—Jeffrey Sharkey, 23, a 2008 graduate of Montana State University in Bozeman (pop. 27,509), placed among the top 10 entrants in the Google Android Developer Challenge last August. Sharkey designed CompareEverywhere, a software program that uses a cell phone’s camera to read the barcode on products, then searches online for reviews, prices and vendors selling that item. Sharkey’s invention earned him a $275,000 prize.
first appeared: 1/11/2009
—Hazel Warp, who played Vivien Leigh’s stunt double in Gone With the Wind, was born Hazel Hash in 1914 in Harlowton (pop. 1,062). Warp was a stand-in for Leigh in all of the horseback-riding scenes in the 1939 movie and took the movie’s famous fall, tumbling down the stairs of Tara near the end of the film when Scarlett O’Hara reaches out to slap Rhett Butler, loses her balance and falls. Warp died at age 93 in August in Livingston (pop. 6,851).
first appeared: 12/29/2008
In 1914, Mary McAboy of Missoula (pop. 57,053) patented the design for her Skookum Indian dolls made with dried apple heads and wrapped with blankets or shawls in a way that gave the illusion of folded arms. Skookums were sold in tourist shops nationwide and eventually were factory-made with heads from composite material and plastic.
first appeared: 12/29/2008
—Some of the wildest and woolliest town history in Havre (pop. 9,621) is underfoot and can be visited during the “Havre Beneath the Streets” tour. The re-created subterranean frontier businesses include a saloon, an opium den, a Chinese laundry, a restaurant and a bordello.
first appeared: 11/30/2008
Larger-than-life bronze statues of two local sports legends, Ed Bayne and Dave McNally, stand at Dehler Park in Billings. Bayne coached the Billings Royals American Legion baseball team to the Legion’s world series four times in the 1950s and 1960s. McNally, one of Bayne’s star players, became a winning left-handed pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles in the 1960s and 1970s.
first appeared: 11/30/2008
—Golfers don’t pay any fees to use John’s Golf Course in Eureka (pop. 1,017). Steve Espinoza built the nine-hole course at his home in the 1990s so his son John, who has a rare form of Down syndrome, could golf to his heart’s content. Now the course, built and maintained with donations from across the nation, is open free-of-charge to all golfers.
first appeared: 11/16/2008
The world’s largest farm tractor, the 900-horsepower Big Bud 747, is pulling heavy loads in Big Sandy (pop. 703), where brothers Robert and Randy Williams use it to pull a cultivator. Big Bud was built in Havre (pop. 9,621) by the Northern Manufacturing Co. for a cotton farm in California and later was sold to a Florida farm. The Williams brothers brought the tractor, which measures 27 feet long, 20 feet wide and 14 feet tall, back to Montana in 1997. Its tires were specially made by United Tire Co. of Canada and are 8 feet in diameter.
first appeared: 11/16/2008
—The 624-mile Mullan Road, built in the early 1860s, was the first engineered road in the region. Intended as a military route connecting Fort Benton (pop. 1,594) to Fort Walla Walla, Wash., the road became an important thoroughfare for miners to goldfields in Idaho.
first appeared: 11/2/2008
The state’s oldest surviving family-owned and operated lumber mill is Pyramid Mountain Lumber in Seeley Lake (pop. 1,436), abuzz since 1949.
first appeared: 11/2/2008
—Jeff Greenwood graduated in May from Opheim (pop. 111) High School as both the first in his class and the last. Though he was the only student in his class, Greenwood’s graduation ceremony drew a big name for the commencement address: Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
first appeared: 10/19/2008
—The Bakken shale formation in Montana and North Dakota contains between 3 billion and 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Richland County (pop. 9,667) alone has about 550 wells in the formation and is producing more oil than the entire state of Montana did just five years ago.
first appeared: 10/5/2008
If the name fits, wear it. That’s exactly what sneaker maker Adidas did for its combination tennis and basketball shoe, the Polson ST, named after the town of Polson (pop. 4,041). The idea came from George Cutright, who works in the company’s marketing communications office and who lived in Polson during his teen years.
first appeared: 10/5/2008
—Tom Thurston, of Oak Creek (pop. 849), Colo., won the 2008 Race to the Sky dogsled competition in February, crossing the finish line in Lincoln (pop. 1,100) after mushing for 290 miles with 12 dogs from Camp Rimini, near Helena (pop. 25,780).
first appeared: 9/21/2008
Greg Mortenson, co-founder of the Central Asia Institute, which has built schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, is one of six recipients of the 2008 National Awards for Citizen Diplomacy. Mortenson, of Bozeman (pop. 27,509), also is the co-author of the best-selling book Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time.
first appeared: 9/21/2008
—A team of archaeologists and anthropologists from the University of Montana at Missoula (pop. 57,053) has uncovered parts of the lost town of Cinnabar, which until 1903 was the gateway to Yellowstone National Park. The town faded when the railroad extended its line three miles southeast to Gardiner (pop. 851), so tourists no longer had to catch a stagecoach in Cinnabar to the park. The archaeologists discovered what is thought to be the foundation of the Cinnabar Hotel, where President Teddy Roosevelt established a temporary White House during his visit in 1902. This marks the 100th year of Gideons International placing Bibles in hotels. The first Gideon Bible was distributed to the Superior Hotel in Iron Mountain in 1908.
first appeared: 9/7/2008
—A group of volunteers called the “Bob Squad” helps maintain miles of trails in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex in the northwestern part of the state. The squad is an arm of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation, headquartered in Whitefish (pop. 5,032), which helps restore and preserve the area’s trail systems.
first appeared: 8/24/2008
The Ozark Club in Great Falls (pop. 56,690) booked jazz and dance performers from across the country during its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s. The legendary club was destroyed by fire in 1962, but its spirit was resurrected with a jazz festival called “A Night at the Ozark” last year in the city’s History Museum and with a historical exhibit.
first appeared: 8/24/2008
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
Newsletter Sign Up
USERNAME

PASSWORD

newspaper partner login   create account
RECIPE SEARCH
SITE SEARCH

Three Rivers
share ad

Publishing Group of America Logo