Montana Trivia & Tidbits - Page 20

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

The winter adventures of two horses named Tex and Jerry were the inspiration behind a town’s name. Hungry Horse (pop. 934) was so named because during the severe winter of 1900, Tex and Jerry wandered away from their owner. The two weak and hungry horses were found one month later.

first appeared: 8/26/2001

The clapboard house and log cabin studio built by Charles Russell were moved to the museum named for the famed Western artist. The C.M. Russell Museum Complex in Great Falls also boasts the country’s largest collection of Russell’s works. Born in St. Louis, Russell moved West at the age of 16 and spent 24 years in Great Falls before his death in 1926.

first appeared: 8/26/2001

The 1,500-acre Grant-Kohrs Ranch—once one of the largest ranches in the country—is now a national historic site. In the 1880s, the ranch, near Deer Lodge (pop. 3,421), covered more than 1 million acres and its cattle grazed in four states. Visitors today can tour the ranch’s working stables, bunkhouse, barn, and 23-room home.

first appeared: 8/19/2001

Cut Bank (pop. 3,519) boasts of being home to the world’s largest penguin statue. The concrete sculpture stands 27 feet tall and weighs 10,000 pounds. Ron Gustafson, owner of Glacier Gateway Inn, wanted something that would showcase the fact that Cut Bank often has the lowest temperature in the continental United States, so he built the giant penguin in 1989.

first appeared: 8/12/2001

The U.S. Forest Service’s Smokejumping Training Center in Missoula offers a look at what these smokejumpers go through in jumping from airplanes to fight forest fires. The center has displays on smokejumping, and visitors can tour the training facility.

first appeared: 8/5/2001

Natural gas was found by accident in Baker (pop. 1,818). A driller trying to find water for a homestead near the community in 1915 struck natural gas instead—sparking a fire that one report says lasted six years—leading to the development of extensive oil and gas fields.

first appeared: 7/29/2001

Film actress Myrna Loy’s hometown of Helena (pop. 24,569) honors its favorite daughter with The Myrna Loy Center for the Performing Arts, located in a historic 1890 jail. The center offers visitors the chance to see movies and stage performances, as well as photographs and movie stills of the actress.

first appeared: 7/22/2001

The arctic grayling, once believed extinct in the lower 48 states, is flourishing in the upper reaches of the Big Hole River. If caught, the graylings must be released.

first appeared: 7/15/2001

The nation’s first refuge for the West’s wild horses was created in the Pryor Mountains in 1968. The Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range, covering more than 32,000 acres in southeast Montana, is now home to more than 130 mustangs, most believed to be descended from Spanish explorers’ stock.

first appeared: 7/15/2001

Kootenai Falls, near Libby (pop. 2,532), is the largest undammed waterfall in the northern Rockies and one of the largest in the country. The Kootenai River drops 200 feet at the falls—but unlike most other large waterfalls in the Northwest, no hydroelectric plant has been built to tap its power.

first appeared: 7/8/2001

The 165-foot-tall dome on Montana’s state Capitol in Helena (pop. 24,569) is covered with copper from mines in Butte.

first appeared: 7/1/2001

The Fort Peck Dam—built in the 1930s as one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” projects—is one of the largest earth-filled dams in the world (as opposed to concrete). The dam, near Glasgow (pop. 3,572), is 250 feet high and 4 miles across, forming a 134-mile reservoir on the Missouri River. The dam’s construction created thousands of jobs and so much interest that photos of its construction were featured in the first Life magazine.

first appeared: 7/1/2001

Ekalaka (pop. 439) was founded because Claude Carter’s wagon bogged down in mud. Carter, a Nebraska buffalo hunter, was transporting a wagonload of logs in Montana in the 1860s, intending to build a saloon along the railroad tracks. When his wagon bogged down miles short of his destination, he set up shop where he was. His enterprise, The Old Stand, was the founding business in Ekalaka.

first appeared: 6/24/2001

The discovery of gold in the 1860s made Helena (pop. 27,982) the home to an estimated 50 millionaires by 1888, making Montana’s capital the richest city per capita in the United States that year.

first appeared: 6/17/2001

Fort Benton (pop. 2,690) is often referred to as the “world’s innermost port” because of its role as the head of navigable waters on the Missouri River. Fur traders, gold miners, and homesteaders came to the town via steamboats beginning in 1859.

first appeared: 6/17/2001

Butte (pop. 34,051) was once referred to as the “Richest Hill on Earth” because of its huge mineral resources. It produced $2 billion in gold, copper, silver, and zinc before the mine there was closed in 1983. Ores were mined underground until 1955, when above-ground mining began, creating the “Berkeley Pit,” one of the largest open pit mining operations in the country.

first appeared: 6/10/2001

One of the major attractions in Missoula is its carousel–the first hand-carved carousel to be assembled in the United States in more than 60 years. Most of the horses on the carousel, completed in 1995, were carved by local volunteers.

first appeared: 6/3/2001

The petrified forest of Gallatin National Park provides a unique look at trees that were petrified as they grew. The trees were covered with mud and ash when volcanoes erupted in the area about 50 million years ago.

first appeared: 6/3/2001

The U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps was formed in 1888 at Fort Missoula to test the military potential of bicycles. The corps took part in several short journeys before riding their bikes 1,900 miles to St. Louis. The soldiers returned to Montana by train when the Army decided the bicycle would never replace the horse. Missoula today is considered one of the top 10 bicycling communities in the United States.

first appeared: 5/27/2001

Montana’s deer population, spread out over its 147,046 square miles, amounts to 3.3 deer per square mile. By contrast, the state has six people per square mile.

first appeared: 5/27/2001

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