Montana Map

Helena owes its existence to the discovery of placer gold, quartz gold, silver, and lead. Helena became the 'Queen City of the Rockies' with the boom brought on by the 1864 gold strike...

Billings, a county seat, is a major trading center for a vast area of southeastern Montana. It was named for Frederick Billings, lawyer, railway promoter, and philanthropist. He was one of..

Come walk the deserted streets of Bannack, and discover for yourself the way the West really was. Bannack is one of the best preserved of all of Montana's ghost towns. Bannack is..

The scenic community of Big Sky nestles high in mountain meadows, surrounded by timberland, the Spanish Peaks Primitive Area and the Gallatin National Forest. Majestic 11,166-foot Lone..

In 1864, John Bozeman led a wagon train over Bozeman Pass into the Gallatin Valley, where his friends W. J. Beall and D. E. Rouse staked out the town site for the city of Bozeman. Never a..

Guarding Butte's northwest corner is the prominent conical hill, Big Butte, from which our city took its name. The community itself is located virtually on the Continental Divide..

Great Falls is known as the 'Electric City' because of its numerous dams and power plants. Montana's third largest city is located on the Missouri River among the five falls that were both..

Jefferson City is twelve miles north of Boulder. It began in 1864 as a stage station on the freight and passenger line between Virginia City and Fort Benton. There was some mining activity..

Kalispell is the 'Hub of the Valley.' Officially born in 1891, Kalispell developed on the site where founder Charles Conrad knew the railroad would establish the main line junction. Conrad..

Known as the "Garden City" for its dense trees and lush green landscape, Missoula is nestled in the heart of the northern Rockies in western Montana. A community of approximately 85,000..

Nevada City and this portion of Gold West Country offers many opportunities to relive the adventure of gold rush days. Many of the towns were founded during that famous era and are rich..

Mansfield Daniels and Jake Timmons established a large ranch along the Popular River 15 miles south of the Canadian border in 1901. New settlers and travelers tended to stop at the ranch so..

St. Ignatius, in the center of the Flathead Reservation a few miles south of Ronan, is the home of a reservation sub-agency. It was named in honor of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Spanish..

St. Mary is near Glacier National Park. Lower St. Mary Lake is in Glacier County, Upper St. Mary Lake is in the park, and the town of St. Mary is between them. Going-to-the-Sun Road, which..

Virginia City was born with the discovery of gold in Alder Gulch in 1863. A boom town of the post Civil War era, Virginia City served as the Montana Territorial Capital for 10 years, until..

West Yellowstone serves at the western entrance to the famous national park. Though comparatively quiet during winter, West Yellowstone booms in the spring when summer residents return and..

Located in the breathtaking Northern Rockies and adjacent to the peaks of Glacier National Park and Whitefish Mountain Resort, the town of Whitefish is surrounded by hundreds of lakes..

Whitewater is named for Whitewater Creek, which runs through town. The creek gets its name from the milky look of its water. A few miles to the south it runs into the Milk River, where the..

Absarokee is fourteen miles south of Columbus. The town and the Absaroka Mountains bear an Indian name by which the Crows were originally known. The Crows are of Siouxan origin and were..

Alberton was established by the Milwaukee Railroad when they were running their trans-continental line to the Pacific Coast. When they chose this route, on the north side of the river..

Alder takes its name from the creek named by Henry Edgar in 1863. Alder was the terminus of a branch line of the Northern Pacific and served as a shipping point for Virginia City ore..

Alzada, settled in the late 1870s by pioneers who wanted to raise cattle, is on the banks of the Little Missouri River. It was originally called Stoneville, after a saloon owner, Lou Stone...

Michael Hickey, an adventurous Irish miner and Union Army veteran, had read an editorial by Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune stating that Grant's army was "encircling Lee's forces..

Antelope is in extreme northeastern Montana 32 km (twenty miles) from Canada and the North Dakota line. The town and the stream were named for the graceful animal native to the area; large..

Ashland is on the Tongue River at the mouth of Otter Creek. The post office was established under this name in 1886; previously it had been called Birney and Strader. Ashland is division..

Along the southern Rocky Mountain Front, Augusta is located on US Highway 287 85 km (53 miles) west and slightly south of Great Falls and about 40 km (25 miles) north of the Hwy 200/287..

Babb was named for C. C. Babb, district engineer in charge of the St. Mary's Irrigation Project. In 1912 Babb became the headquarters for the Reclamation Service Project that diverted..

Baker's early years first boomed when the Milwaukee Railroad came across Montana in the 1900s. It received its name from A. G. Baker, the construction engineer for the main railroad line...

Basin, in the Boulder River Basin, was founded in 1880 by two miners named Lawson and Allport. A small settlement called Cataract pre-dated Basin, when prospectors found gold there in..

Bearcreek, east of Red Lodge, was named for the many bears that came along after berries—and sometimes are still seen in town along the creek. The town was founded between 1905 and 1906..

Belgrade was named by a Serbian capitalist from Belgrade (now Yugoslavia), who in 1883 was a special guest on the train taking president Villard of the Northern Pacific Railroad to Gold..

Belt was named for Belt Butte, a nearby mountain that appears to have a belt of rocks around it. The Belt Mountains also took their name from this butte. The town was originally called..

Big Arm is located twelve miles north of Polson on the 'big arm' of Flathead Lake, the largest natural freshwater lake in the western United States. Big Arm Bay, the largest park on..

Big Sandy was named for a creek near the town. The Indians called the creek Un-es-putcha-eka, which translated from the Blackfeet language as 'Big Sandy Creek.' Big Sandy is one of the..

Originally called ‘Dornix', Big Timber was named by a railroad official in St. Paul who read William Clark's Journals. Clark was referring to the large cottonwood trees near the area..

Bigfork got its name from its location on the fork of Swan River. It has had a post office since 1901. (from Cheney's Names on the Face of Montana, Mountain Press Publishing Company)...

Bighorn is near the Yellowstone County border where the Big Horn River flows into the Yellowstone. Bighorn in on ground that has been occupied almost continuously by white men since..

Birney is about twenty-five miles south of Ashland on the Tongue River at the mouth of Hanging Woman Creek. Ralph Shane in his 'Early History of the Northern Cheyennes' notes in an..

Black Eagle almost adjoins Great Falls. It was named for the Black Eagle Falls on the Missouri, which in turn were named because of the many eagles seen in the area by Lewis and Clark...

Bloomfield is twenty-three miles north of Glendive. It was formerly called Adams and a post office under that name was established in June 1906. The name was changed to Bloomfield in..

Boulder is a county seat and was named for the massive stones strewn about the valley. The town was established in the early 1860s as a stage station on the Fort Benton-Virginia City..

Box Elder was named for the creek, which in turn was named for the box elder trees that line its banks. The town serves as headquarters for the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation. The Rocky..

Boyd, near Roberts, was named for John Boyd, a homesteader on Rock Creek. It became a rural independent station in 1965. This is an irrigated area with crops watered by melting snow from..

Brady is the grain marketing and distribution center for 5,000 acres of farmland that is watered by the Bynum Irrigation Project. Water is conveyed to Brady ranches and farms through Muddy..

Bridger is south of Billings twenty-one miles from the Wyoming line. It was named for Jim Bridger, one of the first white men to explore Yellowstone Park. Bridger was born about 1795..

Broadus is a county seat in the southeast corner of the state near the junction of the Powder and Little Powder Rivers. It was named for the Broaddus family, settlers on the Powder River;..

Brockton, thirteen miles east of Poplar, has been described as a 'wind-swept village on the prairie.' A few miles north of Brockton are the Twin Buttes, named because two of them rise..

Browning is the agency headquarters for the 1.5 million-acre Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Blackfeet Indians are Montana's largest Indian tribe. Although today the majority of the..

Brusett is northwest of Jordan. The post office was established in 1916. There was no post office to serve the settlers of LongTree Creek for many years, and homesteaders had to go to..

Buffalo is almost on the Fergus County line. It was named for the great shaggy native Montanan that served as a source of food, shelter, and tools for the Plains Indian. Lewis and Clark..