49 Fun Facts About Montana

What is the capital of Montana?

Helena has been Montana's capital since 1875; the city grew from the Last Chance Gulch gold strike and kept the role at statehood.

Which is Montana's most populous city?

Billings, with about 117,000 residents at the 2020 census, is Montana's only city above 100,000 people; Missoula and Great Falls come next.

Montana is the fourth-largest state by area, after Alaska, Texas and which other?

California, at about 164,000 square miles, ranks third; Montana's 147,000 square miles make it fourth, ahead of New Mexico.

What is Montana's official state motto, written in Spanish?

Oro y Plata, Spanish for gold and silver, honours the gold and silver mining boom that built the state and appears on the state seal.

Which of these is NOT one of Montana's nicknames?

The Silver State is Nevada's nickname; Montana goes by The Treasure State, Big Sky Country and The Last Best Place.

Montana became a state on November 8 of which year?

Montana entered the Union on November 8, 1889, under the Enabling Act of 1889, the omnibus bill that also admitted North Dakota, South Dakota and Washington.

Which three Canadian provinces border Montana?

Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan share Montana's northern border; Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming are its US neighbours.

Montana's state animal is which creature, of which the state has the largest population in the lower 48?

The grizzly bear became Montana's state animal in 1983 after a vote by schoolchildren; the Northern Continental Divide and Yellowstone ecosystems hold the most grizzlies in the lower 48.

What is Montana's state flower?

Bitterroot, a low pink-flowered plant Meriwether Lewis collected in 1806, became Montana's state flower in 1895; the Bitterroot Mountains and valley take its name.

Montana's state bird is which songbird?

The Western meadowlark, a yellow-breasted songbird with a black V on its chest, was chosen as Montana's state bird in 1931 by a vote of schoolchildren.

What is Montana's official state fossil?

A duck-billed dinosaur, Maiasaura, became Montana's state fossil in 1985; Jack Horner found its nesting colonies at Egg Mountain near Choteau.

Which two gemstones are official symbols of Montana?

Sapphire and moss agate became Montana's twin state gemstones in 1969; Yogo sapphires from the Little Belt Mountains are prized for their cornflower blue.

Montana's state fish is which trout?

The Westslope cutthroat, a native trout named for the red slash under its jaw, was designated Montana's state fish in 1977.

Montana's state tree is which pine?

Ponderosa pine, chosen as Montana's state tree in 1949, grows in open, dry forests across the state's lower mountain slopes.

Montana's highest point, Granite Peak, lies in which mountain range?

The Beartooth Mountains, straddling the Wyoming line in south-central Montana, hold Granite Peak, which at 12,807 feet is the state's highest point.

Which lake is the largest natural freshwater lake in Montana?

Flathead Lake covers about 197 square miles south of Glacier National Park, larger by surface area than Lake Tahoe; Fort Peck, the state's largest body of water, is a reservoir.

The Missouri River is formed at Three Forks by the Jefferson, the Madison and which third river?

The Gallatin, named by Lewis and Clark for Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, joins the Jefferson and Madison to form the Missouri, which flows north to Great Falls before turning east.

What distinction does the Yellowstone River, which crosses Montana, hold in the lower 48?

Longest undammed river in the lower 48: the Yellowstone runs about 692 miles from Wyoming across Montana to the Missouri just inside North Dakota with no dam on its main stem.

All Montana rivers west of the Continental Divide drain into which great river?

The Columbia receives them all; the Clark Fork, rising near Butte, crosses into Idaho and reaches the Columbia through Lake Pend Oreille.

Glacier National Park is paired with which Canadian park as the first International Peace Park?

Waterton Lakes joined Glacier in 1932 to form the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the world's first, which UNESCO listed as a World Heritage Site in 1995.

Which railway built Glacier National Park's Swiss-style hotels and chalets in the 1910s?

Louis Hill's company wanted to sell the park as America's Switzerland; its transcontinental line is known as the Hi-Line.

Glacier National Park is known by what nickname?

The Crown of the Continent was coined by conservationist George Bird Grinnell, who campaigned for the park's creation in 1910; it has more than 130 named lakes.

What is Montana's only telephone area code?

406 has covered all of Montana since the area-code system began in 1947; 307 is Wyoming, 208 Idaho and 701 North Dakota.

Which president signed the act creating Yellowstone, the world's first national park, in 1872?

Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone Act on March 1, 1872, setting aside more than two million acres in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho as a public park.

Custer's Last Stand at the Little Bighorn was fought in Montana in which year?

On June 25, 1876, Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors led by Crazy Horse and Gall wiped out Custer and the five companies of the 7th Cavalry with him.

The Lakota and other Plains peoples know the Little Bighorn fight by what name?

The Greasy Grass is the Lakota name for the Little Bighorn River and its valley; the fight there killed 268 on the US side, including Custer and two of his brothers.

Jeannette Rankin, the first woman in Congress, did what in both 1917 and 1941?

Rankin "Voted against declaring war" both times: one of 50 House members opposing war with Germany in 1917, and in 1941 the lone vote against war with Japan.

Butte earned what nickname during its early-20th-century mining boom?

The Richest Hill on Earth: Butte's mines made it Montana's largest city, with about 39,000 people in 1910, and its labour militancy earned it the name Gibraltar of Unionism.

What were the industrialists who fought over Butte's mineral wealth, like William Clark and Marcus Daly, known as?

The Copper Kings were William A. Clark, Marcus Daly and F. Augustus Heinze; Daly's Anaconda company went on to dominate Montana politics for decades.

The upper Clark Fork River, rising at Butte, holds what unwanted national distinction?

Largest Superfund site in the US: the Clark Fork complex runs about 120 river miles from Butte's Berkeley Pit past Anaconda's smelter wastes to the former Milltown Dam.

Montana's first territorial capital, in 1864, was which gold camp?

Bannack, founded after the 1862 Grasshopper Creek gold strike, served as the first territorial capital for only a few months before the seat moved to a richer camp in 1865.

The richest gold placer diggings in Montana were found at Alder Gulch, where which town sprang up?

Virginia City sprang up in 1863 after the Alder Gulch strike; the camp became the territorial capital in 1865 and survives as a preserved Victorian-era town.

Montana is one of only five states with no what?

Sales tax is absent in Montana, Alaska, Delaware, New Hampshire and Oregon; a few Montana resort towns such as Whitefish levy a local resort tax instead.

Which 1855 agreement set the boundaries for the Salish, Pend d'Oreille and Kootenai in western Montana?

The Hellgate Treaty, negotiated by Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens in July 1855 and ratified in 1859, created a reservation in the Jocko and Mission valleys for the three tribes.

Which new weapon went on alert at Malmstrom Air Force Base near Great Falls in 1962?

The Minuteman I missile made Malmstrom the first operational Minuteman base; its first flight of ten went on alert in October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The University of Montana and Montana State University play in which athletic league?

Their rivalry dates to the early 20th century.

How many Indian reservations lie within Montana?

Seven reservations: Blackfeet, Crow, Fort Belknap, Fort Peck, Northern Cheyenne, Rocky Boy's and the one governed by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

Most of Montana came under American control through which 1803 deal?

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 covered Montana east of the Continental Divide; the western third came with the Oregon Country, settled by treaty with Britain in 1846.

Going-to-the-Sun Road crosses the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park at which pass?

Logan Pass, at 6,646 feet, is the high point of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, the 50-mile route across Glacier National Park completed in 1932.

What is the state's official ballad called?

Montana Melody, by Carleen and LeGrande Harvey, was named the state ballad in 1983, joining the older state song, simply titled "Montana", adopted in 1945.

The Hell Creek Formation in northeast Montana is famous for what?

Dinosaur fossils: Barnum Brown dug the first Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton from Hell Creek in 1902, and Jack Horner's later finds there built the Museum of the Rockies collection.

Which Montana senator was the longest-serving Senate majority leader in US history?

Mike Mansfield led the Senate Democrats as majority leader from 1961 to 1977, a record 16 years, before serving as ambassador to Japan under Carter and Reagan.

Which painter, nicknamed 'the cowboy artist', has a museum complex devoted to him in Great Falls?

Charles Marion Russell painted Montana's open range from his Great Falls studio for three decades; the C. M. Russell Museum there preserves the log cabin studio he built in 1903.

Bozeman was once called the national capital of which crop, celebrated at a carnival from 1906 to 1916?

Sweet pea blossoms were the emblem of Bozeman's Sweet Pea Carnival of 1906 to 1916, staged by the valley's pea-growing industry; the festival was revived in 1977 as an arts event.

Fort Peck Reservoir on the Missouri is held back by the world's largest dam of which type?

Hydraulically filled with dredged river sediment between 1933 and 1940, Fort Peck Dam is the largest dam built that way; Margaret Bourke-White's photo of it fronted the first issue of Life magazine in 1936.

Which Missoula skier won Olympic gold in freestyle aerials at the 1998 Winter Games?

Eric Bergoust, born in Missoula, won the aerials title at Nagano in 1998 with a then-record score and went on to compete in four Winter Olympics.

Which airport became Montana's busiest in 2013?

Bozeman Yellowstone International, in Belgrade eight miles west of Bozeman, took its name in 2011 and became Montana's busiest airport in 2013 on the strength of park tourism and the town's growth.

Brothers James and Granville Stuart found gold at Gold Creek, Montana, in which year?

1858 is when brothers James and Granville Stuart panned gold at Gold Creek in the Deer Lodge valley; the big rushes followed at Grasshopper Creek in 1862 and Alder Gulch in 1863.

Roughly how many named lakes and reservoirs does Montana have?

3,000 is the rough count: Montana lists more than 3,000 named lakes and reservoirs, from Lake McDonald and St. Mary Lake in Glacier National Park to the sprawling Fort Peck Reservoir.