Constituent state of the United States of America. Only three states—Alaska, Texas, and California—have an area larger than Montana's 147,046 square miles (380,848 square kilometres), and only two states—Alaska and Wyoming—have a lower population density. Although its name is derived from the Spanish montaña (“mountain,” or “mountainous region”), Montana has an average elevation of only 3,400 feet (1,040 metres), the lowest among the Mountain states. The mountains sweep down from the Canadian province of British Columbia, trending northwest–southeast into western Montana, into Idaho on Montana's western and southwestern border, and southward into Wyoming. The eastern portion of the state, however, is a gently rolling landscape, with millions of grazing cattle and sheep, and with only scattered evidence of human habitation. It forms a part of the northern Great Plains, shared with the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan to the north, with the U.S. states of North and South Dakota to the east, and with northeastern Wyoming to the south. Helena is the capital.
The residents of Montana are relatively far from markets for their products, as well as from the nation's manufacturing and supply centres. The state is strongly oriented toward the outdoors, toward summer and winter sports, toward hunting and fishing, and toward the long-distance trip for socializing and entertainment or as a cure for prairie- or mountain-born restlessness.
In spite of its northern location, Montana is very much a Western state. The main street of Helena is Last Chance Gulch, the city's original name and a reminder of the prospectors who invaded the hills in the 1860s to pan for gold. By 1889, when Montana became the 41st state of the Union, the cattle drive was an institution, and the state had begun to emerge as one of the leading copper-mining centres of the nation.
Physical and human geography
The land
The northern Mountain region. [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]
The western two-fifths of Montana falls within the Rocky Mountains, and the eastern three-fifths lies upon the Great Plains. Rocky Mountain Montana is a land of high mountains, deep valleys, green forests, and treeless crest lines, whereas Great Plains Montana is a vast, horizontal sweep of yellow rangeland, golden grainfields, and brown fallow strips. This contrast between mountain and plain is the most powerful geographic feature of the state.
Relief
In Rocky Mountain Montana the mountain ranges are aligned generally from north-northwest to south-southeast. They are made up of ancient, hard rocks that were compressed, folded, faulted, and otherwise contorted by the mountain-building forces that created the Rockies.
During the last Ice Age, glaciers carved the mountain crest lines and high valleys from rounded, convex terrain into sharp, rugged, concave topography and, when they melted, left the loose earth material that they had gouged out of the mountains as glacial deposits in the valley bottoms. The glaciers in Montana today are very small compared to the great tongues of ice of the past. The bottoms of the valleys between the mountain ranges consist mainly of alluvial floodplains and terraces; of benchlands and foothills carved on young, soft rocks; and of plains, terraces, and foothills made up of glacial deposits.
There is a contrast within Rocky Mountain Montana between mountains with narrow valleys and those with broad valleys. In the narrow-valley regions, which are the most rugged and spectacular of the state, the valley floors are humid and forested. There are two narrow-valley regions. One is northwestern Montana, which includes Glacier National Park with most of Montana's glaciers. The other lies in south central Montana at the northern end of Yellowstone National Park; this area contains the highest point in Montana, Granite Peak, which has an elevation of 12,799 feet (3,901 metres) above sea level. These two narrow-valley regions are separated by a broad-valley area in west central and southwestern Montana. There the valley bottoms are wide, dry, and grassy, permitting sweeping panoramic views of the mountain ranges.
Most of Great Plains Montana is rather rough land. The country south of the Yellowstone River is mainly scattered hills, which make up the Breaks of the Missouri around Fort Peck Lake, with genuine plains found in the “Golden Triangle” north of Great Falls and plateaus elsewhere. Some of the hills, breaks, and valley bluffs form rugged badlands. The valleys of the major rivers flowing from the Rocky Mountains across eastern Montana are deeply incised. Scattered upon the plains and plateau surfaces are eight small mountain masses called Rocky Mountain outliers, which are like islands of the Rockies set out upon the plains.
The rocks underlying Great Plains Montana, except for the mountain outliers, are young, soft, and more or less horizontal. Roughly north of the Missouri River the plains rocks are covered by glacial deposits left by the continental ice cap, which occupied the area at the same time that alpine glaciers were sculpting the mountains to the west. The bottoms of the incised valleys are made up of alluvial floodplains, terraces, and soft-rock benchlands.
Drainage
Montana is the only state in the Union from which waters flow to Hudson Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific Ocean. The northwestern section of the state lies west of the Continental Divide and is drained to the Columbia River—and thus ultimately to the Pacific—by the Kootenai River, the Clark Fork, and its major tributary, the Flathead River. The Flathead flows into and then out of Flathead Lake, the largest natural lake in the state. The Kootenai flows out of Montana at the lowest elevation in the state, 1,820 feet (555 metres) above sea level. East of the Continental Divide Montana is drained by the Missouri River and its principal tributary, the Yellowstone. The Missouri is a tributary of the Mississippi River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico and thus is part of the Atlantic Ocean drainage system. Finally, a small portion of Montana on the eastern slope of Glacier National Park drains ultimately to Hudson Bay.
Soils
On the mountain ranges and outliers the soils are mostly derived from the underlying, hard bedrock and are too steep and stony to be cultivated. In Great Plains Montana the soils south of the limit of glaciation are derived from the underlying, soft, Great Plains rocks. Most of the soils in the north, formed in glacial deposits, are undulating to rolling and generally are better for cultivation than the rougher lands with residual soils to the south. In the valley bottoms most of the soils are formed from unconsolidated alluvial and glacial deposits and are productive for crops when irrigated.
Climate
The climate of most of Great Plains Montana is semiarid, with warm summers and cold winters. Average annual precipitation is scant, about 13 inches (330 millimetres). Total snowfall is light. The chinook, a warm winter wind that blows on the plains near the foot of the Rockies, periodically interrupts the bitter cold—with January temperatures averaging 18° F (-8° C)—for which Montana is notorious.
In Rocky Mountain Montana there are several different climates arranged one above the other in altitudinal zones. The climate of the lowest zone—the dry valley bottoms—is similar to that in eastern Montana. The climates of the other zones become progressively cooler, wetter, and more snowy with higher altitude.
Plant and animal life
For the most part, Rocky Mountain Montana is forested and Great Plains Montana is grassland. In the Rocky Mountains and on the mountain outliers the vegetation, like the climate, is arranged in altitudinal zones. In the dry valley bottoms below the lower timberline are grassland, brushland, and open stands of trees called parklands. In the timbered belt on the mountainsides the vegetation is coniferous forest dominated by Douglas fir. The treeless crest lines above the upper timberline are made up of low alpine tundra vegetation, barren rock, and glaciers. In most of Great Plains Montana, where the land is not cultivated, the vegetation is short-grass grassland. Along the base of the Rockies are foothill prairie grasslands. Many of the hilly areas on the plains are covered by prairie parklands.
Montana has an abundance of rare and imposing species, notably grizzly bears, Rocky Mountain goats, bighorn sheep, and moose. These animals live mainly in the mountains along with more common species, such as American elk, mule deer, black bears, mountain lions, bobcats, and forest grouse. The grassland animals of Great Plains Montana and of the grassy western valleys include pronghorn, mule deer, coyotes, badgers, and plains grouse. Distributed nearly statewide along and near streams and lakes are white-tailed deer, beavers, muskrats, mink, bald eagles, ring-necked pheasant, ducks, geese, and swans.
Settlement patterns
The population of Montana is small, sparse, and unevenly distributed. In the two narrow-valley mountain areas the population is aligned in thin strips along the valley bottoms and towns are small. The broad-valley region has a heavy population by Montana standards, and some of the state's major cities and large towns, including Missoula, Butte, Helena, Bozeman, Kalispell, Anaconda, and Livingston, are located in the irrigated districts on the dry valley floors.
In Great Plains Montana there are continuous bands of relatively dense population along the irrigated bottoms of the major incised valleys. All of the cities and major towns, except Lewistown, are lined up like beads on a string along these strips. Along the Yellowstone River are Billings, Miles City, Glendive, and Sidney; and along the Missouri River and its tributary, the Milk River, are Great Falls, Havre, and Glasgow. Population is moderately dense and fairly evenly spaced in the dryland grain areas, but it is sparse and uneven in the livestock-ranching areas.
The people
Most of the inhabitants of Montana today trace their ancestry to the countries of western, northern, and, to a lesser degree, eastern Europe—mainly Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, The Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, and Poland.
The one significant exception is the American Indians. Montana has seven Indian reservations and an Indian minority of about 5 percent. Nearly two-thirds of the Indians live on the reservations and most of the rest in the cities near the reservations, notably Missoula, Great Falls, and Billings. Blacks make up only a tiny fraction of the Montana population. Few blacks are permanent citizens of the state but—like the small Asian and Hispanic populations—are temporarily in Montana for employment or educational opportunities.
About half the inhabitants of Montana are affiliated with organized religious groups. Mormonism has increased in Montana. Many of the Indians were nominally converted to Roman Catholicism by missionaries.
The economy
Montana's economy is dominated by the primary sector—agriculture, forestry, mining, and energy production. The outdoor recreation industry, however, has also become important, and some high-technology industries have come to the state.
Agriculture
Beef cattle, sheep, grain, sugar beets, potatoes, and fruit are produced on irrigated farms in the broad, dry valleys of Rocky Mountain Montana and in the incised valleys in Great Plains Montana. Wheat and barley are grown on large dryland grain farms throughout the two major grain-growing regions—the Golden Triangle and northeastern Montana—and in patches elsewhere. Most of the rest of the state is rangeland and is used in the livestock-ranching industry for the production of beef cattle and sheep. There is some meat packing, flour milling, and sugar refining in Montana, but most of the farm and ranch products are processed outside the state.
Mining and water resources
Coal is one of the major mineral resources of Montana. Along with petroleum and natural gas, coal is extracted from the young, soft rocks of Great Plains Montana. Coal-fired, thermoelectric plants are located at Colstrip and Billings. Silver, gold, copper, platinum, talc, phosphate, vermiculite, sapphire, and other minerals are mined from the old, hard rocks of Rocky Mountain Montana and of the mountain outliers. There is a lead smelter located at Helena and an aluminum plant at Columbia Falls.
Petroleum was discovered in commercial quantities at Elk Basin in 1915. The Elk Basin, Kevin-Sunburst, and Cut Bank fields led in production of petroleum and natural gas for several years. The great Williston Basin was developed in 1951, but the Bell Creek field in Powder River county has been the most productive. Large petroleum refineries are located at Billings and Laurel.
Montana's tremendous water resources provide for hydroelectric power production and for uses in other sectors of the economy. Runoff from the forested sides of the Rocky Mountains and the outliers recharges groundwater, fills lakes and reservoirs, and generates the flow of the great rivers. There are several large dams, power stations, and reservoirs, which are clustered mainly in the mountains of northwestern Montana.
Forestry
Lumbering and the manufacture of forest products are vital to western Montana. Of the more than 14,000,000 acres (5,700,000 hectares) of commercial forestland, more than two-thirds is owned by the federal and state governments. The forestry industry includes the manufacture of plywood and of pulp and paper products. About one-third of Montana's forest products are sold to states in the Midwest.
Services
A large majority of all jobs in Montana are in the service sector; Billings, Great Falls, Missoula, and Butte are the state's major regional service centres. Tourism has become a significant component of Montana's economy.
Transportation
Railroad passenger service and total route length in Montana have decreased since the 1960s. Total highway mileage in Montana is relatively low, but there is a well-developed network of interstate and primary highways between population centres. Several major airlines and air-taxi lines serve the state, and many small planes are privately owned.
Administration and social conditions
Government
Montana's original constitution, adopted upon statehood in 1889, was replaced by a new one in 1972. The new document provided for a voter initiative process that has been used vigorously in attempts to enact new laws and to amend the constitution itself.
Allegiance is so evenly divided between the Republican and Democratic parties that election patterns are not predictable. Ticket splitting is common. The governor and the lieutenant governor are elected on one ticket, and both serve four-year terms. The state has an open primary, voters need not declare party affiliation, and registration is permanent unless a voter does not vote within four years.
The executive branch comprises 19 cabinet-style departments, with virtually all appointments directly controlled by the governor. The two-house legislature meets in odd-numbered years for 90-day sessions and is composed of 50 senators and 100 representatives.
Judges are elected without party designation. The highest court is the seven-member Supreme Court. The state is divided into 19 judicial districts, in which 36 district judges serve. On the lowest level are justices of the peace and police judges.
The county is the highest level of local government. Its powers and duties are defined and limited by state statutes. Three elected commissioners are the chief administrators, though a full-time manager may be employed instead. Municipal governments, like those of counties, derive all their authority from the state. They can, however, enact local ordinances, whereas counties cannot. Municipalities have police forces, and each county has an elected sheriff, who appoints deputies and has jurisdiction outside towns and cities. Because cattle rustling is a continuing problem, some sheriffs and deputies act as brand inspectors to prevent the sale of stolen livestock.
Education
Although rural schools continue to consolidate and introduce bus transportation, many children attend small and not always adequate one- or two-teacher country schools. School districts are corporate bodies headed by a county superintendent of schools and governed by elected school boards.
The state's system of higher education, chartered in 1893, includes universities at Missoula and Bozeman; regional four-year colleges at Billings, Havre, and Dillon; and a college of mineral science and technology at Butte. There are also a number of church-affiliated private colleges, junior colleges, and public postsecondary vocational-technical schools.
Health and welfare
Montanans pay various penalties for the wide-open spaces they enjoy. An increasing number of communities have no dentist, physician, or hospital. Montana's welfare program is state-supervised and administered by county departments of public welfare. Because of sparse population and few private social service agencies, costs are relatively high. Welfare departments are caught between pressures from taxpayers to curb programs and from organized low-income groups to provide wider services. There are special programs on Indian reservations.
Cultural life
Most artistic activity centres in the cities with colleges and universities, several of which sponsor visits by lecturers and professional artists of various kinds in addition to the presentation of the work of faculty members and students. Several cities have symphony orchestras that include some professional musicians.
The Montana Institute of the Arts, founded in 1948, is a grass-roots organization that ties together the scattered, often isolated practitioners of various arts and crafts through publications, an annual festival, and traveling exhibits. The Montana Arts Council, a state agency affiliated with the National Endowment for the Arts, funds dozens of local cultural organizations, primarily for music, drama, dance, literature, and the visual arts. There are summer theatres in a number of communities; and the Montana Repertory Theater, based in Missoula, tours both inside and outside the state.
Several Indian tribes hold traditional dance ceremonies at which outsiders are welcome. There is an annual reenactment of the Battle of the Little Bighorn on the Crow Indian Reservation. Rodeos abound, as do square-dance groups, and Montana is a thriving centre for old-time fiddling. In Red Lodge an annual nine-day Festival of Nations, originated to ease tensions among European ethnic groups of coal miners, has become a tradition.
The Montana Historical Society maintains a museum, art gallery, and specialized library in Helena. The C.M. Russell Museum, in Great Falls, specializes in the works of the cowboy artist Charles Marion Russell. Billings is the location of the Yellowstone County Fine Arts Center and the Yellowstone County Museum. The excellent, small Museum of the Plains Indians is in Browning. Many communities nurture art galleries and small museums of local historical interest.
Montana's spectacular scenery is one of its premier recreational attractions. A large proportion of the state's land is given over to state and national parks, forests, recreational areas, wildlife refuges, and wildernesses, which provide venues for a wide range of outdoor recreational activity.
History
At the beginning of the 19th century the Crow Indians occupied the south central portion of present-day Montana, the Cheyenne the southeastern corner, the Assiniboin and Atsina the northeastern corner, the Blackfoot the central and north central area, and the Kutenai the northwestern corner. The Pend d'Oreille had a territory around Flathead Lake, the Kalispel were in the mountains west of there, and the Flathead occupied the Clark Fork and Bitterroot valleys. The southwestern corner was disputed territory. The Flathead were later forcibly moved to their present reservation in the Flathead valley. Most of the other tribes are now living on reservations within their respective territories.
The first white explorers known to have set foot in Montana were the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–06). Fur trappers and traders followed, setting up forts to trade with the Indians. The only early trading post to survive as a present-day town was Fort Benton, which was established in 1846 and became an important port on the Missouri River. Roman Catholic missionaries followed the fur traders and in 1841 established Saint Mary's Mission near present-day Stevensville, believed to be the first permanent settlement in Montana. Trailblazers carved the northern Overland Route to Montana from the east, the Bozeman Trail from the southeast, and Mullan Road westward from Fort Benton, the head of navigation for steamboats on the Missouri.
Gold prospectors flocked in after rich placer deposits were discovered in the early 1860s. Montana Territory was established in 1864 with Bannack, in Grasshopper Creek, its first capital, and Virginia City, in Alder Gulch, its second. As pressure from white settlers increased, the Indians fought to protect their hunting grounds. The Dakota (Sioux) and Cheyenne won their last major victory in June 1876 at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. A band of Nez Percé under Chief Joseph won a battle in the Big Hole Basin the following year and fled toward Canada, only to be met and defeated by U.S. troops a few miles south of the international boundary.
Hard-rock mining began in the 1880s, and Montana became a state on Nov. 8, 1889, with Helena as the capital. Butte began as a gold camp, but shaft mining commenced when vast deposits of copper were discovered there. Butte subsequently became known as the “Richest Hill on Earth,” and the world's largest smelter was built at nearby Anaconda. The so-called War of the Copper Kings was won by Marcus Daly, whose Anaconda Company became one of the largest mining conglomerates in the world. The company smashed the mining unions, influenced the state legislature, acquired almost all of Montana's daily newspapers, and virtually controlled the state for three-quarters of a century.
Cattle and sheep grazing in Great Plains Montana started in the 1860s, when herds were driven overland from Texas. The vast grasslands seemed ideal for cattle, but a severe winter in 1886–87 virtually wiped out the herds. Beginning around 1900, homesteaders began pouring into the plains country to bust the sod and grow grain on dry land. After a few years of bumper crops and high prices, a series of dry years brought financial disaster and mass exodus.
Oil and natural gas production began in Great Plains Montana in 1915, expanded greatly in the 1950s, and peaked in the 1960s. Coal mining, which began in the days of coal stoves and steam locomotives, increased dramatically in the 1970s.
The closing of the copper mines at Butte, the smelter in Anaconda, and the copper refinery at Great Falls in the early 1980s marked the end of the copper century and a turning point in Montana's history. The state no longer relies so heavily on the primary economic sector; more emphasis is placed on tourism and on new and innovative businesses that provide jobs without causing deterioration of the state's magnificent mountains, crystal waters, and wide-open spaces.
Dorothy M. Johnson
John M. Crowley
This is the complete article, containing 3,679 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).
![The northern Mountain region. [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]](http://images.bookrags.com/images/eb/4841.gif)
