This is Southwest Montana

35 Facts that make Southwest Montana the Incredible Destination We Know and Love

by Rick & Susie Graetz
  1. Owing to four significant events that led to modern Montana, the decade of the 1880s is considered the most critical ten years in Montana’s history. They are the discovery of copper that grew the mining and timber industry; the first railroad, which came into Montana over Monida Pass on May 9, 1880, reaching Butte on December 21, 1881; Montana gained statehood on November 8, 1889; and the end of the open range cattle industry after the Winter of 1886-1887. Three of these events, railroads, copper, and statehood, occurred in Southwest Montana. Montana East of the Mountains carried the brunt of that brutal winter.

  2. Considered the foundation of the state, the first major gold strike on Grasshopper Creek on July 28, 1862, led to the founding of Bannack. This gold camp became our first territorial capital when Montana gained territorial status on May 26, 1864. The first territorial legislature met in Bannack in December 1864. The discovery brought a tide of thousands of people hoping to find riches in what would become Montana, and Montana would never be the same.

    Grasshopper Creek Valley near Polaris, Montana
    Grasshopper Creek Valley | Rick & Susie Graetz
  3. Southwest Montana is the most heavily mineralized region in Montana.

  4. First Montana gold find on Gold Creek, east of today’s Drummond, in 1852 and then in 1856 at the same location first prospecting took place

  5. In May 1863, Montana’s largest gold discovery took place in Southwest Montana on Alder Gulch. It led to the founding of Virginia City our second territorial capital. Today it is the county seat of Madison County

  6. Southwest Montana’s Butte is called the richest hill on earth- gold then silver and then copper led to the growth of the timber industry into the mainstream of Montana’s economy. Mines needed timber. In the 1890s this mining camp grew to 90,000 people.

  7. Southwest Montana claimed all three of Montana’s territorial capitals – Bannack, Virginia City and Helena

  8. First commercial cattle brought to Montana came to the Deer Lodge Valley in 1857 with Johnny Grant. Grant Kohrs Ranch now an historic collection of buildings in Deer Lodge was his ranch.

  9. An important region in what would become Montana for the Corps of Discovery – Camp Fortunate now under the waters of Clark Canyon Lake south of Dillon is where the explorers finally met with the Shoshone Indians to get help in finding their way west.

  10. Lemhi Pass 7,373’ in elevation, and west of Clark Canyon Lake, is where, on August 12, 1805, Meriwether Lewis co-leader of the Corps of Discovery became the first known white man to have crossed the Continental Divide. The pass is on the Montana-Idaho border in the Beaverhead Range and thus in Southwest Montana.

  11. There are 22 mountain ranges in Southwest Montana and that total includes categorizing all of the ranges in the Bob Marshall complex that are in southwest Montana’s region as one.

  12. Hilgard Peak, 11,316’ in Southwest Montana’s Madison Range is the highest summit in Montana outside of the Beartooth Range, mountains containing all of Montana’s twenty-eight 12,000’ and higher pinnacles.

  13. Almost all of the mileage of the 820 miles of the Montana segment of the Continental Divide, 700 miles, are in Southwest Montana.

  14. Eighteen Mile Peak, 11,185’ in far Southwest Montana and the Beaverhead Range is the highest peak on the Continental Divide between Banff, Alberta, and Wyoming’s Wind River Range

  15. Furthest trickle of water to help form the Missouri River is born in Southwest Montana just below the north side of the crest of Centennial Range from Hell Roaring Springs that creates Red Rock Creek. The crest of the range is the Continental Divide and Montana-Idaho border

  16. Rock Creek, a premier Montana fishery is entirely within the southwest Montana region from its headwaters to where it merges with the Clark Fork River.

  17. An outstanding wilderness fishery in the Danaher Meadows and Creek, in the southern reaches of the Bob Marshall complex, are in Southwest Montana and in Powell County.

  18. The Blackfoot River headwaters are in Southwest Montana.

  19. The North Fork of the Blackfoot River headwaters in Southwest Montana.

  20. The headwaters of “the Bob’s” North Fork of the Sun River are in Southwest Montana.

  21. A well-known and excellent Missouri River fishery from below Holter Dam to Craig and north of Wolf Creek townsite is in southwest Montana

  22. Dearborn River from its headwaters on Scapegoat Mountain in “the Bob” to where it meets the Missouri in Southwest Montana

    Scapegoat Mountain
    Scapegoat Mountain | Rick & Susie Graetz
  23. The iconic rises of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex – Scapegoat Mountain, the Chinese Wall, and Red Mountain the loftiest summit in “the Bob” are in southwest Montana.

  24. Almost all of the mileage of the 820 miles of the Montana segment of the Continental Divide – 700 miles, are in Southwest Montana.

  25. The historic “River of the Road to the Buffalo” used by indigenous peoples for hundreds of years as they “went to buffalo” on the Montana prairie follows Southwest Montana’s Blackfoot River corridor.

  26. The coldest temperature ever experienced in the US – 70 below zero was registered in a former mining camp on the west side of Rogers Pass, just to the east of Lincoln.

  27. Lewis and Clark Caverns, east Cardwell are in Southwest Montana.

  28. Southwest Montana offers some of the most accessible entrance trails to the Bob Marshall complex which includes the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Scapegoat Wilderness, and the Great Bear Wilderness. Trailheads are out of Ovando, Lincoln and Augusta.

  29. Pentagon Mountain north of the Chinese Wall and on the Continental Divide is the northernmost point of Lewis and Clark County and the Southwest Montana visitor region. The north side of the mountain becomes the Great Bear Wilderness.

  30. Southwest Montana then claims most of the Bob Marshall and Scapegoat Wilderness areas east of the Continental Divide. The Great Bear is not in Southwest Montana
    Sun River Canyon, the Sun River, Gibson Lake, and the Sunriver Game Management Area experiences the largest natural elk migration in the nation. As winter approaches the animals move out the mountains of “the Bob” through the Sun River country to the game management area on the prairie just west of Augusta, and below Sawtooth Reef. It is estimated the range’s elk population in mid-winter is more than 3,000 head.

  31. Six federally designated Wilderness areas are in Southwest Montana- Gates of the Mountains, Bob Marshall, Scapegoat, Red Rock Lakes, Anaconda Pintler, and Lee Metcalf. Montana has a total of 16 Wilderness area.

  32. Seven of Montana’s most productive fisheries are in Southwest Montana – Blackfoot, Madison, Rock Creek, Big Hole, Jefferson, Beaverhead, and Missouri.

  33. The Big Hole River is the last stronghold in North America for the fluvial Arctic Grayling – the fluvial species live their entire life cycle in streams.

  34. Big Hole National Battlefield is in Southwest Montana, west of Wisdom. This is part of the Nez Perce story.

  35. The infamous Road Agent and Vigilante Trail between Bannack and Virginia City is in Southwest Montana.