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Montana, Great Falls, Helena, Missoula THE name Montana is derived from the Spanish montaña, meaning mountain. The State, third largest in the Union, is bounded on the north by Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia; on the east by the Dakotas; on the south by Wyoming and Idaho; and on the west by Idaho. Its area is 146,997 square miles, of which 866 square miles is water surface. Two-thirds of the surface of the State is a plain broken by a network of valleys, many of the smaller ones carrying no water except during rare floods, and by isolated groups of low mountains. The western mountainous section, roughly 200 miles wide, is composed of generally parallel ranges on a northwest-southeast axis, but the Continental Divide follows a meandering course north and south. In the north the main range of the Rockies fronts the eastern plain, but farther south an increasing spread of ranges lies east of the Divide, comprising the sources of the Missouri River and its tributaries. The highest peaks are east of the Divide rather than along its crest. Granite Peak, near the southern boundary, is the highest point in the State. Fairview, on the Dakota boundary, and Troy, in the northwest corner, have the lowest altitudes. Montana is generally lower than other Rocky Mountain States. In eastern Montana, along the Yellowstone River and other streams where erosion has been too rapid to allow vegetation to gain foothold, grotesque badlands formations in vivid colors extend for many miles. Montana's most important eastern rivers are the Missouri and Yellowstone. As evidenced by its broad alluvial plain, the Yellowstone is the older; it also has the most direct course. Its valley, one of the most productive agricultural districts in the State, has terraced landscapes shaped by long processes of land elevation and erosion. The Missouri is the larger river, formed by the junction of the Madison, Jefferson, and Gallatin at Three Forks; it describes a huge, irregular northerly arc on its course eastward. MONTANA, traditionally a mining and stock raising State, is also a great farming region. In a few exceptional years its wheat crop alone has exceeded the entire mineral output in value. GREAT FALLS, seat of Cascade County and second largest city in the State, is on a gentle slope of sandy plain within a bend of the Missouri River, opposite the mouth of the Sun River. In the distance four mountain ranges rise, the Highwoods and Little Belts to the east and southeast, the Big Belts to the south, and the main range of the Rockies to the west. One section of the city spreads westward across the river, and a town called Black Eagle, or Little Chicago, has grown up around the metal reduction works on the north side. Great Falls owes its growth largely to the development of hydroelectric power at the falls on the Missouri for which it is named. The city is well lighted and clean; its factories use few dust- and smoke-generating fuels. A zoning system helps to maintain high standards of construction. Most buildings are modern. The largest of 17 parks lies along the Missouri River, and smaller ones are scattered throughout the city. In the residential area the wide shaded streets run straight from end to end of the city, bordered in most places by green lawns planted with trees, shrubs and flowers. Industrial plants are landscaped wherever possible. HELENA , Montana's capital, with its back against low, rounded Mount Helena and Mount Ascension, looks out over the flat and almost treeless Prickly Pear Valley, stretching away golden brown to the foothills of the Big Belt Mountains on the east and to spurs of the Rockies on the north and west. Main Street runs along the bottom of historic Last Chance Gulch, and is somewhat hemmed in; but from almost anywhere else in the city the view is far-sweeping and memorable. On a summer morning, when the sun rises over the wooded Big Belts, the yellow-brown plain, stippled with green fields and ditches, is suddenly washed with light, and the lakes along the Missouri River, a dozen miles away, glow and glisten with color. One of the first cities in the State, Helena is a blend of old and new, with rather more of the old, as age is understood in Montana. Its business streets, narrow and crooked, are adapted to the contours of mountain slopes and furrowed gulches. MISSOULA, stands on the level bed of a prehistoric lake, at the mouth of Hell Gate Canyon. The Sapphire Mountains extend southward; the Bitterroots, with Lolo Peak prominent among them, loom on the southwestern horizon. From the high country to the north, icy Rattlesnake Creek rushes down to empty into Clark Fork of the Columbia (locally called the Missoula River) near the city's eastern limits. The narrow entrance to Hell Gate Canyon is guarded by Mount jumbo on the north, Mount Sentinel on the south. In the northwestern distance rises the symmetrical top of Squaw Peak, glistening white in winter, smoke-blue in summer. Clark Fork, which cuts the city in two, is shallow but swift, its current split by a series of islands. Three bridges unite the north and south parts of Missoula: the old-fashioned iron-andplank Van Buren Street bridge near the east end of town, the Higgins Avenue bridge at the center, and the modern concrete Parkway bridge near the west end. The city itself is neat and attractive, and gives an impression of compactness in its business district and in such residential areas as the one west of the university. South of the river the residential section merges imperceptibly with the environs of the university, where the homes of many faculty members are interspersed with fraternity and sorority houses that are distinguished from other residences only by occasional groups of loitering students. HISTORY: The first small crop of grain and vegetables was grown in the Bitterroot Valley in 1842, but Montana had no extensive agriculture until the early 1860's, when successive gold rushes began to populate the western valleys. At first the incomes of those who broke the soil fluctuated with the fortunes of those who followed the mining camps. Then many disappointed prospectors found that they could acquire more gold by raising and selling foodstuffs for miners. In 1865 the land claimed for agricultural uses totaled 80,000 acres. Meanwhile cattle raising, introduced about 1832, increased more slowly, but was less affected by changes in other fields. In 1856 there were nearly 2,000 beef and milch cattle in the region, and more than 4,000 oxen. Between 1860 and 1880 cattle were trailed to market at Salt Lake City and other distant places; at the same time ranchers drove large herds from Texas to the Montana ranges, where both horses and cattle grew fat and sleek on buffalo grass and other rich forage. The 1880's and early 1890's were the heyday of the stockman and cowboy, who shared with the miner the task of founding and governing the new State. In 1886-7 the industry met and survived a major disaster, a hard winter when thousands of cattle died. After 1900 a flood of homesteaders poured into the State. Protesting stockmen were forced out of localities where they had been supreme; grain raising assumed prime importance. For some years the ranchers affected to despise the "honyak," and resisted his advance by cutting fences and pasturing cattle in his fields; but this attitude gave way to a realization that the new settlements offered a rapidly growing market for horses. ETHNIC GROUPS MANY of the early trappers engaged in the Montana fur trade were French-Indian; the managers of the companies were usually English or Scottish, and several of them, who married Indian women, left descendants of mixed blood. Most of the people who poured in when gold was found were native whites from the Midwest and East; those who rushed to the Butte silver and copper ledges were largely German and Irish. Between 1880 and 1900 many immigrants helped build railroads, then turned to farming and lumbering. Thousands of Germans and Scandinavians settled in the dry-land sections after 1900. Home