Montana History

Montana's history is rich, colorful, and full of excitement in this fully-illustrated volume. See how Jedediah Smith and Jim Bridger blazed trails and made their names under the Big Sky. Read about the day John Colter ran naked for his life, Blackfeet Indians fast on his heels. Watch as Hugh Glass is mauled by a grizzly before being left to die alone by his 'friends.' Have a toast with rowdy Mike Fink before he shoots a tin cup of whiskey from your head. And meet James Beckwourth, a former slave who became at home in the mountains of Montana. Discover how the Native American tribes were pushed from their lands by westward expansion, first by Europeans and then Americans. Find out how Montana's Indian tribes shook off their settled ways of life to become nomads of the Great Plains, hunting buffalo, stealing horses, and encountering whites and each other for the first time. Learn of the Blackfeet, and their warrior ways. Discover the peaceful Shoshone, and how they were pushed from their lands. And find out about other, lesser known tribes like the Kootenai, Pend d'Oreilles, Gros Ventre, and Assiniboine. Montana comes alive from the time of the dinosaurs to the mid-19th-century in this exciting first volume of the state's history, Tribes and Trappers. Start the journey to find out how Montana came to be what it is today. Continue that journey in Priests and Prospectors and then Braves and Businessmen. Keep it going into the 20th-century with Hustlers and Homesteaders and get ready for a new volume in March 2015. What are you waiting for? Montana awaits!

Montana comes alive from 1840 to 1870 in this mesmerizing second volume of the state's history, Priests and Prospectors. Montana in 1840 was a very quiet place. Indians roamed about as they wished and there were few white men around. The 1850s saw some increased activity, but things largely stayed the same. Then on a hot summer day in 1862 one man struck gold and everything changed. Discover the journey that Montana took from a sleepy backwater of less than 700 people to a thriving territory of more than 20,000 residents. Montana grew a lot over those thirty years in the 19th century and you'll be in on all the details. Learn about Indians and the priests they sought; road builders and the hardships they endured; gold prospectors and the life they led; and politicians and the territory they created. Like the first volume in this Montana history series, Tribes and Trappers, this second volume also takes a biographical approach. Montana's history is told through the stories of the people who lived here, and from those stories we're better able to understand how the state came to be what it is today.

Montana's history is rich, colorful, and full of excitement in this fully-illustrated third volume of the state's history. Montana Territory had 20,595 people in 1870 and the vast majority were Indians. Those Indians would fight for their lands, and much of the territory's focus was on the Indian Wars raging across the state. By 1900 there were 243,329 people in the State of Montana. The numbers would only continue to rise as more and more businessmen got interested in the state's natural resources. Mining dominated the 1880s and 1890s, even as politics were changing both locally and nationally. The Panic of 1893 took the wind from the silver industry in the state, but copper mining remained strong. And mining men like Marcus Daly and William A. Clark did everything in their power to get their way politically. It was a raucous time in the state over these three decades, and its people and places are all profiled. Like the first and second volumes in this Montana history series, Tribes and Trappers and Priests and Prospectors, this third volume takes a biographical approach. Montana's history is told through the stories of the people who lived here, and from those stories we're better able to understand how the state came to be what it is today. Discover why Montana is called "The Last Best Place" in this third volume of Montana history.

Begin the journey to discover how Montana came to be the great state that it is today! By 1900 Montana was home to 243,329 people. The state had produced 61% of the country's copper just the year before, which amounted to 23% of the world's supply. By 1930 there were 537,606 people in the state. The nation was just beginning to get a taste of the banking crashes and economic depression that Montanans had been feeling since the '20s. The cause of these problems in Montana can be traced to propaganda both the state and railroads put out beginning in 1905. These pamphlets told bald-faced lies to people the world over. Dry farming was advocated, and in an environment that couldn't support it long-term. When the bust came in 1916 more than 200,000 people left. As a result, Montana was the only state in the union to lose population in the 'Roaring Twenties.' You'll learn all that and more in this exciting fourth volume of Montana history. There's Montana's involvement in the Spanish-American War in 1898, the creation of the National Forests and magnificent dams in the state, and the Panic of 1907 that devastated the nation's and world's economy. And that's just one decade in this three-decade book!