Timeline Montana
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Montana is about the same size as Germany.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, Par p.27)
150Mil BC
Fossils of a sauropod named Suuwassea emileae (ancient thunder) were
found in southern Montana in 1998. It was about 50 feet long and
related to Diplodocus.
(SFC, 5/21/04, p.A2)
150Mil BC In 2005 archeologists in Montana worked to
unearth a sauropod believed to be from this time making it about twice
as old as most dinosaur skeletons found in the state. It seemed to
represent a missing link in the evolution of the sauropods.
(AP, 7/22/05)
80Mil BC Hadrosaurs such as Brachylophosaurus
Canadensis lived in Montana. Biochemical evidence from a fossilized
femur later suggested an evolutionary link of such duck-billed
dinosaurs to birds.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A8)
68Mil BC Fossils of a Tyrannosaurus rex from this
time were found in the Hell Creek formation of Montana in 2003. In 2005
scientists reported that a femur contained soft tissue. In 2007
researchers sequenced amino acids in the tissue and reported that they
matched those of modern chickens. Some sequences matched those of a
newt, a frog and several other animals. In 2008 researchers said modern
bacterial colonies had infiltrated cavities in the bone.
(SFC, 3/25/05, p.A2)(SFC, 4/13/07, p.A6)(SFC,
7/31/08, p.A15)
640000BC Volcanic eruptions in northwest Wyoming,
extending to Idaho and Montana, created a caldera some 40 miles long
and 30 miles wide. The surface collapsed thousands of feet into a magma
pool and marked the area later known as Yellowstone. Continuing
eruptions caused climactic changes around the world.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.T5)(HC, 10/10/06)
15000BC-13000BC During the last Ice Age dams of
glacial meltwater repeatedly failed and eroded land in southeastern
Washington state and Oregon. This exposed petrified logs in what later
became Gingko Petrified Forest State Park. An ice dam, which blocked
the Clark Fork River in Montana and created lake Missoula, broke at
least 40 times and caused cataclysmic floods. One Missoula flood left
Portland under 400 feet of water.
(CW, Fall ‘03, p.20)(SSFC, 9/12/04, p.D9)
c1000 Polychromatic rock drawings
were made at Weatherman Draw, also known as the Valley of the Chiefs.
[see Apr 23, 2002]
(SFC, 6/22/01, p.A7)
1805 Jul 19, Members of the Lewis
& Clark expedition made their way up river through the limestone
walled gorge they called the Gates of the Mountains on the Missouri
River in Montana.
(GOTM, brochure)
1832 Oct 14, Blackfoot Indians
attacked American Fur Company trappers near Montana’s Jefferson River,
killing one.
(HN, 10/14/98)
1833 Aug 9, Maximilian, German
Prince of Wied, reached Fort McKenzie, the westernmost outpost of white
settlement on the Missouri River. He was a student of natural history
and planned to collect native plants and animals and to study the
native people. He was accompanied by Swiss artist Karl Bodmer.
Maximilian’s "Travels in the Interior of North America" was published
between 1839 and 1843.
(SFC, 2/6/01, p.10)
1851 The Fort Laramie Treaty was
signed between the US government and the Sioux Indians. The Sioux
pledged not to harass the wagon trains traveling the Oregon Trail in
exchange for a $50,000 annuity. The treaty did not last long. Some
12,000 American Indians gathered at Fort Laramie for a peace council
with the US. The government agreed that 12 million acres of the Mandan,
Hidatsa and Arikara Indians would remain free of settlement (eastern
Montana, northeastern Wyoming and western North Dakota). In 1949
Congress authorized a forced relocation to build the Garrison Dam in
North Dakota. In 1986 Martin Cross won a settlement of $149.2 million
for the unjust taking of reservation land. In 2004 Paul VanDevelder
authored “Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes, and the Trial that
Forged a Nation.”
(HT, 3/97, p.43)(SSFC, 8/29/04, p.M5)
1863 Dec 7, Outlaw George Ives, an
alleged member of an outlaw gang known as the "Innocents," robbed and
then killed Nick Thiebalt in the Ruby Valley of what would become
Montana.
(HN, 12/7/98)
1863 Henry Plummer was elected
sheriff by Miners at the booming gold camp of Bannack (then in Idaho
Territory, now in Montana). He poses one of the most haunting mysteries
of the Old West. The soft-spoken young Easterner proved to be an
efficient lawman, yet in 1864 he was lynched by vigilantes. Their
apologist Thomas Dimsdale explained to the populace that the sheriff
had been a "very demon" who directed a band guilty of murdering more
than 100 citizens.
(HND, 7/21/98)
1863 Last Chance Gulch and Alder
Gulch were sites of major 1863 gold discoveries in the American West.
Each became a city and each served as capital of the territory that
eventually became the state of Montana. After the gold strikes, Alder
Gulch became Virginia City and Last Chance Gulch became Helena.
(HNQ, 2/9/00)
1864 Mar 19, Montana vigilantes
lynched Jack Slade (33), a hell-raising freight hauler. Mark Twain had
encountered Slade in 1861 and included him in his book “Roughing It”
(1872). In 2008 Dan Rottenberg authored “Death of a Gunfighter: The
Quest for Jack Slade, the West’s Most Elusive Legend.”
(WSJ, 11/11/08,
p.A15)(www.twainquotes.com/Slade.html)
1864 May 26, Congress created the
Montana Territory and Virginia City became the capital in 1865. Helena
was made capital of the territory in 1875. Montana became the
41st state in 1889, with Helena the state capital.
(AP, 5/26/98)(HNQ, 2/9/00)
1864 Jul 14, Gold was discovered
in Helena, Mont. Four prospectors discovered gold in a small stream
they called "Last Chance." This marked the birth of Helena, future
capital of Montana. [see 1863]
(Visitor’s brochure, 9/11/97)(MC, 7/14/02)
1864 The US Congress pushed
Idaho’s northeastern border back to the Bitterroot Mountains after
Sidney Edgerton of the Idaho Territory went to Washington with $2,000
in gold. Edgerton wound up as the territorial governor of newly created
Montana.
(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.W9)
c1864 In addition to being an
Irish Revolutionary leader and Union commander in the Civil War, Thomas
Francis Meagher also served as the secretary of the Montana Territory.
(HNQ, 10/10/99)
1864 Henry Plummer, sheriff, was
hanged by vigilantes in Bannock. In 1920 Frank Bird Linderman authored
the novel, "Henry Plummer."
(HND, 7/21/98)(SFEC, 7/23/00, Par p.16)
1866-1868 When the US government tried to force the
Sioux back to Fort Laramie, the Indians responded with attacks that
culminated in Red Cloud’s War of this period. Red Cloud's War of
1866-'68 was waged in opposition to the development by the U.S.
government of a trail through Wyoming and Montana to the Montana gold
camps. The two-year war was waged between the Lakota Sioux, led by
Ogallala chief Red Cloud, and the U.S. Army. On December 21, 1866, the
Sioux won a major victory, wiping out the entire command of 80 men
under Capt. William J. Fetterman. The war ended with the signing of the
Laramie Treaty, which included the closure of the Bozeman Trail and
U.S. abandonment of three forts.
(HT, 3/97, p.43)(HNQ, 8/22/98)
1870 Jan 23, American army forces,
looking for Mountain Chief's band of hostile Blackfoot Indians, fell
instead upon Heavy Runner's peaceable Piegan band in Montana and killed
173, many of them women and children.
(www.legendsofamerica.com/NA-Blackfoot.html)(SSFC,
12/25/05, p.M2)
1872 Mar 1, President Grant signed
a measure creating Yellowstone National Park (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming.
The act of Congress creating Yellowstone National Park was based on a
report from an expedition led by Ferdinand Hayden. The 2.2 million-acre
preserve was the first step in a national park system. Nathaniel Pitt
Langford (39) was appointed the 1st Superintendent.
(SFC, 5/19/96, Z1, p.2)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(ON,
11/02, p.4)(PCh, 1992, p.526)(AP, 3/1/08)
1874 May 12, The US Assay office
in Helena, Montana, was authorized.
(SC, internet, 5/12/97)
1876 May 17, The 7th US Cavalry
under Custer left Ft. Lincoln.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1876 Jun 17, General George
Crook’s command of 1300 men with friendly Crow and Shoshone scouts was
attacked and bested on the Rosebud River, Montana, by 1,500 Sioux and
Cheyenne under the leadership of Crazy Horse.
(HN, 6/17/98)(WSJ, 8/5/05, p.W2)
1876 Jun 22, General Alfred Terry
sent Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer to the Rosebud and Little
Bighorn rivers to search of Indian villages.
(HN, 6/22/99)
1876 Jun 25, In the Battle of the
Little Bighorn in Montana, Gen. George A. Custer and some 250 men in
his 7th Cavalry were massacred by the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians. To
crush the Plains Indians and drive them onto reservations, Lt. Col.
George Armstrong Custer and more than 600 7th Cavalrymen and Indian
scouts advanced on an Indian encampment in the Little Bighorn Valley of
Montana. Custer's main concern was to keep the Indians from escaping,
but on this day, he faced the biggest alliance of hostile Plains
Indians--mostly Sioux and Cheyenne--ever gathered in one place. Custer
and his entire personal command, about 210 soldiers, were wiped out.
The site is near a region where paleontologist Prof. Edward Drinker
Cope dug for dinosaur fossils just a few days after the massacre.
Custer and his cavalrymen had attacked an encampment of 2,000 to 4,000
Lakota, Cheyenne and other Indians.
(WSJ, 11/1/94, p.1)(SFC, 6/28/96, p.A5)(AP,
6/25/97)(HN, 6/25/98)(HNPD, 6/25/99)
1876 Jun 26, Myles Keough's
wounded horse, Commanche, was found after the battle of the Little Big
Horn and led to the steamer The Far West some ten miles away and
transported to Fort Lincoln where he became the celebrated "only
survivor." The horse lived to be twenty-nine and upon his death the
Seventh wanted to preserve his body, so they sent it to the University
of Kansas to be stuffed.
(Internet, Myles Keogh, 8/5/99)
1876 Nov 25, Colonel Ronald
MacKenzie destroyed Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife’s village, in the Bighorn
Mountains near the Red Fork of the Powder River, during the so-called
Great Sioux War.
(HN, 11/25/98)
1877 Aug 14, Olaf Carl Seltzer,
artist and locomotive repairman, was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He
became a friend of Charles Russel and painted over 2500 works.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.B6)
1877 Aug 10, Col. John Gibbon
slaughtered Nez-Perce Indians at Big Hole River.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1877 Aug 22, Nez Perce fled into
Yellowstone National Park.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1877 Oct 5, Nez Perce Chief Joseph
and 418 survivors were captured in the Bear Paw mountains and forced
into reservations in Kansas. They surrendered in Montana Territory,
after a 1,700-mile trek to reach Canada fell 40 miles short. Nez Perce
Chief Joseph surrendered to General O.O. Howard and Colonel Nelson
Miles at the Bear Paw ravine in Montana Territory, saying, "Hear me, my
chiefs, my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will
fight no more, forever." The retreat had lasted three months and left
120 Nez Perces dead. Miles had found and surrounded the Nez Perce camp
with the help of Sioux and Cheyenne scouts. Many whites, including
Howard, admired the Nez Perces' fighting ability and Chief Joseph
himself, who was considered humane and eloquent. He died in 1904.
(HFA, '96, p.40)(SFC, 6/13/97, p.A13)(HNPD,
10/5/98)(HN, 10/5/98)
1880 Jun 11, Jeannette Rankin,
Congresswoman from Montana, the first woman in Congress who also voted
against U.S. participation in both world wars, was born.
(HN, 6/11/98)
1884 Some 500 Blackfeet Indians
died during the winter from starvation. Reservation agent John Young
kept rations on hand for the white people.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, Par p.7)
1886 May 9, William Hornaday,
taxidermist for the Smithsonian Institute, arrived with his assistants
in Miles City on a venture to hunt buffalo and learned that none had
been seen for a long time.
(ON, 3/02, p.8)
1889 Feb 22, President Cleveland
signed a bill to admit the Dakotas, Montana and Washington state to the
Union. The "omnibus bill" was an act dividing the Dakota Territory into
the states of North and South Dakota, and enabling the two Dakotas to
formulate constitutions. A constitutional convention was held at
Bismarck beginning July 4, 1889. A constitution was formulated and
submitted to a vote of the people of the State of North Dakota on
October 1, 1889, and was adopted.
(AP,
2/22/99)(www.court.state.nd.us/court/history/dakotaterritory.htm)
1889 Nov 8, Montana became the
41st state.
(HFA, '96, p.18)(AP, 11/8/97)(HN, 11/6/98)
1891 Nov 6, Comanche, the only 7th
Cavalry horse to survive George Armstrong Custer’s "Last Stand" at the
Little Bighorn, died at Fort Riley, Kan. Comanche, belonged to Captain
Myles Keogh. Born in Ireland in 1840, Keogh was a captain with the 7th
Cavalry and died with every other man in Lt. Col. George Armstrong
Custer's immediate command on June 25, 1876, at the Little Bighorn in
Montana. Keogh's wounded horse, Comanche, was taken to Fort Abraham
Lincoln in Dakota Territory, where he recovered and became a pampered
celebrity. Comanche died at the age of 28.
(HN, 11/6/98)(HNQ, 2/26/99)
1892 Oct 15, US government
convinced the Crow Indians to give up 1.8 million acres of their
reservation (in the mountainous area of western Montana) for 50 cents
per acre. Presidential proclamation opened this land to settlers.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1894 Helena became the capital of
Montana.
(HIR, 9/11/97, p.5A)
1886 Nicholas Hilger began river
boat tours on the Missouri River near Helena at the site of the
limestone cliffs named the Gates of the Mountains by the Lewis and
Clark expedition.
(GOTM, brochure)
1895 Sep 18, The Montana State
Capital Site Commission received the four property deeds from developer
Peter Winne for the new seat of government in Helena.
(HIR, 9/11/97, p.5A)
1895 While searching for gold in
Montana's Yogo Gulch, Jake Hoover found sapphires. Hoover found little
gold in the Yogo Creek and Gulch, however, the small, translucent blue
pebbles that frequently cluttered the riffles of his sluice box turned
out to be gem-quality sapphires.
(HNQ, 5/13/98)
1895 The Blackfeet Indians in
Montana sold the eastern slope of what later became Glacier National
Park (1910) for mining development. The mining venture fell through.
(SFC, 6/22/06, p.E3)
1898-1923 The Yogo Dike yielded 16 million carats of
sapphire-2.4 million carats of gem quality.
(HNQ, 5/13/98)
?c1900 William Andrews Clark of Butte, Montana, was
known as one of the Copper Kings. Clark made a fortune in copper but
was continually stymied in his political ambitions by fellow "king"
Marcus Daly. The third Copper King, Augustus Heinze, used the law to
legally tap into his rival's mines. Clark's home in Butte is now
operated as a bed and breakfast, the Copper King Mansion.
(HNQ, 9/5/98)
c1900 James J. Hill, a turn of the
century robber baron, planned to consolidate the Great Northern and the
Northern Pacific Railroads. His efforts were blocked by anti-trust
regulation and gave Teddy Roosevelt his reputation as a trust buster.
In 1996 Dr. Michael Malone authored "James J. Hill: Empire Builder of
the Northwest."
(WSJ, 10/1/98, p.B6)
1901 Jul 3, Members of The Wild
Bunch, including Kid Curry, committed their last American robbery near
Wagner, Montana, taking $65,000 from a Great Northern train. Butch
Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and his lover Etta Place had already fled to
New York where a picture of Etta and Sundance was taken. The trio by
this time were settled in Argentina.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy)
1908 Pres. Roosevelt formally
established the National Bison Range in Montana.
(ON, 3/02, p.9)
1909-1998 Adelaide Nichols "Jackie" Low was born in
Helena. She grew up on the pioneering family’s Flying D Ranch, a
130,000-acre spread that was later purchased by Ted Turner.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A19)
1910 May 11, Glacier National Park
in Montana was established.
(AP, 5/11/97)
1910 Aug 20-21, The Great Idaho
Fire killed 86 people and destroyed some 3 million acres of timber in
Idaho and Montana.
(http://www.idahoforests.org/fires.htm)
1913 Mary McAboy of Missoula,
Montana, began hand-making Skookum Indian dolls and acquired a patent
for it in 1914. Skookum was a Siwash Indian word that roughly means
bully good.
(SFC, 6/17/98, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 3/16/05, p.G4)
1915 The Many Glacier Hotel was
built in Glacier Park.
(WSJ, 11/12/99, p.A20)
1916 Nov 7, Republican Jeannette
Rankin (R-Montana), lifelong feminist and pacifist of Montana, became
the first woman elected to Congress. As legislative secretary of the
National American Woman Suffrage Association, Rankin helped the women
of Montana win the vote in 1914, six years before all American women
won the vote. Rankin was elected as a delegate-at-large to the U.S.
House of Representatives. During her first term in Washington
(1917-1919), Rankin strongly supported isolationism--she was one of 49
members of Congress to vote against war with Germany in 1917. Rankin
served another term in the House of Representatives from 1941 to 1943,
where she created a furor as the only legislator to vote against
declaring war on Japan after the Pearl Harbor raid. This unpopular
stand ended her political career, but Rankin remained politically
active, even leading a 1968 march to protest American involvement in
Vietnam. Jeanette Rankin died in 1973.
(AP, 11/7/97)(HN, 11/7/98)(HNPD, 11/6/98)
1917 Mar 4, Republican Jeanette
Rankin of Montana took her seat as the first woman elected to the House
of Representatives.
(AP, 3/4/98)
1917 Apr 2, Jeannette Pickering
Rankin, a representative from Montana, was sworn in as the first woman
to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.
(HN, 4/2/01)(MC, 4/2/02)
1917 Aug 1, Frank Little, IWW
organizer, was lynched in Butte, MT.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1918 Feb, Montana’s Legislature
passed a sedition law which led to the conviction 79 citizens under
Gov. Sam Stewart. In 2005 Clemens Work authored “Darkness Before Dawn:
Sedition and Free Speech in the American West.” In 2006 Gov. Brian
Schweitzer posthumously pardoned 75 men and 3 women. One man was
pardoned shortly after the war.
(SFC, 5/3/06, p.A3)
1920s Elections in Plentywood put
Communists in control of local government.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W9)
1921-1932 The 52-mil Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier
National Park was constructed over Logan Pass.
(WSJ, 6/23/97, p.A1)
1923 Mar 5, Montana and Nevada
passed the U.S.'s first old age pension grants, giving $25 per month.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1923 Oct 25, The Teapot Dome
scandal came to public attention as Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana,
subcommittee chairman, revealed the findings of the past 18 months of
investigation. His case would result in the conviction of Harry F.
Sinclair of Mammoth Oil, and later Secretary of the Interior Albert B.
Fall, the first cabinet member in American history to go to jail. The
scandal, named for the Teapot Dome oil reserves in Wyoming, involved
Fall secretly leasing naval oil reserve lands to private companies.
(HN, 10/25/98)
1923 Commercial mining of
vermiculite, a mineral used for insulation and the leavening of garden
soil, began in Libby, Montana.
(SFC, 5/9/09, p.A6)
1926 Oct 24, Charlie Russell
(b.1864), Western artist, died in Great Falls, Montana. He produced
some 4,000 works of art including a 12-by-25 foot “Lewis and Clark
Meeting Indians at Ross’ Hole,” which was hung in Montana’s Capitol.
(Arch, 7/02, p.6)(www.globalgallery.com)(WSJ,
3/16/06, p.A1)
1926 The last grey wolf
disappeared from the Yellowstone region. By 1973 only a few wolves
remained in northern Michigan and Minnesota. In 1995 the federal
government reintroduced wolves to the greater Yellowstone region
(Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) and by 2008 their population reached 1,500.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.44)
1932 The Going-To-The-Sun Road was
built to cross Glacier Park and climb the Continental Divide.
(WSJ, 11/12/99, p.A20)
1933 May 3, A white buffalo calf
was born in western Montana. He was later named "Big Medicine" and
lived until Aug 25, 1959. His hide was molded to a mannequin and that
went on display at the Montana Historical Society on Jul 13, 1961.
(Helena Museum flyer, 9/11/97)
1933 Richard Throssel (b.1882),
photographer and Montana legislator, died. He was a Cree Indian who was
adopted by the Crow tribe and lived on the Montana Crow Reservation
from 1902-1911. A Book of his work by Peggy Albright was published in
1997: "Crow Indian Photographer: The work of Richard Throssel."
(SFEC, 7/27/97, BR p.6)
1937-1938 An infestation of Mormon crickets (Anabrus
simplex) in Montana and Wyoming caused nearly $1 million in crop damage.
(SFC, 5/19/01, p.A3)
1938 Jun 19, In Montana 47 people
were killed when a railroad bridge in Montana collapsed, sending a
train known as the "Olympian Flyer" hurtling into Custer Creek.
(AP, 6/19/08)
1939 The Izaak Walton Hotel was
built between Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness to
house railroad crews servicing the Great Northern Railway. Walton was a
16th century English author and sportsman.
(SFEM, 12/12/99, p.8)
1941 Apr 27, Judith Blegen, opera
singer (Papagena-Magic Flute), was born in Missoula, Mont.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1941 Italian nationals in the
United States gave the nickname "Bella Vista " to a detention site in
Montana during World War II. After war was declared in Europe, many
Italian merchant ships and their crews were stranded in American
waters. In 1941 the Italian sailors were taken into custody and sent to
a detention site at Fort Missoula, Montana. Upon seeing the fort’s
impressive view of mountain ranges and wildflowers they dubbed it
"Belle Vista" or beautiful site.
(HNQ, 6/5/01)
1949 The Mann Gulch Fire killed 13
smokejumpers. In 1990 "Young Men and Fire," by Norman MacLean
(1902-1990) was published. The posthumously published book is
considered the pinnacle of smoke jumping literature.
(WSJ, 6/23/00,
p.W9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Maclean)
1959 Aug 18, A magnitude 7.3 quake
near Hebgen Lake, Montana, just west of Yellowstone National Park
triggered a landslide that killed 28 people.
(http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/events/1959_08_18.php)
1960 Mar 21, Capt. John Eaheart
(32), a US Marine Corps Reserve pilot, crashed in his F9F Cougar
fighter jet and disappeared into Flathead Lake, Wyoming, near the home
of his fiancée’s parents. His remains were found in 2006.
(WSJ, 5/23/06, p.A1)
1963 The W.R. Grace company began
operating the Zonolite Mountain vermiculite mine and continued to 1990.
The vermiculite was naturally mixed geologically with asbestos. By 2009
at least 200 people died of asbestos related diseases and hundreds more
were sickened.
(SFC, 5/9/09, p.A6)
1969-1971 Yellowstone Park officials attempted to
force grizzly bears to return to a wild diet. 220 bears, unable to quit
junk food, were shot and killed during this period.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.88)
1971 Dec 15, Pres. Nixon signed
the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act. An $18 million Wild
Horse and Burro Program, headed by the Bureau of Land Management, was
designed to find homes for wild horses. "Excess" animals were annually
culled. The 10-17,000 wild horses grew to some 43,000 in 1998. In 2004
Conrad Burns, Republican Senator for Montana, introduced an amendment
that removed protection for wild horses over age 10.
(www.fs.fed.us/rangelands/ecology/wildhorseburro/whb_faqs.shtml)(WSJ,
8/25/98, p.A1)(Econ, 6/28/08, p.90)
1973 Montana initiated a ban on
homosexual sex. In 1997 this was ruled unconstitutional.
(SFC, 7/3/97,
p.A3)(www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?id=3977)
1975 Jul 28, The US Dept of
Interior designated the grizzly bear a threatened species in the lower
48 states under the US Endangered Species Act. Most of the bears in the
lower US lived in and around Yellowstone National Park in Idaho,
Montana and Wyoming.
(http://fieldguide.mt.gov/detail_AMAJB01020.aspx)(Econ, 11/5/05, p.88)
1976 Norman Maclean (1902-1990)
published "A River Runs Through It and Other Stories." It was a story
about fly fishing in Montana. Recorded books put out a cassette version
in 1993 with other stories that included "Logging and Pimping and ‘Your
Pal, Jim’," and "USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the
Sky."
(RB,
1993)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Maclean)
1977 Apr, Pres. Carter named
Montana Senator Mike Mansfield (1903-2001) ambassador to Japan.
Mansfield had planned to retire but held the post for 10 years.
(SFC, 10/6/01, p.E1)
1980 Little Big Horn College in
Crow Agency, Mont., was established.
(SFEC, 7/18/99, Par. p.6)
1982 Aug 4, Ronald Smith of Canada
killed two Americans in Montana during a drunken road trip. In March
1893 Smith was convicted and sentenced to death.
(Econ, 5/24/08,
p.55)(http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/914/914.F2d.1153.88-4115.html)
1985 Brack Duker, a former
executive of Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) bought a struggling aluminum
plant in Columbia Falls for $1. Workers agreed to a 21% cut in wages
and benefits to save their jobs in return for half the future
profits.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1988 Jun 23, The Yellowstone Fire
began and by Sep 11 burned some 1.6 million acres in Idaho and Montana.
(SFC, 10/30/03, p.A15)
1988 cJul 4,Terry Langford (21), a
drifter from North Carolina, kidnapped and killed Ned and Celene
Blackwood (48), a retired couple, near Ovando. Langford was executed in
1998.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A20)(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A3)
1988 Beal Mountain mine opened
near Butte, Mont. Its owner promoted open-pit cyanide leaching for
extracting gold from ore as modern and environmentally friendly.
Pegasus Gold Corp., a Canadian company, extracted nearly 460,000 ounces
of gold over a decade before closing the mine and declaring bankruptcy
in 1998. It left behind a 70-acre, cyanide-contaminated leach pond with
a leaky liner and tons of rubble that sends selenium-laced runoff into
streams, threatening cutthroat trout and other fish. The 2009 economic
stimulus included some funds for cleaning up this and other similar
sites.
(AP, 2/15/09)
1991 In Montana the name of Custer
Battlefield National Monument was changed to Little Bighorn Battlefield
Monument. A $2 million memorial was dedicated Jun 25,2003.
(WSJ, 6/25/03, p.A1)
1992 Roberta Gilmore, an
accountant for Columbia Fall Aluminum, filed suit against the company
charging that profits were not being shared with the workers as
promised in 1985. The suit was settled in 1998.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1993 Greg Mortenson of Bozeman,
Montana, first visited Pakistan to climb K2, the world’s 2nd highest
peak. He failed in climbing the mountain but became interested in the
region. In 1996 he built a school in Korphe, Pakistan, the first
many. By 2008 he had built 55 schools and authored the memoir: “Three
Cups of Tea: One Man’s Extraordinary Journey to promote Peace… One
School at a Time” (2006).
(SSFC, 4/6/03, Par p.5)(Econ, 5/3/08,
p.92)(www.threecupsoftea.com/)
1995 Charles Schwab developed the
exclusive residential community called "The Stock Farm" in the
Bitterroot Valley.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A1)
1995 Whirling disease, native to
Eurasia, was first detected in Montana fish. It was caused by a fungus
carried in spores hosted by the Tubifex tubifex worm and was first
detected in the US in 1956 in Pennsylvania.
(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.W10)
1995 In Montana 342 snow geese
died when they stopped for water at the contaminated Berkeley Pit. The
Atlantic Richfield Company, later owned by BP, bought Anaconda in 1977,
and ended active mining in the Berkeley Pit in 1982. Since then, highly
acidic underground water has continuously seeped into the pit from
higher land, creating a rust-colored lake. In 2005 Montana Gov. Brian
Schweitzer said "The plan is to continue with pumps to keep the water
below that level and then treat the water that they pump out and that's
going to have to go on until the end of time."
(Reuters, 9/23/05)
1996 Mar 25, A group of 18 people
including 3 children, who call themselves the Freeman, shut themselves
up on a 960 acre farm near Jordan, Montana. Many of them are wanted on
state and federal charges that include writing bad checks and
threatening a federal judge. Ongoing negotiations have proved fruitless
and the FBI ordered in 3 armored vehicles and a helicopter. The
standoff by the anti-government Freemen lasted 81 days.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A3)
1996 Apr 1, FBI officials in
Jordan, Montana continued to guard a stronghold of Freemen, an
anti-government group that does not recognize the legitimacy of US laws.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-12)
1996 Apr 3, FBI agents arrested a
suspect thought to be the Unabomber. Theodore John Kaczynski was
arrested near Lincoln, Montana on a tip from his brother. His mail
bombs had killed 3 and injured 23 over the last 17 years. An original
draft of his manifesto "Industrial Society and Its Future" was found
some days later.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-1)(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-1)(AP, 4/3/97)
1996 Apr 11, Chlorine spilled from
a train and caused the people of Alberton, Montana, to flee for a day.
(SFC, 4/28/96, B-9)
1996 Jun 3, The FBI pulled the
plug on electricity at the Freemen ranch in Montana in an attempt to
persuade the occupants to negotiate an end to the 71-day-old standoff.
(WSJ, 6/4/96, p.A1)(AP, 6/3/97)
1996 Jun 6, A family of four
became the first persons to leave the Freemen ranch in Montana since
April, 2 children, their mother and common-law husband.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A10)(AP, 6/6/97)
1996 Jun 13, The 81-day-old
Freemen standoff ended as 16 remaining members of the anti-government
group surrendered to the FBI and left their Montana ranch. Five Freemen
were found guilty in 1998 for various crimes linked to armed robbery
and possession of firearms. Four militants were convicted in 1998 for
plotting to defraud banks. Jurors deadlocked on six defendants.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p.A1)(AP, 6/13/97)(SFC, 4/1/98,
p.A2)(WSJ, 7/9/98, p.A1)
1996 Sep 11, Grasshoppers plagued
North Dakota. The insects were a problem in Wyoming, Montana and
Nebraska. Another dry summer and it was predicted that they would
spread to Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A2)
1996 William Kittredge, retired
Univ. of Montana English prof., published "Who Owns the West."
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W9)
1996 Sep, Greg Mortenson of
Bozeman, Montana, founder of the Central Asia Institute (cai@ikat.org),
built a school in Korphe, Pakistan. The project expanded to 28 school
buildings, 15 water projects and 4 women’s vocational centers by 2003.
Villages were required to increase girls’ enrollment by 10% a year.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, Par p.5)
1997 Jul 3, A Montana court voided
a 24-year-old ban on homosexual sex, concluding that the government has
no business meddling in the sexual activity of consenting adults.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A3)
1997 Sep 19, A US Air Force B-1
bomber crashed on a training mission in Montana and all 4 crew members
were killed.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 17, Montana passed a new
law, effective Dec 17, that makes the entire state an offshore banking
center, allowing foreign interests to anonymously stash their cash.
(SFC,12/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 17, A new Montana law,
effective today, made the entire state an offshore banking center,
allowing foreign interests to anonymously stash their cash. Depositors
could not be US citizens and a minimum of $200,000 was required.
(SFC,12/17/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.A18)
1997 William Kittredge, retired
Univ. of Montana English prof., published "The Portable Western Reader."
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W9)
1998 Jan 22, Theodore J. Kaczynski
pleaded guilty to the Unabomber killings in return for a sentence of
life in prison. In Dec. co-authors Chris Waits and Dave Shors published
"Unabomber: The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski. His 25 Years in Montana."
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.A1)
1998 cMar 10, A school bus and a
train collided near Buffalo and two teenagers, Ben and Christopher
Peterson, were killed.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Mar 30, In Columbia Falls it
was reported that $100 million would be distributed amongst 1000
employees of the Columbia Falls Aluminum plant. Roberta Gilmore led a
winning legal suit that claimed the company did not divvy out profits
to workers as promised.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1,12)
1999 Feb 3, The Clinton
administration called for a mining ban on a large section of federal
land along the Rocky Mountain Front.
(SFC, 2/4/99, p.A3)
1999 May 28, New speed limits took
effect and ended Montana's status as the only state without a day time
speed limit.
(SFC, 5/29/99, p.A3)
1999 Sep 25, In Missoula Tim
Sullivan (58), superintendent of schools for the Roman Catholic Diocese
of Helena, shot and killed his estranged wife Kathy Sullivan (50) and
her boyfriend Scott Bardsley. Sullivan than killed himself.
(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A5)
1999 Montana Power under Bob
Gannon began selling all its power assets and began to transform itself
into coast-to-coast fiber optic network, Touch America. Over the next 2
years power costs soared and broadband equities tanked with over supply.
(WSJ, 8/22/01, p.A1)
1999 News broke that hundreds of
people had died from asbestos contaminated vermiculite mined by the
W.R. Grace &Co. in Libby, Montana.
(SSFC, 3/15/09, Insight p.H5)
2000 Apr 29, Clarence Basil Cuts
The Rope, artist and member of the Gros Ventre Tribe, died at age 64 in
Montana.
(SFC, 4/3/00, p.B2)
2000 Aug 5, Fifteen major fires
were reported burning over 100,000 acres across Montana.
(SFC, 8/5/00, p.A2)
2000 Aug 9, Gov. Marc Racicot
ordered over 6 million acres of southwestern Montana closed to public
use due to 19 major fires over 300,000 acres.
(SFC, 8/10/00, p.A5)
2000 Aug 16, Gov. Marc Racicot
declared the whole state a disaster area due to the raging fires.
(SFC, 8/17/00, p.A3)
2000 Aug 29, Gov. Marc Racicot
asked Pres. Clinton to declare the state a federal disaster area due to
the wildfires.
(SFC, 8/30/00, p.A3)
2001 Mar 25, Terry C. Johnston,
author of over 30 Western novels, died in Billings at age 54. His
mountain man character Titus Bass was featured in numerous novels from
"Carry the Wind" through "Wind Walker."
(SFC, 3/27/01, p.A18)
2001 Aug 31, A helicopter assigned
to the 25,500-acre Fridley fire crashed and 3 crewmen were killed.
(SFC, 9/1/01, p.D1)
2001 Aug, Gary Padgham (50), an
elk hunter from Bozeman, Montana, died in Monterey, Ca., with symptoms
similar to mad cow disease. Seattle doctors had diagnosed him with
Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD).
(SFC, 9/7/02, p.A13)
2001 Oct 5, Mike Mansfield (98),
former Montana Senator and ambassador to Japan, died in Washington, D.C.
(SFC, 10/6/01, p.E1)(AP, 10/5/02)
2001-2004 US Sen. Conrad Burns, a Montana Republican,
received some $150,000 in donations from Jack Abramoff, his firms and
his clients during this period. On May 23, 2001 Burns voted against a
bill favorable to Abramoff’s clients in the Northern Mariana Islands.
The bill would have phased out a non-resident contract worker program
benefiting benefiting the Mariana’s garment industry.
(SFC, 12/7/05, p.A6)
2002 Apr 23, Anschutz Exploration
Corp. announced that it would donate the drilling lease at Weatherman
Draw to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The site
contained Indian rock art believed to be over 1000 years old.
(SFC, 4/24/02, p.A1)
2002 May 23, Nathaniel Bar-Jonah
(45), accused of butchering a 10-year-old boy and feeding his remains
to unsuspecting neighbors, was sentenced to 130 years in prison without
parole.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A8)
2002 The family of Christopher
Paolini (18) self-published his book "Eragon" before it captivated a
young stepson of author Carl Hiassen, who brought the book to the
attention of his publisher. "Eragon" was republished in 2003 by Random
House's Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers. Paolini was
home-schooled in Montana.
(AP, 9/18/05)
2003 Aug 3, Fires in Flathead Ct.,
Montana, covered over 23,000 acres and into the edge of Glacier
National Park. Tow other fires burned nearby.
(SSFC, 8/3/03, p.A13)
2003 Nov 28, It was reported that
the New Zealand mud snail had invaded trout streams in Northern
California. They were capable of stripping entire river systems of
algae and had already infested trout streams in Montana.
(SFC, 11/28/03, p.A21)
2004 Feb 7, In Montana Dick Dasen,
prominent Kalispell philanthropist, was arrested in a prostitution
sting. In 2005 he was sentenced to 20 years in jail for building up a
personal vice-ring of local women and girls. All but 2 year of the
sentence was to be suspended pending treatment.
(Econ, 9/17/05,
p.33)(www.newwest.net/index.php/city/article/1262/C8/L8)
2004 Sep 20, A small plane with 5
aboard crashed in Montana’s Glacier National Park. 2 survivors were
found 2 days later.
(SFC, 9/24/04, p.A2)
2004 Oct 15, A federal judge
struck down a ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton
national parks.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2004 Nov 2, Brian Schweitzer (D)
was elected governor of Montana.
(SFC, 11/4/04, p.A18)
2004 Dec 16, Montana approved
issuing licenses to hunt 10 bison that roam beyond Yellowstone. The
practice was halted over a decade ago amid protests.
(WSJ, 12/17/04, p.A1)
2005 Apr 7, Montana voted to ban
smoking in all public places. Gov. Brian Schweitzer said he would sign
the legislation.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 20, Charles D. Keeling
(b.1928), American atmospheric chemist, died in Montana. His monitoring
of the pure air at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, and the South Pole, begun in
1958, provided CO2 readings that climbed steadily and became known as
the Keeling Curve.
(WSJ, 6/24/05,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_David_Keeling)
2005 Jul 4, Idaho authorities said
they found the remains of Dylan Groene (9) in western Montana. [see
July 2] In 2008 a jury recommended the death sentence for Joseph Edward
Duncan III in the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder of the 9-year-old
boy.
(SFC, 7/5/05, p.A3)(AP, 8/28/08)
2005 Nov 15, Montana, after a
14-year hiatus, re-opened a hunting season on bison drifting across the
northern border of Yellowstone National Park.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.40)
2005 Montana’s Gov. Brian
Schweitzer signed into law a renewable energy standard that required
15% of electricity sold in Montana to be renewable by 2015.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.36)
2006 Aug 31, In southern Montana a
wildfire burned 20 houses and 15 other buildings as it spread over some
156,000 acres.
(SFC, 9/1/06, p.A3)
2006 Sep 4, In south-central
Montana a wildfire had spread across 180,000 acres, over 280 sq. miles,
since it was sparked by lightning on Aug 22. It was only 20% contained.
(SFC, 9/5/06, p.A3)
2006 Nov 9, Virginia Republican
Sen. George Allen conceded his defeat to Democrat James Web. Sen.
Conrad Burns conceded the Montana Senate race to Democrat Jon Tester.
(SFC, 11/10/06, p.A17)
2006 Nov 17, Montana state Sen.
Sam Kitzenberg filed paperwork to change his party affiliation from
Republican to Democrat giving state Democrats a 26-24 advantage.
(SSFC, 11/19/06, p.A3)
2007 Feb 1, Montana sued Wyoming
in the Supreme Court saying its neighbor takes more Tongue- and Powder-
River water that it is entitled to.
(WSJ, 2/2/07, p.A1)
2007 May, Montana’s Gov. Brian
Schweitzer signed a bill offering tax incentives to many renewable
energy projects, including cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel. Montana
claimed the largest coal reserves in America with 120 billion
recoverable tons.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.36)
2007 Jun 8, Two inmates escaped
while working at the Montana State Prison ranch near Deer Lodge. On
June 13 authorities captured Kelly A. Frank and William J. Willcutt.
Frank was once accused of plotting to kidnap the son and nanny of David
Letterman.
(SFC, 6/14/07, p.A2)
2007 Aug 6, Montana was under a
state of emergency as firefighters battled several huge blazes.
Residents near a state park on Michigan's Upper Peninsula were ordered
to evacuate as another wildfire spread there.
(AP, 8/6/07)
2007 Aug 12, A Canadian woman (35)
gave birth to rare identical quadruplets. Karen Jepp of Calgary,
Alberta, delivered Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia by Caesarian
section at Benefis Healthcare in Great Falls, Montana.
(AP, 8/16/07)
2008 Mar 23, It was reported that
1,195 migrating bison had been culled in Montana after leaving
Yellowstone in search of food. The culling was expected to continue
through April.
(SSFC, 3/23/08, p.A4)
2008 Mar 28, The grey wolf of the
northern Rocky Mountains was taken off the federal protection list
after reaching a population of some 1,500 in the greater Yellowstone
region. Wolves were reintroduced in 1995 after disappearing from the
area in 1926. On July 18 a judge restored protection for the wolves in
Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, derailing plans for public wolf hunts this
fall. On Sep 29 a federal court overturned the Bush administration’s
decision to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list in the
Great lakes region.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.44)(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A4)(WSJ,
9/30/08, p.A1)
2008 Jun 3, Barack Obama sealed
the US Democratic presidential nomination. Hillary Clinton did not give
up yet, but said she’d be interested in the No. 2 spot. Obama won the
Montana primary, while Clinton won the South Dakota primary.
(AP, 6/4/08)(SFC, 6/4/08, p.A1)(Econ, 6/7/08, p.35)
2008 Oct 14, Gray wolves in the
northern US Rocky Mountains returned to the endangered species list,
thanks to a court victory by environmental groups over the US
government [see May 28, 2008].
(AFP, 10/14/08)
2008 Dec 6, A Montana a state
judge ruled that doctor assisted suicides are legal in the state.
(SSFC, 12/7/08, p.A4)
(AP, 3/6/09)
2009 Mar 5, In Bozeman, Montana, a
natural gas explosion collapsed 3 downtown buildings and prompted the
evacuation of a 2-block area. One person was left missing.
(SFC, 3/6/09, p.A6)
2009 Mar 22, In Montana a
single-engine turboprop airplane crashed just short of Butte’s Bert
Mooney Airport, killing all 14 people aboard, including 7 children. The
aircraft had departed from Oroville, Calif., and the pilot had filed a
flight plan showing a destination of Bozeman.
(AP, 3/23/09)
2009 Apr 14, In Montana
paleontologist Nate Murphy (51) pleaded guilty to stealing dinosaur
fossils from federal land. He gained fame in 2000 when he discovered a
77 million-year-old duckbilled hadrosaur known as Leonardo.
(SFC, 4/15/09, p.A4)
2009 May 4, Wolves in parts of the
northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region come off the endangered
species list, opening them to public hunts in some states for the first
time in decades. States such as Idaho and Montana planned to resume
hunting the animals this fall, but no hunting has been proposed in the
Great Lakes region. About 300 wolves in Wyoming will remain on the list
because the US Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the state's plan for
a "predator zone" where wolves could be shot on sight. An estimated
4,000 wolves lived in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 8, A federal jury
acquitted W.R. Grace and 3 of its executives on all criminal charges
that they knowingly contaminated Libby, Montana, with asbestos and
conspired to cover up the deed.
(SFC, 5/9/09, p.A6)
2009 May 12, Five more people were
arrested at the Senate Finance Committee this morning. The advocates of
a single payer health care system were protesting the fact that
Committee chairman Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) continues to exclude
single payer advocates from a series of hearings on health care reform.
Last week, eight doctors, lawyers and activists were arrested as they
sought to put a single payer advocate at a table of 15 witnesses.
Baucus has reportedly accepted $413,000 in drug and health insurance
campaign contributions.
(SFC, 5/30/09,
p.A7)(www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=690)
2032 It was estimated that by this
time all the glaciers of Montana’s Glacier National Park will have
melted.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.J6)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Montana
End of file