America at 250: Montana: The Treasure State
As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, Montana’s story stretches across Indigenous homelands and the landscapes that helped define the American West.
Few states embody the story of the American West quite like Montana. Its history has been shaped by the people who called the land home, the riches beneath it, the routes that carried newcomers west, and the vast landscapes that continue to define the Treasure State.
A Brief History of the Big Sky Country
People have called the land that is now Montana home for more than 12,000 years. The earliest evidence includes Paleoindian sites associated with highly mobile hunter-gatherers who adapted to environments very different from those of today. Over thousands of years, communities developed diverse ways of life suited to Montana's mountains, river valleys, vast plains, and rugged badlands, relying on resources ranging from wild plants and small game animals to the bison that became central to life on the northern Plains.
Long before Euro-American settlement, the region was home to numerous Native peoples whose territories extended far beyond today's state boundaries. Among them were the Blackfeet, Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Assiniboine, Gros Ventre, Salish, Pend d'Oreille, Kootenai, and others whose communities, trade networks, and relationships shaped the region. Their descendants remain an important part of Montana today, which is home to 12 federally recognized tribes and seven reservations. The Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, federally recognized in 2019, is headquartered in Great Falls but does not have a reservation. By the late 18th century, horses and European trade goods were already transforming life in Montana, even before Lewis and Clark entered the region in 1805. Their arrival would mark the beginning of a new and increasingly disruptive era for Montana's First Peoples.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark entered present-day Montana in 1805 as the Corps of Discovery followed the Missouri River west toward the Pacific. Their journey brought them through some of the region's most dramatic landscapes, including the Great Falls of the Missouri, where the expedition spent nearly a month completing an arduous portage around a series of waterfalls. Native knowledge and assistance proved essential along the way. Sacagawea, who spoke Shoshone and Hidatsa, served as an interpreter and helped the expedition establish vital connections with the Shoshone, while a Shoshone man known as Old Toby later guided the Corps across the Bitterroot Mountains.
Lewis and Clark returned through Montana in 1806, and their reports helped draw increasing numbers of fur traders and trappers to the region. Trading posts soon appeared along major waterways, connecting Native communities with an expanding international trade in beaver pelts and bison robes and bringing growing numbers of newcomers into the northern Rockies and Great Plains.
Gold discoveries in the 1860s brought thousands of prospectors and settlers into the region, spawning boomtowns like Bannack and Virginia City and helping lead to the creation of the Montana Territory in 1864. The rapid influx of people into the area intensified pressure on Native lands and resources, contributing to decades of conflict as the U.S. government sought to confine tribes to reservations. Among the most consequential events were the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and the flight of the Nez Perce through Montana the following year. By the time Montana became the nation's 41st state on November 8, 1889, the territory had been dramatically transformed.
Mining continued to shape Montana after statehood, particularly in Butte, where vast copper deposits helped make the city one of the world's great mining centers and created fortunes for the powerful men known as the Copper Kings. Railroads connected Montana's mines, ranches, farms, and towns with distant markets, while homesteaders transformed portions of the plains during the early 20th century. Although mining and agriculture remain part of Montana's economy, the state's spectacular landscapes have become equally important to its identity, drawing generations of visitors to places such as Glacier and Yellowstone national parks and preserving the sense of open country that still defines Big Sky Country.
Honoring the 250th: Montana's Role in America's Celebration
Montana is commemorating the nation's Semiquincentennial through the Montana 250th Commission, established by the state legislature in 2023 to coordinate activities across the Treasure State. The commission's guiding theme, “Everything is Connected,” reflects an effort to tell a broad Montana story, recognizing both the nation's founding and the Indigenous peoples whose histories on the land stretch back thousands of years.
Education and civic engagement are central to the commemoration. The commission is working with schools, museums, tribal nations, historic preservation groups, veterans' organizations, and communities across Montana to deepen understanding of both state and national history. Its initiatives also recognize Montana achievements and innovations while encouraging communities to develop programs that reflect their own local histories.
Montana's observance is also designed to extend beyond a single anniversary celebration. Grants, educational activities, and community partnerships are supporting projects across the state, giving Montanans opportunities to explore how their own communities fit within the larger American story.
Collecting the Treasure State
Montana's mining history offers collectors a rich vein of memorabilia connected to the industry that helped the state earn its Treasure State nickname. Butte and Anaconda are particularly fertile ground, with collectibles ranging from mining-company documents and photographs to tokens, equipment, advertising pieces, and objects associated with individual mines and smelters. Pieces tied to the Anaconda Copper Mining Company are especially evocative of the era when copper transformed Butte into one of the world's great mining centers.
Montana's spectacular scenery created another collecting field as railroads and automobiles brought generations of tourists west. Vintage postcards, maps, brochures, posters, hotel souvenirs, and other travel ephemera preserve changing images of places such as Glacier and Yellowstone national parks.
The material ranges from picturesque postcards promoting Glacier's mountain scenery to colorful novelty maps that captured the humor and spectacle of a Yellowstone vacation. Often inexpensive and easy to display, postcards offer an especially accessible way to collect Montana's tourism history, while maps and posters can turn early Western tourism advertising into striking wall art.
Montana also has plenty to offer breweriana collectors. The Butte Brewing Company produced Butte Special Beer, while the Garden City Brewing Company of Missoula became known for Highlander Beer. Advertising from the state's breweries survives in cans, bottles, trays, signs, thermometers, and other promotional pieces.
A Butte Special cone-top can brought $200 at auction in 2016, while a reverse-painted glass Highlander Beer thermometer realized $850 in 2024, demonstrating the range of both objects and prices available to collectors.
Western art is inseparable from Montana's collecting story, and few artists are more closely associated with the state than Charles M. Russell. The artist and former cowboy settled in Great Falls and became renowned for his paintings and sculptures depicting life in the American West. Original Russell works can command staggering prices: his Buffalo Hunt #7 sold for $1.425 million at the 2018 C.M. Russell Auction. Fortunately, collectors don't need a millionaire's budget to bring Russell's work home. Vintage prints, illustrated books, postcards, exhibition catalogs, calendars, and other ephemera offer far more affordable ways to collect the work of Montana's famed "Cowboy Artist."
Montana's Native artistic traditions are not confined to the past. Contemporary Native artists throughout the state continue traditions including beadwork, leatherwork, weaving, painting, and other arts, often combining traditional techniques and designs with individual artistic expression. Buying directly from Native artists and reputable Native-owned galleries and markets gives collectors an opportunity to acquire authentic work while supporting the people and communities carrying those traditions forward.
Looking Ahead: Montana’s America 250 Calendar Highlights
Sept. 5–17, 2026 — American Revolution Experience Traveling Exhibit, Helena
The American Revolution Experience comes to the Montana State Capitol Rotunda with an interactive exhibit exploring the people, places, battles, choices, and legacies of the Revolutionary War. The Oro Fino Chapter of the DAR is presenting the exhibit in partnership with the Montana 250th Commission and other organizations.
Sept. 10, 2026 — Montana Reads: Our Ancient Faith, Helena and online
The Montana Reads book club continues with Allen Guelzo's Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment. Participants can join the discussion at the Lewis and Clark Library in Helena or online via Zoom.
Sept. 25, 2026 — Anaconda Oral Histories, online
Supported by a Montana 250 grant, the Anaconda Oral Histories project is recording the stories of community members to preserve local history that might otherwise be lost. Eight interviews have already been recorded, with eight more planned.
Oct. 1, 2026 — Indigenous Northwest Montana History Exhibit Update, Kalispell
The Northwest Montana Historical Society is developing an expanded Indigenous Northwest Montana History Exhibit with support from a Montana 250 grant. The new exhibit is expected to open in October, accompanied by a free celebration honoring both the exhibit and America's 250th anniversary.
Nov. 8, 2026 — Veterans Day Dinner
The Hollowtop Senior Center will honor local veterans and their families with a Veterans Day dinner. This year's program will connect the signing of the Declaration of Independence with the contributions generations of American veterans have made to the nation's freedoms.
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