On November 8, 1889, Montana was admitted as the forty-first state to the United States.

Montana is located in the Western US and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, under the direction of President Thomas Jefferson, explored the Montana territory because it had been acquired through the Louisiana Purchase on April 30, 1803 in Paris, France from Napoleon.

What the expedition found was that the territory was home to several formidable Indian tribes, including the Crow, Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Assinibione, Kootenai, Chippewa, Cree, Arapaho and  Shoshone.

After nearly a century of immense change, including the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn (also known as Custer’s Last Stand), white settlers came in numbers, assisted by new railroad lines that had been built at the time.

Gold and copper mines also created boomtowns and ranchers and farmers made agriculture a key industry, which is part of what makes Montana, the “Big Sky Country,” so special.

PHOTO CAPTION: Three Piegan (Blackfeet) chiefs, circa 1900, by famous frontier photographer Edward S. Curtis.

GOLDEN AGE HISTORY INSPIRED BY: BUCKSKIN BRIGADES by L. Ron Hubbard, a novel that skillfully weaves together the history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, its encounter with the Blackfeet Indians near Helena, Montana and the destiny of a white man living among the tribe, known as “Yellow Hair.”  (read more…)

Also inspired by (Under the Diehard Brand), a western yarn where Lee Thompson makes the long journey from Texas to Montana to help out his old man, Sheriff Diehard Thompson, when he finds out that the town of Wolf River is about to be overrun by  frontier outlaws.  (read more…)

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