Montana Commentary
Montana Atlas of Historical County
Boundaries
John H. Long, Editor; Peggy Tuck Sinko,
Historical Compiler; Emily Kelley, Research Associate; Laura Rico-Beck, GIS
Specialist and Digital Compiler; Peter Siczewicz, ArcIMS Interactive Map Designer; Robert Will, Cartographic Assistant.
Copyright The Newberry Library 2005
Most of
modern Montana was acquired by the United States from France through the
Louisiana Purchase of 1803, while that part of Montana west of the Continental
Divide remained under British control. The larger, eastern section was
successively part of the District of Louisiana, Louisiana Territory, Missouri
Territory, unorganized federal territory, Nebraska Territory, and Dakota
Territory. Jurisdiction over the area of modern Montana remained split along
the Continental Divide until 3 March 1863 when Idaho Territory expanded to encompass
the entire modern state. In 1804, the District of Louisiana created two huge
counties, which included territory in present Montana. In 1812 and 1813 those
counties were reduced in size, and no counties existed in the eastern
two-thirds of Montana until 1864. Oregon and Washington Territories did include
the area west of the Rocky Mountains within several large counties, which often
stretched hundreds of miles across two or three modern states.
Most of
these early counties had no practical impact on Montana, since there were few
white residents in the area. Beginning in the late 1850s, several events opened
the Montana country to settlers, and made it essential to establish
governmental control of western Montana. In 1855, Washington Territorial Governor
Isaac Stevens negotiated treaties with several Indian tribes. One of the treaty
provisions permitted whites limited usage of Blackfoot lands, including the
establishment of military forts, and the building of roads and telegraph lines.
The Mullan Road, completed in 1862, was constructed from the Columbia River in
Washington Territory, along the Clark’s Fork and across the Continental Divide
to Fort Benton in Montana. While it was barely more than a footpath in some
sections, the road did link East and West through western Montana. Finally, the
discovery of gold in the late 1850s brought an influx of people to the area. As
more non-Indians poured into western Montana, Washington Territory authorized
the creation of Missoula County on 14 December 1860 to establish some
territorial authority and provide governmental services. This new county
covered most of the area of present Montana west of the Continental Divide.
Missoula County can lay claim to having the longest continuous history of any
Montana county, carrying over from Washington Territory, to Idaho Territory, to
Montana Territory, and finally becoming part of the state of Montana.
The
boundaries of the state of Montana are unchanged since its establishment as a
territory on 26 May 1864—with one small exception. A triangular area of about
one and one-half square miles located west of Wyoming, north of the Continental
Divide, and south of 44 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude, had originally
belonged to Dakota Territory. When Wyoming Territory was established in 1868,
this area was assigned to neither Wyoming nor Montana, and thus remained
technically a part of Dakota Territory, though separated from the rest of the
Dakotas by hundreds of miles. This oversight was corrected by the United States
Congress on 17 February 1873, when it transferred the small area to Montana
Territory. However, the confusion continued when the Montana Territorial
Legislature mistakenly assigned the addition to Beaverhead and Madison
Counties, which are located many miles from the orphaned area. The small
triangle was actually located adjacent to Gallatin County, and it is a part of
that county today. Poor geographical knowledge of this area, plus an apparent
dependence on W. W. de Lacy’s 1865 map of Montana (which had been prepared at
the request of the territorial legislature, and which erroneously depicted the
Madison and Gallatin Rivers east of their actual locations in relation to the
northwest corner of Wyoming), resulted in this mistake, which was never
officially corrected by the legislature.
Disputes in
the Montana Territorial Legislature, which had nothing directly to do with
county boundaries, also affected county creation. Divided Civil War loyalties,
combined with concerns over federal Indian and territorial policies, fueled
clashes between the largely Democratic territorial legislature and the largely
Republican territorial officials. Things came to a head in 1866 over whether
the seating of the 2d and 3d sessions of the Democratic-Party-dominated
territorial legislature violated the provisions of the territorial Organic Act.
On 2 March 1867, the United States Congress, and its Republican majority,
declared all acts of the 2d and 3d Montana Territorial Legislature null and
void (U.S. Statutes at Large, vol. 14, ch. 150[1867], sec. 6/p.
427). Meagher and Musselshell Counties,
both created in 1866, became casualties of this dispute. Meagher County was
quickly re-established by the 4th session of the territorial
legislature in November 1867, but a new Musselshell County did not reappear
until 1911.
In general,
county boundaries across the United States have been created with almost total
disregard for Indian reservations. The practice followed by compilers of the
Atlas of Historical County Boundaries has been to adhere to the instructions
for county lines as set forth in session laws—regardless of how they relate to
the reservations. Sometimes treaty lines were used to define county boundaries,
but rarely were reservations left outside county jurisdiction for any extended
period of time. In Montana, the Crow Indian Reservation in the southeastern
part of the state is the only one that figured into county boundaries. In 1881,
the Crow agreed to cede part of their reserve to the federal government, and
the treaty was ratified by the U. S. Congress on 11 April 1882. Anticipating
this cession, the Montana Territorial Legislature passed an act on 14 February
1881 to add all of the cession to Gallatin County, declaring that the area
“shall, upon the ratification of said treaty, be attached to and become a part
of Gallatin county, Montana” (Mont. Terr. Laws 1881, 12th leg., p.
124). This is the first explicit mention of the Crow Reservation as it related
to county boundaries. Based on boundary descriptions dating from 1872, the
remaining Crow Reservation was within the boundaries of Custer County. On 5
March 1885, the territorial legislature further complicated matters by
attaching some of the Crow Reservation (the part west of the Big Horn River) to
Yellowstone County for judicial purposes. This, in effect, made part of the
reservation a non-county area attached to Yellowstone County, while the area
east of the Big Horn River remained part of Custer County. A further land
cession by the Crow in 1891 was added to Yellowstone County. The remaining
portion of the Crow reserve west of the Big Horn River became part of
Yellowstone County on 5 March 1897. Today the Crow Reservation lies across both
Yellowstone and Big Horn Counties.
In the
early years of Montana Territory, county development proceeded at a deliberate
pace, so that by the end of 1911, there were only twenty-nine counties. Between
1912 and 1925, activity increased and the number of counties nearly doubled to
fifty-six; in contrast, the population of Montana increased only 15% between
1910 and 1930. Why the sudden rush to new counties? A combination of factors
made Montana’s prospects look bright—most of the state had been surveyed and
homesteaders were moving in, World War I brought a heightened demand for
several natural resources found in Montana, the railroads were expanding and
promoting settlement, and the weather produced good crop-growing conditions
(Chaney, “Dan McKay”). Since territorial days, county creation was the
responsibility of the legislature, but in 1911, the legislature passed an act
shifting responsibility for county creation to local citizens and boards of
county commissioners. Citizens could then petition their county board, and if
certain conditions were met, the commissioners would call an election to vote
on the establishment of a new county.
In 1912,
Blaine and Hill Counties were created using this new method of “petition and
election,” and in subsequent years even more new counties were created. Much of
this activity was promoted and encouraged by Dan McKay, who became known as
Montana’s leading “county splitter.”
McKay is known to have been involved in the creation of at least seven,
and perhaps as many as twelve, Montana counties. He was a lobbyist and civic
booster extraordinaire who saw a business opportunity in, first, convincing
folks that they needed a new county, and, second, helping them with the legal
and political maneuvers that led to success. Playing upon local boosterism,
optimism about Montana’s future growth, and highlighting the advantages of a
new county (less distance to travel to the county seat, more county jobs, improved
economic prospects for the new county seat, etc.), McKay then offered himself
as the person who could make this happen—and all for a fee of only $1500
(Burlingame, “Political Divisions,” 17–18). It is not surprising that such
efforts sometimes resulted in heated exchanges wrapped up in civic pride, envy,
regionalism, and greed. A headline from The Fairview Times (Richland
County) of 28 January 1915 provides some idea of the importance these actions
could signify, “Look At This! How
Thimblerigging Politicians Bunco and Flim-Flam the People In Making New
Counties.” This article is about the problem boundary between Wibaux and
Richland Counties. Richland County was created by petition and election on 27
May 1914, while Wibaux was created by the same means on 17 August 1914. The two
counties shared a common boundary, but the legal boundary descriptions did not
match, creating a disputed area that both counties claimed, and in which both
counties created precincts and selected judges. The situation was rectified in
February 1915 when the state legislature passed a law giving Richland County
control of most of the disputed area, but months of acrimony surrounded the
settling of the boundary dispute.
Unfortunately,
the rosy outlook for Montana in 1911 had changed by the early 1920s. The end of
World War I meant decreased demand for certain resources, and drought spread
across much of the state. The cost of operating the new counties outstripped
the ability of county residents to pay the necessary taxes. Delinquent taxes
and foreclosures increased, and many of these new counties came close to
bankruptcy.
Yellowstone
National Park, created as America’s first national park in 1872, also affected
Montana’s county boundaries. While most of the park lies in Wyoming, the
northern edge and part of the western side are in Montana, covering just 263 of
the Park’s 3468 square miles. Between 1887 and 1978, that part of Yellowstone
National Park in Montana was outside the jurisdiction of any county. (A similar
situation did not exist with Glacier National Park, also located in Montana.)
When Park County was created from Gallatin County on 1 May 1887, the
legislation very clearly and intentionally excluded Yellowstone National Park
from Park County’s boundaries. This situation was known as “Exclusive
Legislative Jurisdiction” in which the federal government retains most county
responsibilities (Van Zandt, 150). As early as 1929, this peculiar status
raised questions about taxation and the validity of marriages (Haines,
2:332–333), but throughout the early twentieth century the revised codes of
Montana confirmed Yellowstone’s exclusion from the state’s network of counties.
It was not until April 1977 that the Montana legislature passed a law adding parts
of Yellowstone National Park to Gallatin and Park Counties, subject to the
approval of voters in the two counties. The proposal was approved at the
election held 7 November 1978, ending the non-county status of the national
park.
Two works by Merrill G. Burlingame were useful in the
compilation of Montana. His History of Montana (1957), written with K.
Ross Toole, provided background information and explained events in Montana
history. Burlingame’s unpublished “Political Divisions in Montana” (1974)
documented the evolution of counties and the development of Indian
reservations. The Montana Atlas and Gazetteer (1994), a modern
collection of topographic maps, was helpful in accurately locating geographic
features and lines of longitude and latitude. Nineteenth-century maps of
Montana, available online at “David Rumsey Map Collection”
(http://www.davidrumsey.com) were used to identify locales that have changed
name or disappeared.
Special thanks are due Elaine Hooley of the MonDak Heritage
Center for help with the Richland County/Wibaux County boundary. Queries to
several counties were met with generous responses. Staff from the offices of
Clerk and Recorder in Dawson, Fallon, Hill, Richland, Sheridan, and Wibaux
Counties, as well as several local librarians, provided copies of county
commissioners’ minutes, maps, newspaper clippings, and other helpful
information.
This
interactive map was constructed and operates through the program ArcIMS,
produced by Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI). The map was
produced by the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries Project, which has been
supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an
independent federal agency. It also has benefited greatly from support from The
Newberry Library, the project’s headquarters and sponsor, software grants from
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), and contributions from
foundations and individuals.
Contact
Us
Atlas
Staff:
John H.
Long, Editor
Peggy Tuck
Sinko, Associate Editor
Emily
Kelley, Research Associate
Laura Rico,
GIS Complier
Peter
Siczewicz, ArcIMS Interactive Map Designer
The Atlas
of Historical County Boundaries Project
The
Newberry Library
60 W.
Walton St.
Chicago, IL
60610
Contact:
Send questions or comments, or report suspected errors to the Newberry’s Atlas
of Historical County Boundaries Project (longj@newberry.org)
or Office of Research and Education (grossmanj@newberry.org).