Its motto: Gold and Silver.

Its nicknames: Big Sky Country, Bonanza State, Land of the Shining Mountains, Mountain State, Treasure State.

Fifty Mountain Ranges at the Edge of Great Plains

Although most of Montana belongs to the Great Plains, it is mountains that give the state its extraordinary beauty.

More than 50 majestic ranges make up Montana's share of the Rocky Mountains. The mountains gave Montana its Wild West image. A gold strike in 1862 at Grasshopper Creek drew the miners, who eventually found silver, coal, and copper - and called Butte, the town they founded on one of the world's largest copper deposits, "the richest hill on earth."

Mountains give Montana its name and its grandeur, but the larger portion of the state is given over to sweeping plains - the majestic Big Sky Country. As in other parts of the West, a procession of immigrants put the land to different uses. Some succeeded and stayed, others failed and departed.

First, the Indians came for buffalo. Then, in 1870's white ranchers arrived to make use of the open range and its native grasses, which provide ideal food for cattle. Soon after came professional buffalo hunters in search of animal hides to ship back east. By 1885 the seemingly inexhaustible buffalo herds had all but disappeared, and Montana's native Indian tribes, deprived of the animals that gave them sustenance, were relegated to six reservations by the end of the century.

Today many visitors come to Montana to enjoy a venerable western institution - the dude ranch. Such ranches got their start when railroads began bringing tourists, mainly from the East, to Yellowstone Park in the 1880's and nearby ranchers welcomed the strangers into their homes, charging a fee as a way to help keep things together in tough times. Later a whole new tourist trade developed, and now more people than ever visit Montana's dude ranches. Some city dwellers choose working ranches where they can become part of the crew for a few days; others want only a little horseback riding or fishing.

In 1889 Montana entered the Union as the 41st state.

(”The USA Diversity of 50 States”)