Montana   
Treasure State

Motto: Gold and Silver

Hotels           Airlines         Rental Cars

Montana is Big Ski country,

General Custer made his last stand at the Little Big Horn

Glacier National Park is located in Montana

{State bird, Western meadowlark}
{State flower, bitterroot}
{State tree, Ponderosa pine}

Wheat has since made a revival, and now, with lumbering and coal mining, forms the base of Montana's economy. Tourism is currently the state's second biggest earner, though, apart from skiing, the harsh climate generally restricts the season to the months between June and September

Dramatic mountain ranges, making an exhilarating approach to Yellowstone country, complete with outdoor opportunities and busy communities. The only mining camps to grow into  permanent settlements were state capital Helena and mountainous Butte

Little Bighorn Days festival centers around re-enactments of the battle at a site eight miles west of the town ( not at the original battlefield). Other activities include Native American dancing, downtown parades, dinner dances and a rodeo. Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, site of Cuser's last battle, is located in southeastern Montana near the towns of Crow Agency and Hardin on Interstate Highway 90

By Montana standards, BILLINGS is a big city. Its dramatic setting, bounded on its north and east sides by the 400ft crumpled sandstone cliffs of the Rimrock , certainly makes it something more than a pockmark on the prairie. The town has made an attempt to spruce itself up with the development of an attractive and quite lively row of galleries, bars and restaurants along Montana Avenue. However, scarring the west side of downtown are the tracks and warehouses of the Northern Pacific Railroad, whose president, Frederick Billings, gave the city its name.

Just north of Montana Avenue you'll find a massive selection of cowboy paraphernalia at Lou Taubert, 123 N Broadway (tel 406/245-2248), which specializes in all things Western. An enormous selection of hats, boots, shirts, jeans and jackets will make dressing up like John Wayne never look more appealing.

A couple of blocks northeast is Yellowstone Art Museum , 401 N 27th St (Tues, Wed, Fri & Sat 10am-5pm, Thurs 10am-8pm, Sun noon-5pm; $5 adults, $3 seniors, $2 children; tel 406/256-6817, ). Partly housed in the town's 1910 jail, it specializes in regional and Western exhibits, including an absorbing display of book illustrations, paintings and posters by cowboy illustrator Will James.

Billings' bus station , served by Greyhound along I-90 and I-15, and Powder River, heading north from Wyoming, is at 2501 First Ave N (tel 406/245-5116). The Dude Rancher , 415 N 29th St (tel 1-800/221-3302 or 406/259-5561; $50-75), is a reasonably-priced bright and cheerful motel with a good restaurant and coffee shop attached. Cheaper options line I-90, off exit 446, including a Super 8 at 5400 Southgate Drive (tel 406/248-8842; $50-75). Billings KOA is half a mile south of I-90 in an attractive spot beside the Yellowstone River with good shady campsites for $17. This was America's first KOA and the facilities include a store, outdoor pool, laundry and mini-golf course.

Downtown, hearty meals can be found at The Beanery Bar and Grill , 2314 Montana Ave (tel 406/896-9200), tucked inside the restored old Northern Pacific Depot. Casey's Golden Pheasant , 109 N Broadway (tel 406/256-5200), is a lively jazz and blues bar with good Cajun food.

Eighty miles west of Bozeman, copper-mining BUTTE is bunched on a steep, almost treeless hillside where massive black headframes of long-abandoned pits soar up among paint-bare homes, stark gray business premises, and a ring of surface workings and dirty-yellow slag heaps. It's an oddly compelling landscape, best appreciated at dusk, when the golden pink light casts a glow on the mine-scoured hillsides, and the old neon signs illuminate uptown's historic brick buildings.

Exploration of this friendly, atmospheric town soon reveals a community rich in ethnic and trade union culture. Among immigrants to leave their mark were the Irish - Butte still hosts the biggest St Patrick's Day celebrations in the Rockies, with an estimated 40,000 customers passing through the famous old M&M Bar every March 17 - and miners from Cornwall ; the traditional meat-and-potato pasty ( PAST-ee) is still served in most cafés.

From its early days, Butte stood out as a "Gibraltar of Unionism" in the anti-union West. Miners used their collective strength to obtain a minimum wage and an eight-hour day, and it became impossible to get work without a union card. Such confidence bred radicalism, and Butte sent the largest delegation to the founding convention of the IWW (the "Wobblies") in 1906. The eventual consolidation of mining operations under the huge Anaconda Company led to inter-union rivalries and rioting, and in 1983 the last mine closed. Today conflicts rage between the clean-up lobby (the town's largest disused mine, the Berkeley Pit, is slowly filling with heavily poisoned groundwater) and the traditionalists, keen to develop new methods to exploit the mineral-rich seams that once made Butte the "richest hill on earth." To take a look at the ecological disaster that is the 700ft by mile-long Berkeley Pit , head for Continental Drive. Here, a viewing platform surveys the whole horrifying mess, the most toxic stretch of water in the United States (summer daily 8am-9pm; free).

Uptown lies Butte's extensive historic district . On W Park Street, the excellent, although rather grandly named, World Museum of Mining (daily 9am-6pm April-Oct; $4) is packed with fascinating memorabilia from the local boom years. Outside, beyond the scattered collection of rusting machinery - baffling to all but experts - its 35-building Hell Roarin' Gulch re-creates a cobbled-street mining camp, complete with saloon, bordello, church, schoolhouse and Chinese laundry. Above it all looms the blackened headframe of the 3200-foot-deep Orphan Girl mineshaft.

1864 a party of disheartened prospectors working over the present site of HELENA , more or less halfway between Yellowstone and Glacier, decided to have one final dig along a likely-looking ravine - and struck lucky on what is now Last Chance Gulch , the town's attractive main street. More than $20 million of gold was extracted, but Helena retained an orderly appearance, set neatly at the foot of two rounded mountains with a fine view over the golden-brown Prickly Pear Valley . Over fifty successful prospectors remained here as millionaires, and their palatial residences still enhance the west side of town. Hollywood star Gary Cooper was born and brought up in this quintessentially Western town; actress Myrna Loy also lived here as a child, and is commemorated by the Myrna Loy Center for the Performing Arts at 15 N Ewing St (tel 406/443-0287).

Inside the massive Neoclassical State Capitol , atop a small hill surrounded by lawns at Sixth and Montana avenues, huge murals by "cowboy artist" C. M. Russell depict scenes from Montana's history (daily 8am-6pm; free). You can see more of his work at the excellent Montana Historical Society Museum , 225 N Roberts (June-Aug Mon-Fri 8am-6pm, Sat & Sun 9am-5pm; rest of year Mon-Fri 8am-5pm, Sat 9am-5pm; free), as well as early photographs of pioneer life. The majestic red-tiled spires of the Cathedral of St Helena rise 230ft at 530 N Ewing St; elaborate Bavarian stained glass, white-marble altars and gold leaf decorate the interior. Also worth a visit is the Holter Museum of Art , 12 E Lawrence St (June-Sept Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; Oct-May Tue-Fri 11.30am-5pm, Sat & Sun noon-5pm; free), which exhibits painting, sculpture, photography and ceramics. West of downtown, the Archie Bray Foundation , 2915 Country Club Ave (tel 406/443-3502), hosts world-renowned ceramic artists who hone their craft while you watch.

The eastern Montana plains are intermittently broken by mountains, of which the most impressive are the icy Beartooth Range , crammed between the town of Red Lodge and Yellowstone. Don't expect much from the region's towns; most are lazy farm-supply centers, and Billings , Montana's largest city with a population of over 90,000, doesn't have a great deal to offer.

The western third of Montana sees the state at its best - from Big Timber westwards, I-90 squeezes between dramatic mountain ranges, making an exhilarating approach to Yellowstone country, replete with outdoor opportunities and bustling communities. The only mining camps to grow into substantial permanent settlements were state capital Helena and craggy Butte , which made its money from copper. Between them they conjure up more of a feel for the rambunctious times, the lust for profit and the post-bust hardships of the era than all the hyped-up ghost towns in the Rockies combined.