WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.240 You know, when you hear the word Montana, there 00:00:02.240 --> 00:00:05.200 is a very, like, specific, almost cinematic image 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:07.299 that usually pops into your head. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:07.480 --> 00:00:10.359 Right. You picture these pristine, snow -capped 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:13.060 peaks of Yellowstone. Or maybe, I don't know, 00:00:13.339 --> 00:00:15.939 a lone cowboy, riding through untouched wilderness, 00:00:16.300 --> 00:00:19.640 casting this long shadow at sunset. It's really 00:00:19.640 --> 00:00:23.019 treated as this beautiful, unchanging backdrop. 00:00:23.239 --> 00:00:26.300 Just a quiet, scenic vacation spot where time 00:00:26.300 --> 00:00:28.739 stands still. Exactly. The scenery certainly 00:00:28.739 --> 00:00:30.839 encourages that view. I mean, it feels incredibly 00:00:30.839 --> 00:00:33.579 peaceful today. But the moment you actually dig 00:00:33.579 --> 00:00:36.859 into the historical soil of this place, that 00:00:36.859 --> 00:00:39.659 perfectly framed postcard just goes up in flames. 00:00:39.820 --> 00:00:41.640 Yeah, it really does. We're looking at a landscape 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:44.020 that is anything but static. Yeah. When you analyze 00:00:44.020 --> 00:00:46.000 the sources we've gathered, you realize this 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:48.939 region is the absolute definition of a historical 00:00:48.939 --> 00:00:51.700 pressure cooker. Which is why we're here. Welcome 00:00:51.700 --> 00:00:54.479 to this custom tailored deep dive designed specifically 00:00:54.479 --> 00:00:57.520 for you. Our mission today is to decode the true 00:00:57.520 --> 00:01:00.219 history of Montana using a massive stack of source 00:01:00.219 --> 00:01:02.960 material. We're going to take what might seem 00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:05.540 like a simple timeline of dates and reveal it 00:01:05.540 --> 00:01:08.859 for what it truly is. A sprawling, often violent 00:01:08.859 --> 00:01:11.739 saga of the American West. Exactly. You're going 00:01:11.739 --> 00:01:15.040 to hear a story of deep ancient roots, rapid 00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:18.680 expansion, extreme resource exploitation, and 00:01:18.680 --> 00:01:21.680 relentless reinvention. Okay, let's unpack this. 00:01:22.219 --> 00:01:24.459 To really understand this land, we can't start 00:01:24.459 --> 00:01:26.640 with statehood, right? No, definitely not. We 00:01:26.640 --> 00:01:28.780 can't even start with the pioneers. We have to 00:01:28.780 --> 00:01:31.939 look at the people who inhabited this space long 00:01:31.939 --> 00:01:35.140 before the word Montana ever even existed. And 00:01:35.140 --> 00:01:37.459 the sheer timeline of the archaeological evidence 00:01:37.459 --> 00:01:40.640 here is staggering. We are talking about human 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:43.319 habitation stretching back more than 12 ,000 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:46.480 years. Wow. Yeah, and the absolute anchor point 00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:48.459 for this, which is documented extensively in 00:01:48.459 --> 00:01:50.959 the text, is the Anzic site. It was discovered 00:01:50.959 --> 00:01:54.540 back in 1968 near Wilsall, Montana. Just by accident, 00:01:54.680 --> 00:01:57.409 right? completely by accident. Construction workers 00:01:57.409 --> 00:01:59.849 uncovered the remains of a male infant buried 00:01:59.849 --> 00:02:02.870 over a hundred Clovis culture artifacts. I want 00:02:02.870 --> 00:02:04.730 to pause on those artifacts for a second because 00:02:04.730 --> 00:02:06.950 that term Clovis, it gets thrown around a lot 00:02:06.950 --> 00:02:08.830 of archaeology. What does that actually mean 00:02:08.830 --> 00:02:10.909 for the people who are living there? Good question. 00:02:11.469 --> 00:02:14.490 So Clovis refers to a specific prehistoric culture 00:02:14.490 --> 00:02:17.509 characterized by their really distinctive fluted 00:02:17.509 --> 00:02:20.710 stone spear points. These were highly skilled 00:02:20.710 --> 00:02:24.409 nomadic big game hunters. Finding those artifacts 00:02:24.300 --> 00:02:26.919 buried with a child indicated a deeply established 00:02:26.919 --> 00:02:30.000 complex culture. But the truly revolutionary 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:32.360 moment for the ANZIC site happened decades later, 00:02:32.759 --> 00:02:35.219 jumping forward to 2014. This is the DNA part. 00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:38.860 Yes. Scientists managed to actually extract and 00:02:38.860 --> 00:02:41.740 sequence the ancient boys genome. Which is crazy 00:02:41.740 --> 00:02:44.939 to me. How do you even sequence DMA from remains 00:02:44.939 --> 00:02:46.659 that have been in the ground for 12 ,000 years? 00:02:46.840 --> 00:02:49.139 The degradation must be absolute. Incredibly 00:02:49.139 --> 00:02:52.120 difficult. Scientists had to extract tiny, heavily 00:02:52.120 --> 00:02:54.580 degraded DNA fragments from the skeletal remains 00:02:54.580 --> 00:02:57.439 and essentially piece them together using advanced 00:02:57.439 --> 00:02:59.719 computational models. They had to filter out 00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:01.900 thousands of years of environmental contamination. 00:03:02.099 --> 00:03:04.719 That sounds impossible. It was a massive breakthrough. 00:03:05.340 --> 00:03:07.139 But when they finally mapped it, they had this 00:03:07.139 --> 00:03:11.819 genetic time capsule. That DNA provided the very 00:03:11.819 --> 00:03:15.060 first definitive genetic proof that the Clovis 00:03:15.060 --> 00:03:18.020 people descended from Asian populations and are 00:03:18.020 --> 00:03:20.960 directly ancestral to many modern Native American 00:03:20.960 --> 00:03:23.740 tribes. It's like unearthing a 12 ,000 year old 00:03:23.740 --> 00:03:27.159 family tree from a genetic time capsule. fundamentally 00:03:27.159 --> 00:03:29.840 rewrites our understanding of early human migration. 00:03:30.219 --> 00:03:32.500 Completely. And from those ancient roots, you 00:03:32.500 --> 00:03:35.560 see the development of incredibly diverse nomadic 00:03:35.560 --> 00:03:38.580 societies, right? Their entire existence was 00:03:38.580 --> 00:03:40.939 intricately tied to the seasonal cycles and those 00:03:40.939 --> 00:03:42.979 massive buffalo herds. Yeah, the source has been 00:03:42.979 --> 00:03:45.159 a lot of time detailing these tribes. I noticed 00:03:45.159 --> 00:03:47.319 a heavy emphasis on the Blackfeet, for instance. 00:03:47.439 --> 00:03:50.139 Were they the dominant force in the region? Absolutely. 00:03:50.300 --> 00:03:52.319 The Blackfeet were fiercely independent, highly 00:03:52.319 --> 00:03:55.199 successful warriors, and they were divided into 00:03:55.199 --> 00:03:58.000 three main branches. You had the Pagan, the Blood, 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:00.500 and the Siksika. They operated with a deeply 00:04:00.500 --> 00:04:03.740 structured nomadic life and controlled a massive 00:04:03.740 --> 00:04:07.020 swath of territory. But the landscape was diverse. 00:04:07.439 --> 00:04:10.139 You also had the Crow, who arrived around 1700. 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:12.900 They developed a really deep geographical knowledge 00:04:12.900 --> 00:04:15.539 of the terrain. Which, the sources say, later 00:04:15.539 --> 00:04:17.879 made them highly strategic scouts for the US 00:04:17.879 --> 00:04:20.500 Army. Exactly. Then you have the Cheyenne, who 00:04:20.500 --> 00:04:22.600 bring a totally different cultural layer. Their 00:04:22.600 --> 00:04:24.939 language actually developed tonal characteristics. 00:04:25.100 --> 00:04:27.360 Wait, which means the actual pitch of your voice 00:04:27.360 --> 00:04:30.160 changes the meaning of the word, right? Much 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:33.470 like Mandarin Chinese. Precisely. It is incredibly 00:04:33.470 --> 00:04:36.290 rare for their specific language group, the Algonquian 00:04:36.290 --> 00:04:39.410 family. It shows just how rich and complex the 00:04:39.410 --> 00:04:41.970 cultural evolution in this region was. But the 00:04:41.970 --> 00:04:44.050 trajectory of all these sovereign nations is 00:04:44.050 --> 00:04:46.250 completely altered by a piece of paper signed 00:04:46.250 --> 00:04:49.009 in Paris in 1803. The Louisiana Purchase. Yep. 00:04:49.389 --> 00:04:52.209 The United States essentially buys a massive 00:04:52.209 --> 00:04:55.730 claim to the territory from France for $15 million. 00:04:56.230 --> 00:04:58.769 That averages out to a staggering three cents 00:04:58.769 --> 00:05:01.319 an acre. Now, at the time, this transaction This 00:05:01.319 --> 00:05:03.759 action meant absolutely nothing to the indigenous 00:05:03.759 --> 00:05:06.199 people actually living in Montana. It was just 00:05:06.199 --> 00:05:09.160 an invisible line drawn by people an ocean away. 00:05:09.620 --> 00:05:11.860 That invisible line, however, is what brings 00:05:11.860 --> 00:05:15.339 the Lewis and Clark expedition from 1804 to 1806. 00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:17.579 And they actually spent more time in present 00:05:17.579 --> 00:05:20.319 -day Montana than anywhere else on their entire 00:05:20.319 --> 00:05:22.399 journey. I didn't realize that. Yeah, they were 00:05:22.399 --> 00:05:25.319 documenting the flora, the fauna, the navigable 00:05:25.319 --> 00:05:28.459 rivers. You can actually still see physical proof 00:05:28.459 --> 00:05:31.959 of this mapping process. William Clark carved 00:05:31.959 --> 00:05:34.620 his name and the date into Pompey's pillar near 00:05:34.620 --> 00:05:37.420 modern -day Billings. He named it after the infant 00:05:37.420 --> 00:05:40.779 son of Sacagawea, their Shoshone guide. What's 00:05:40.779 --> 00:05:43.459 wild is that Pompey's pillar is the only remaining 00:05:43.459 --> 00:05:45.779 physical evidence of the entire route. What's 00:05:45.779 --> 00:05:47.199 fascinating here is that the Lucas and Clark 00:05:47.199 --> 00:05:49.279 expedition wasn't just, you know, a scientific 00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:51.240 mapping trip. Right, it was a scouting mission. 00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:54.029 Exactly, it was an inventory of resources. By 00:05:54.029 --> 00:05:56.449 mapping the rivers and initiating formal contact, 00:05:56.829 --> 00:05:59.110 they were acting as the catalyst that permanently 00:05:59.110 --> 00:06:01.709 shifted the balance of power in the region. They 00:06:01.709 --> 00:06:03.990 were laying the logistical groundwork for eventual 00:06:03.990 --> 00:06:07.050 U .S. dominance. And the sources document that 00:06:07.050 --> 00:06:09.670 this initial contact wasn't always peaceful either. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:12.600 On the return trip, Merriweather Lewis's group 00:06:12.600 --> 00:06:15.259 had a really tense skirmish with a party of Pig 00:06:15.259 --> 00:06:17.779 and Blackfeet. Yeah, that was a critical moment. 00:06:18.060 --> 00:06:20.040 The text details that the Blackfeet tried to 00:06:20.040 --> 00:06:22.360 take the expedition's weapons. They were likely 00:06:22.360 --> 00:06:24.600 trying to prevent American guns from making their 00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:26.980 way into the hands of rival tribes. Makes sense 00:06:26.980 --> 00:06:29.759 strategically. Right. But a struggle broke out. 00:06:29.839 --> 00:06:32.160 Two native men were killed, and Lewis and his 00:06:32.160 --> 00:06:34.899 men ended up fleeing over 100 miles in a single 00:06:34.899 --> 00:06:37.560 day on horseback just to escape retaliation. 00:06:37.759 --> 00:06:39.800 That skirmish is a dark foreshadowing, really, 00:06:40.319 --> 00:06:42.920 because that shift in power soon brought a massive 00:06:42.920 --> 00:06:45.980 influx of settlers, prospectors, and of course 00:06:45.980 --> 00:06:48.779 the U .S. military. The government started aggressively 00:06:48.779 --> 00:06:51.319 carving up the land. That brings us to the formal 00:06:51.319 --> 00:06:53.939 drawing of borders. The Montana Territory is 00:06:53.939 --> 00:06:57.279 officially established in 1864. And I love this 00:06:57.279 --> 00:06:59.379 detail from the sources because it busts a very 00:06:59.379 --> 00:07:02.000 popular myth. You always hear this legend that 00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:04.519 the incredibly jagged border between Idaho and 00:07:04.519 --> 00:07:07.240 Montana was the result of a drunken surveyor. 00:07:07.439 --> 00:07:10.100 Oh, right, the drunken surveyor story. Yeah. 00:07:10.350 --> 00:07:12.949 that he accidentally wandered west into the Bitterroot 00:07:12.949 --> 00:07:15.750 Range and just drew lines wherever he stumbled. 00:07:15.970 --> 00:07:18.189 It makes for a fun local story, but the historical 00:07:18.189 --> 00:07:21.029 record proves it entirely false. The U .S. Congress 00:07:21.029 --> 00:07:22.850 knew exactly what they were doing. They drew 00:07:22.850 --> 00:07:25.750 the boundary precisely where they intended, running 00:07:25.750 --> 00:07:28.170 it along the 44 degrees, 30 minutes parallel, 00:07:28.649 --> 00:07:30.610 and then having it follow the crest of the Rocky 00:07:30.610 --> 00:07:33.029 Mountains and the Bitterroot Mountains. So it 00:07:33.029 --> 00:07:35.850 was intentional? Highly intentional. It was a 00:07:35.850 --> 00:07:38.850 calculated political division designed to corral 00:07:38.850 --> 00:07:42.170 the region's mining resources into specific jurisdictions. 00:07:42.519 --> 00:07:45.180 But drawing lines on a map in Washington, D .C. 00:07:45.220 --> 00:07:48.360 means enforcing those lines on the ground. And 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:51.100 that enforcement ignited fierce, heartbreaking 00:07:51.100 --> 00:07:54.160 resistance from the indigenous peoples. The source 00:07:54.160 --> 00:07:56.480 material spent significant time on the Indian 00:07:56.480 --> 00:07:59.019 Wars, particularly the Battle of the Little Bjorn 00:07:59.019 --> 00:08:02.579 in 1876. Right. George Armstrong Custer and his 00:08:02.579 --> 00:08:05.839 seventh cavalry attacked a massive combined encampment 00:08:05.839 --> 00:08:09.360 of Lakota, northern Cheyenne and Arapaho. Custer 00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:11.899 completely miscalculated the situation. I mean, 00:08:11.879 --> 00:08:14.620 He split his forces without knowing the actual 00:08:14.620 --> 00:08:17.680 size of the encampment. And the native forces, 00:08:17.839 --> 00:08:20.459 who were fiercely defending their families, just 00:08:20.459 --> 00:08:22.500 outmaneuvered him completely. They were vastly 00:08:22.500 --> 00:08:24.620 outnumbered, weren't they? The cavalry was, yeah. 00:08:25.180 --> 00:08:27.199 The native forces outnumbered the cavalry by 00:08:27.199 --> 00:08:29.879 at least three to one. And in some fragmented 00:08:29.879 --> 00:08:32.159 parts of the battlefield, the ratio was closer 00:08:32.159 --> 00:08:35.179 to five to one. Wow. The annihilation of Custer's 00:08:35.179 --> 00:08:38.059 battalion was so absolute that only two men linked 00:08:38.059 --> 00:08:40.240 to the cavalry survived to even describe the 00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:43.500 battlefield. There was a Crow Scout named Curly, 00:08:43.759 --> 00:08:45.960 who observed from a distance, and a trooper who 00:08:45.960 --> 00:08:48.000 had been separated from the main force before 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:50.659 the fighting even began. The U .S. military's 00:08:50.659 --> 00:08:53.580 response to that defeat was total relentless 00:08:53.580 --> 00:08:56.100 retaliation. And this leads to one of the most 00:08:56.100 --> 00:08:58.379 harrowing accounts in the entire source stack, 00:08:58.720 --> 00:09:01.460 which is the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878. 00:09:01.659 --> 00:09:03.860 Yeah, it's a tough read. Following Little Bighorn, 00:09:04.059 --> 00:09:07.820 the government forces 972 Northern Cheyenne down 00:09:07.820 --> 00:09:10.500 to a reservation in Oklahoma. The conditions 00:09:10.500 --> 00:09:13.899 described there are horrific. Malaria is rampant. 00:09:14.340 --> 00:09:16.600 The food rations provided by the government are 00:09:16.600 --> 00:09:19.100 essentially garbage, totally unfit for human 00:09:19.100 --> 00:09:21.840 consumption. So the tribal leaders, Chiefs Little 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:24.279 Wolf and Dullknife, make a desperate decision. 00:09:24.379 --> 00:09:26.980 After pressing the federal agents for release 00:09:26.980 --> 00:09:29.600 and just being repeatedly denied, they decide 00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:33.360 to lead a group of 353 of their people on a march 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:35.799 back north to their homeland in Montana. OK, 00:09:35.820 --> 00:09:37.519 wait, I need to push back on the logistics of 00:09:37.519 --> 00:09:40.240 this. The sources say the U .S. government mobilized 00:09:40.240 --> 00:09:43.460 13 ,000 troops and volunteers. Yep, 13 ,000. 00:09:43.679 --> 00:09:46.960 Just to stop, roughly 350 starving sick people, 00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:49.200 including women and children, from walking back 00:09:49.200 --> 00:09:51.559 to their own ancestral homeland. How did the 00:09:51.559 --> 00:09:53.740 military or the public possibly justify that? 00:09:53.669 --> 00:09:56.029 level of completely disproportionate force at 00:09:56.029 --> 00:09:58.049 the time. It is a stunning display of federal 00:09:58.049 --> 00:10:00.889 power, and it was justified internally by the 00:10:00.889 --> 00:10:03.129 absolute need to enforce the reservation system. 00:10:03.370 --> 00:10:05.730 They were scared of losing control. Exactly. 00:10:06.389 --> 00:10:08.889 If one group successfully defied the relocation 00:10:08.889 --> 00:10:11.169 orders, the military feared a total collapse 00:10:11.169 --> 00:10:13.529 of their control over all the Western tribes. 00:10:14.190 --> 00:10:16.669 It wasn't about the physical threat those 350 00:10:16.669 --> 00:10:18.769 people posed. It was about making an example 00:10:18.769 --> 00:10:22.059 of them. That's brutal. It gets worse. Dull Knife's 00:10:22.059 --> 00:10:24.700 band was eventually captured and locked in unheated 00:10:24.700 --> 00:10:27.120 barracks at Fort Robinson in Nebraska. It was 00:10:27.120 --> 00:10:30.000 the dead of winter. The military withheld all 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:32.840 food, water and fuel to force their compliance. 00:10:33.220 --> 00:10:35.740 And rather than submit to freezing to death in 00:10:35.740 --> 00:10:40.100 a cage, they broke out in January 1879. They 00:10:40.100 --> 00:10:42.500 fought their way into the snow and the military 00:10:42.500 --> 00:10:45.379 literally gunned them down. Only about 50 people 00:10:45.379 --> 00:10:48.100 survived that breakout. It is a profound tragedy. 00:10:48.279 --> 00:10:50.980 Yet the sheer undeniable persistence of the Northern 00:10:50.980 --> 00:10:53.279 Cheyenne ultimately forced the hand of the U 00:10:53.279 --> 00:10:55.600 .S. government. Really? Yeah. The military eventually 00:10:55.600 --> 00:10:58.039 gave up trying to relocate the survivors, which 00:10:58.039 --> 00:11:00.000 actually resulted in the creation of the Northern 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:02.360 Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. They fought 00:11:02.360 --> 00:11:04.860 an empire for their home, and against all odds, 00:11:05.159 --> 00:11:08.179 a remnant of them kept it. You see that same 00:11:08.179 --> 00:11:10.539 tragic tactical brilliance in the flight of the 00:11:10.539 --> 00:11:14.080 Nez Perce in 1877, too. Chief Joseph leading 00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:18.289 800 people on a 1700 mile retreat. How does a 00:11:18.289 --> 00:11:21.450 civilian camp of 800 people outrun a mobilized 00:11:21.450 --> 00:11:25.450 army for three months? By utilizing highly sophisticated 00:11:25.450 --> 00:11:28.990 military tactics. They used rear guards. meaning 00:11:28.990 --> 00:11:31.370 a small group of warriors would stay behind to 00:11:31.370 --> 00:11:34.250 engage and delay the pursuing 2000 U .S. soldiers 00:11:34.250 --> 00:11:36.490 while the main body of families moved ahead. 00:11:36.610 --> 00:11:39.389 Oh, wow. Yeah, they dug field fortifications, 00:11:39.669 --> 00:11:41.370 literally creating rifle pits in the earth to 00:11:41.370 --> 00:11:43.690 defend their positions. They outmaneuvered the 00:11:43.690 --> 00:11:45.909 army across four states and straight through 00:11:45.909 --> 00:11:48.669 the newly formed Yellowstone Park. But they were 00:11:48.669 --> 00:11:51.070 finally intercepted in freezing weather and forced 00:11:51.070 --> 00:11:53.269 to surrender a devastating 40 miles from the 00:11:53.269 --> 00:11:55.029 Canadian border where they would have been safe. 00:11:55.169 --> 00:11:57.730 Just 40 miles. That's heartbreaking. So with 00:11:57.730 --> 00:12:00.190 the Made of populations largely confined to reservations, 00:12:00.490 --> 00:12:02.769 the landscape of Montana was violently opened 00:12:02.769 --> 00:12:05.690 up for a new era. An era defined by aggressive 00:12:05.690 --> 00:12:08.169 industrial abstraction and an orchestrated influx 00:12:08.169 --> 00:12:10.710 of homesteaders, driven almost entirely by corporate 00:12:10.710 --> 00:12:12.990 ambition. That's a good way to put it. And here's 00:12:12.990 --> 00:12:15.929 where it gets really interesting. Because the 00:12:15.929 --> 00:12:18.909 engine of this new era wasn't just the romantic 00:12:18.909 --> 00:12:21.830 pioneer spirit. It was the railroad companies 00:12:21.830 --> 00:12:24.710 acting as real estate developers. And the contrast 00:12:24.710 --> 00:12:28.240 in how these railroads operated is stark. The 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:30.840 Northern Pacific Railroad was heavily subsidized. 00:12:31.259 --> 00:12:33.919 They were given huge federal land grants to build 00:12:33.919 --> 00:12:36.220 their system, which they promptly turned around 00:12:36.220 --> 00:12:38.940 and sold to wealthy land speculators for quick 00:12:38.940 --> 00:12:41.639 cash. Right. But the Great Northern Railroad 00:12:41.639 --> 00:12:43.899 took a completely different, much more aggressive 00:12:43.899 --> 00:12:46.820 approach. They bought their land directly and 00:12:46.820 --> 00:12:49.080 then set up marketing agencies across Europe, 00:12:49.500 --> 00:12:52.259 specifically in Germany and Scandinavia, to recruit 00:12:52.259 --> 00:12:54.779 immigrant families to come settle the land. To 00:12:54.779 --> 00:12:57.159 get those European immigrants to Montana, the 00:12:57.159 --> 00:13:00.580 Great Northern basically ran a massive PR campaign. 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:03.220 They set up demonstration farms along the northern 00:13:03.220 --> 00:13:05.700 tier of the state, an area known as the High 00:13:05.700 --> 00:13:07.659 Line. Yeah, the High Line. They used these farms 00:13:07.659 --> 00:13:10.700 to show off incredible crop yields. But the text 00:13:10.700 --> 00:13:13.549 shows those yields were totally anomalous. based 00:13:13.549 --> 00:13:16.470 on unusually rainy years. They leveraged the 00:13:16.470 --> 00:13:19.110 newly expanded Homestead Act, which now offered 00:13:19.110 --> 00:13:23.750 320 acres instead of 160, to lure in these inexperienced 00:13:23.750 --> 00:13:26.629 newcomers. The locals actually call them honeyockers. 00:13:27.009 --> 00:13:28.850 Honeyockers. The sources mentioned they were 00:13:28.850 --> 00:13:31.350 pushed to do dryland wheat farming. What does 00:13:31.350 --> 00:13:33.250 that actually entail for someone who has never 00:13:33.250 --> 00:13:35.570 done it? Dryland farming is a technique used 00:13:35.570 --> 00:13:38.409 in semi -arid regions where you don't use irrigation. 00:13:39.080 --> 00:13:42.200 Instead you rely entirely on conserving the natural 00:13:42.200 --> 00:13:45.080 moisture stored in the soil from the sparse rainfall. 00:13:45.659 --> 00:13:48.779 It requires highly specific techniques, like 00:13:48.779 --> 00:13:51.740 leaving fields fallow for an entire year just 00:13:51.740 --> 00:13:53.980 to build up water reserves. So let me get this 00:13:53.980 --> 00:13:56.019 straight. The railroad recruits immigrants who 00:13:56.019 --> 00:13:58.679 only understand European rainfall patterns, drops 00:13:58.679 --> 00:14:02.340 them onto 320 acres of semi -aired desert, and 00:14:02.340 --> 00:14:04.320 tells them to start planting. Pretty much. It's 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:06.759 like selling someone a luxury sport car but neglecting 00:14:06.759 --> 00:14:08.620 to tell them they'll only be driving it on unpaved 00:14:08.620 --> 00:14:11.039 mud roads. It sounds exactly like a modern -day 00:14:11.039 --> 00:14:13.580 deceptive real estate hustle. Show them the glossy 00:14:13.580 --> 00:14:15.820 brochure. sell them the dream and leave them 00:14:15.820 --> 00:14:18.179 holding the bag. And the environment simply wouldn't 00:14:18.179 --> 00:14:21.500 support the corporate promise. When the inevitable 00:14:21.500 --> 00:14:24.740 droughts and hot winds returned after 1918, these 00:14:24.740 --> 00:14:27.620 honey occurs were decimated. Their crops failed. 00:14:27.799 --> 00:14:30.720 The soil literally blew away and thousands were 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:33.279 financially ruined and forced to abandon their 00:14:33.279 --> 00:14:35.840 claims. While the surface of Montana was an absolute 00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:37.960 struggle for these farmers, the underground was 00:14:37.960 --> 00:14:39.980 exploding with wealth. We're talking about the 00:14:39.980 --> 00:14:42.799 Copper Kings. Oh, yeah. Marcus Daly and W .A. 00:14:42.919 --> 00:14:45.720 Clark. Right. Marcus Daly, this Irish immigrant 00:14:45.720 --> 00:14:48.240 who built the massive Anaconda copper mining 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:51.659 company, and his archrival W .A. Clark. They 00:14:51.659 --> 00:14:53.759 turned the city of Bute into the richest hill 00:14:53.759 --> 00:14:56.919 on earth. The extraction of copper wire to electrify 00:14:56.919 --> 00:14:59.639 America caused Bute to balloon into a notoriously 00:14:59.639 --> 00:15:02.759 rowdy, toxic metropolis of 60 ,000 people by 00:15:02.759 --> 00:15:05.340 1920. This industrial boom brought a totally 00:15:05.340 --> 00:15:08.120 different kind of frontier town. The text highlights 00:15:08.120 --> 00:15:10.659 places like Taft, which was a temporary railroad 00:15:10.659 --> 00:15:12.799 construction camp near the Idaho border. Just 00:15:12.799 --> 00:15:15.690 a pop up town. Literally. It was built purely 00:15:15.690 --> 00:15:18.269 for the laborers laying tracks. It was famously 00:15:18.269 --> 00:15:20.450 violent, packed with saloons and gambling halls. 00:15:20.870 --> 00:15:22.789 And the moment the tracks were laid, the entire 00:15:22.789 --> 00:15:25.549 town was just abandoned to rot. In places like 00:15:25.549 --> 00:15:27.830 Butte and Anaconda, however, the corporate presence 00:15:27.830 --> 00:15:30.529 was permanent and overwhelming. The Anaconda 00:15:30.529 --> 00:15:32.789 company controlled three quarters of Montana's 00:15:32.789 --> 00:15:36.070 wage earners by 1900. They didn't just own the 00:15:36.070 --> 00:15:39.649 mines, they dominated local politics and completely 00:15:39.649 --> 00:15:42.429 controlled the press. The sources note they bought 00:15:42.429 --> 00:15:44.679 up nearly every major newspaper. in the state 00:15:44.679 --> 00:15:47.580 to ensure public opinion always leaned in their 00:15:47.580 --> 00:15:49.820 favor. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:15:50.279 --> 00:15:52.820 you can see how absolute corporate monopolies 00:15:52.820 --> 00:15:55.779 inevitably birth fierce radical labor movements. 00:15:55.980 --> 00:15:58.279 Pushback was inevitable. Right. The workers were 00:15:58.279 --> 00:16:00.879 living in the shadow of toxic smokestacks, facing 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:03.440 terrible underground health hazards and dealing 00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:05.580 with an employer who controlled their wages, 00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:08.379 their rent and their news. So they organized. 00:16:08.679 --> 00:16:12.399 And they pushed back hard. In 1903, the city 00:16:12.399 --> 00:16:15.500 of Anaconda actually elected a socialist mayor, 00:16:16.039 --> 00:16:19.379 a treasurer, a police judge, and three councilmen. 00:16:19.860 --> 00:16:22.340 It was the first victory for the Socialist Party 00:16:22.340 --> 00:16:24.960 west of the Mississippi. A huge deal at the time. 00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:27.879 But how does a massive corporation like Anaconda 00:16:27.879 --> 00:16:30.440 react to a socialist taking over their company 00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:33.320 town? By systematically crushing the local movement 00:16:33.320 --> 00:16:36.340 using their economic weight, the Anaconda Company 00:16:36.340 --> 00:16:38.779 pressured city workers to refuse to cooperate 00:16:38.779 --> 00:16:41.259 with the new mayor, functionally paralyzing the 00:16:41.259 --> 00:16:43.639 local government. Then they just started firing 00:16:43.639 --> 00:16:45.740 workers who were known socialists. They used 00:16:45.740 --> 00:16:47.860 the threat of mass unemployment to suffocate 00:16:47.860 --> 00:16:50.080 the political rebellion and ensure it never happened 00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:52.879 again. The Anaconda Company clearly had an absolute 00:16:52.879 --> 00:16:55.039 choke hold on the men in the mines. But surviving 00:16:55.039 --> 00:16:57.460 in Montana required an entirely different kind 00:16:57.460 --> 00:16:59.879 of resilience back at the homestead, which forged 00:16:59.879 --> 00:17:03.940 a deep I was honestly skeptical of the whole 00:17:03.940 --> 00:17:06.740 solitary male pioneer taming the West myth, and 00:17:06.740 --> 00:17:09.099 the source material proves it wrong. Single men 00:17:09.099 --> 00:17:16.059 rarely succeeded at farming in Montana. The text 00:17:16.059 --> 00:17:18.880 makes it very clear that women were absolutely 00:17:18.880 --> 00:17:21.319 essential on the frontier. They were doing everything. 00:17:21.519 --> 00:17:23.579 They were handling grueling physical chores, 00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:26.799 managing the precarious household finances, and 00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:29.440 enduring the massive risks of frontier childbirth 00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:32.859 in extreme isolation. They heavily relied on 00:17:32.859 --> 00:17:35.660 networks of local midwives well into the World 00:17:35.660 --> 00:17:38.380 War II era because formal medical care was often 00:17:38.380 --> 00:17:42.160 days away. That gritty daily independence translated 00:17:42.160 --> 00:17:45.940 directly into political firsts. In 1916, Jeanette 00:17:45.940 --> 00:17:48.000 Rankin, a Republican from Montana, became the 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:50.180 first woman ever elected to the U .S. Congress. 00:17:50.420 --> 00:17:53.119 Right. And she was famously fiercely independent, 00:17:53.259 --> 00:17:56.019 casting deeply controversial pacifist votes against 00:17:56.019 --> 00:17:58.579 the United States entering both World War I and 00:17:58.579 --> 00:18:01.839 World War II. Rankin represents a uniquely Montana 00:18:01.839 --> 00:18:04.279 and political dichotomy that is heavily documented 00:18:04.279 --> 00:18:06.440 in the text and honestly still exists today. 00:18:06.500 --> 00:18:08.819 The split ticket voting. Yes. The state has a 00:18:08.819 --> 00:18:11.079 long tradition of split ticket voting. As the 00:18:11.079 --> 00:18:13.000 historical saying goes, Montana's like to send 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:15.140 liberals to Washington and conservatives to Helena. 00:18:15.480 --> 00:18:17.519 You see that exact split with someone like James 00:18:17.519 --> 00:18:20.119 E. Murray. He was an Irish Catholic who inherited 00:18:20.119 --> 00:18:22.839 millions from his copper mining uncle. By all 00:18:22.839 --> 00:18:24.859 accounts, he should have been a staunch corporate 00:18:24.859 --> 00:18:26.920 conservative, but he went to the U .S. Senate 00:18:26.920 --> 00:18:30.019 as a Democrat in the 1930s and fought aggressively 00:18:30.019 --> 00:18:32.619 for liberal New Deal policies. He worked closely 00:18:32.619 --> 00:18:34.859 with the very labor unions his family's industry 00:18:34.859 --> 00:18:37.640 often fought. The modern era of Montana is where 00:18:37.640 --> 00:18:39.519 all these historical threads, you know, the deep 00:18:39.519 --> 00:18:41.980 connection to the land, the history of resource 00:18:41.980 --> 00:18:44.559 extraction and that fiercely independent political 00:18:44.559 --> 00:18:47.039 streak all violently collide. So what does this 00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:49.380 all mean? When I look at the modern landscape 00:18:49.380 --> 00:18:52.079 detailed in the text, I see an incredible, almost 00:18:52.079 --> 00:18:54.980 impossible paradox. You have a state that built 00:18:54.980 --> 00:18:57.500 its entire modern economy on ripping resources 00:18:57.500 --> 00:19:00.880 out of the ground. Copper in Butte, massive coal 00:19:00.880 --> 00:19:03.420 strip mining and coal strip, the intense Bakken 00:19:03.420 --> 00:19:07.720 oil fracking boom. And yet in 1972, Montana wrote 00:19:07.720 --> 00:19:10.799 a new state constitution that uniquely guarantees 00:19:10.799 --> 00:19:13.759 an inalienable right to a clean and helpful environment. 00:19:14.119 --> 00:19:16.539 How do a mandate for a pristine environment and 00:19:16.539 --> 00:19:19.000 a reliance on strip mining legally and logically 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:21.859 exist in the same place? This raises an important 00:19:21.859 --> 00:19:24.000 question, perhaps the defining question for modern 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:27.619 Montana. How does a society balance economic 00:19:27.619 --> 00:19:30.599 survival with the preservation of its natural 00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:34.500 soul? The sources document that this isn't a 00:19:34.500 --> 00:19:37.440 settled issue. It is a daily constitutional tug 00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:39.960 -of -war. And we should be clear, for you listening, 00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:42.920 we are strictly looking at the debates as documented 00:19:42.920 --> 00:19:45.039 in our sources today. We aren't taking any political 00:19:45.039 --> 00:19:47.880 sides here. But the source material highlights 00:19:47.880 --> 00:19:50.980 how intensely these two sides clash today. You 00:19:50.980 --> 00:19:53.819 have environmental groups utilizing that exact 00:19:53.819 --> 00:19:57.279 1972 constitutional right to fight fossil fuel 00:19:57.279 --> 00:19:59.140 extraction. Right. They challenge things like 00:19:59.140 --> 00:20:01.940 the routing of the Keystone Pipeline. back against 00:20:01.940 --> 00:20:04.759 the massive water usage of fracking technology 00:20:04.759 --> 00:20:07.299 in the Williston Basin. Meanwhile, industry advocates 00:20:07.299 --> 00:20:09.980 argue that resource extraction remains the lifeblood 00:20:09.980 --> 00:20:12.160 of the state's rural economy. You also see this 00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:14.140 independent streak fighting federal and corporate 00:20:14.140 --> 00:20:17.299 power in the courts. The text details the fierce 00:20:17.299 --> 00:20:19.059 debate over corporate spending in elections. 00:20:19.200 --> 00:20:22.259 Oh, the Citizens United stuff. Exactly. Following 00:20:22.259 --> 00:20:25.400 the Federal Citizens United ruling, Montana tried 00:20:25.400 --> 00:20:28.660 to uphold its own 1912 Corrupt Practices Act. 00:20:29.099 --> 00:20:31.099 That was a law originally passed specifically 00:20:31.099 --> 00:20:33.200 to stop the Copper Kings from buying elections. 00:20:33.380 --> 00:20:35.599 They tried to uphold it in the case of Western 00:20:35.599 --> 00:20:38.099 Tradition Partnership v. Montana. Correct. And 00:20:38.099 --> 00:20:40.339 the push and pull extends to social issues too. 00:20:40.619 --> 00:20:42.980 Look at the medical marijuana debate detailed 00:20:42.980 --> 00:20:46.019 in the timeline. Voters approved it in 2004. 00:20:46.279 --> 00:20:48.799 It boomed into a massive unregulated industry 00:20:48.799 --> 00:20:52.819 by 2010, faced federal DEA raids, then a legislative 00:20:52.819 --> 00:20:54.940 attempt to repeal it entirely. It was chaotic. 00:20:55.279 --> 00:20:58.480 Very. That resulted in a veto compromise by Governor 00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:00.599 Brian Schweitzer to keep it alive before the 00:21:00.599 --> 00:21:03.019 state Supreme Court ultimately legalized it completely 00:21:03.019 --> 00:21:06.440 in 2020. It is just constant, relentless reinvention. 00:21:06.660 --> 00:21:08.990 It is the legacy of a state. that refuses to 00:21:08.990 --> 00:21:10.930 be constrained by simple definitions, whether 00:21:10.930 --> 00:21:13.049 those are geographical borders, corporate mandates, 00:21:13.230 --> 00:21:15.930 or federal expectations. Let's wrap this up because 00:21:15.930 --> 00:21:18.089 the sheer whiplash of the journey you just went 00:21:18.089 --> 00:21:21.369 on is incredible. We started by looking at the 00:21:21.369 --> 00:21:24.450 microscopic DNA sequencing of a 12 ,000 -year 00:21:24.450 --> 00:21:27.150 -old boy at the ANZIC site. We walked through 00:21:27.150 --> 00:21:30.319 the heartbreaking tactically brilliant 1700 mile 00:21:30.319 --> 00:21:33.200 flight of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce. We 00:21:33.200 --> 00:21:36.240 dug into the gritty, toxic, radically unionized 00:21:36.240 --> 00:21:39.319 copper mines of Butte and traced that exact same 00:21:39.319 --> 00:21:41.680 industrial pulse right up to the modern fracking 00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:43.920 booms of the Bakken formation. Then that brings 00:21:43.920 --> 00:21:45.799 up one final thought from the sources that we 00:21:45.799 --> 00:21:47.839 really want to leave you with. Consider the town 00:21:47.839 --> 00:21:50.319 of Comet, Montana. In its heyday in the early 00:21:50.319 --> 00:21:53.099 20th century, it was a bustling, vital town that 00:21:53.099 --> 00:21:55.680 extracted 13 million dollars in silver, zinc, 00:21:55.900 --> 00:21:58.480 and copper ore. It was the center of its own 00:21:58.480 --> 00:22:01.180 universe. And today? Today it is entirely abandoned. 00:22:01.339 --> 00:22:03.539 It is a decaying ghost town of collapsing wood, 00:22:03.859 --> 00:22:06.569 silent mills, and empty shafts. So as you look 00:22:06.569 --> 00:22:10.190 at our current era of massive industrial booms, 00:22:10.309 --> 00:22:12.150 whether that is the oil fields of the backend 00:22:12.150 --> 00:22:15.230 formation or the massive energy hungry data centers 00:22:15.230 --> 00:22:17.390 of modern tech infrastructure popping up across 00:22:17.390 --> 00:22:20.349 the West, ask yourself this. When the resources 00:22:20.349 --> 00:22:22.710 dry up in another hundred years, what will we 00:22:22.710 --> 00:22:25.009 leave behind? Will it be another collapsing ghost 00:22:25.009 --> 00:22:27.769 town or have we finally learned to build a lasting 00:22:27.769 --> 00:22:30.710 foundation? Next time you see a pristine postcard 00:22:30.710 --> 00:22:33.009 of the wilderness, remember all the complex, 00:22:33.170 --> 00:22:35.509 violent and brilliant history buried just beneath 00:22:35.509 --> 00:22:38.009 the surface. Keep digging, keep questioning, 00:22:38.049 --> 00:22:40.509 and we'll catch you on the next deep dive.