1806 – Explorer William Clark discovered the now-famous landmark, Pompeii’s Pillar. It was a rock rising 200 feet above the Yellowstone River that became well known to the westward-migrating pioneers.

1846 – Jesuit Priest, Pierre Jean De Smet was the first Roman Catholic Missionary to come to Montana to visit the Blackfoot, Flathead, and Pend d’Oreille tribes. The first crops grown in Montana were wheat and potatoes grown by his disciples at St. Mary’s Mission, near Stevensville.

1850s – The cattle industry began in Montana when trader Richard Grant brought a herd of cattle to the region. He had bought them while he was traveling on the Oregon Trail.

1864 – The Bozeman Trail, linking Fort Laramie, Wyoming, and Virginia City, Montana, was pioneered. It led to the growth of the mining camps of Virginia City, Bannock, and Helena.

1866 – ARTHUR Purdy was born in Jackson, Michigan. The Civil War was in progress.

1875 – Trecia LeBeau born in Ohio, May 23rd.

1876 – Custer’s Last Stand. Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Crazy Horse, Gall, and Two Moons wiped out soldiers under the command of General George Custer, on June 25, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River.

1877 – Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce Indians surrendered to the federal troops, after a chase of over 1,000 miles. This ended the Indian fighting in Montana.

The early 1880s – Arthur Purdy arrived in Butte, Montana, from Michigan to live with his sister (Aunt Hattie) after running away from home. Aunt Hattie ran a boarding house for the miners in Butte, but she was deathly against drinking. When Arthur came home one night from drinking, she would have non of it. The next morning, she sold the barding house and Arthur worked his way North to the Flathead.

Jim Hill, the railroad magnate, vowed they make grass grow in the streets of Kalispell by taking his railroad on the Northern Route through Glacier Park and across to Spokane.
Aunt Clara, another sister, took a no-nonsense attitude and moved to Lake Washington to be with a son.