#bsts — Public Fediverse posts

On the night of July 3, 1901, a small band of outlaws stopped the Great Northern Coast Flyer near Wagner, Montana, and walked off with $40,000 in untraceable government bank notes. What followed — Pinkerton manhunts, arrests in four states, and a string of violent ends — was the final act of the Wild Bunch, America's most celebrated outlaw gang. Here's the real story.

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/events/wagner-train-robbery

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

They started with 49 students, borrowed classrooms, and $5 in the bank. Skeptics said an “Indian college” was a bad idea. They were wrong. Salish Kootenai College rose from a Ronan schoolhouse to launch an actual satellite into orbit — and graduated more Native students than all of Montana’s colleges combined over 125 years. This is how they did it.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/institutions/salish-kootenai-college

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

Two ancient glacial boulders on Montana’s Hi-Line were sacred to a dozen Native nations for centuries. Then in 1932, a county decided to move them — and according to locals, the rocks weren’t happy about it. The story of the Sleeping Buffalo is part sacred history, part colonial land grab, and part Depression-era hustle. And it’s still unresolved.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/places/sleeping-buffalo

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

He came to Helena with a law degree and left it with a national reputation no copper king could tarnish. Thomas J. Walsh spent twenty years in the U.S. Senate fighting for farmers, workers, and the rule of law – and then brought down the most corrupt administration of the twentieth century. This is the story of Montana’s most consequential senator.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/people/thomas-j-walsh

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

A great day for a graduation!!

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

Before Missoula existed, a tiny frontier outpost called Hell Gate Ronde witnessed gold rush outlaws, midnight hangings, and rumors of buried treasure that have never been found. Did Cyrus Skinner’s gang hide stolen gold near the gallows before the vigilantes arrived? The legend is older than Montana itself — and the ground has never given up its secrets.

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/mysteries/hell-gate-ronde-treasure

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

In 1853, Isaac Stevens led 200 men into uncharted Montana to find a railroad route to the Pacific — and changed the region forever. He mapped mountain passes with help from Blackfeet chiefs, collected unknown species, and set in motion treaties that reshaped Indigenous life. The survey that built the modern Northwest began here.

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/events/1853-northern-pacific-railroad-survey

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

Before 1878, Montana had no college. What followed was a saga of frontier ambition, earthquake disaster, student-quarried sandstone, and three rival church schools that eventually merged into one. Rocky Mountain College in Billings carries nearly 150 years of unlikely survival — and the buildings its own students built still stand today.

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/institutions/rocky-mountain-college

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

From the copper mines of Butte, Montana, Robert Craig Knievel crashed motorcycles, broke 433 bones, became a national icon — then beat a man with a baseball bat and went broke. His life was as spectacular as his jumps and as brutal as his landings. This is the full, unvarnished story of Evel Knievel.

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/people/evel-knievel

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

Russell Harrison came to Montana in 1878 with a famous last name, a mining degree, and big ambitions. He ran the federal gold assay office, schemed in cattle country, bought a newspaper, got sued for libel, and watched his father become president — all from Helena. His Montana years were messy, ambitious, and revealing.

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/people/russell-benjamin-harrison

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

Butte’s Columbia Gardens was Montana’s only major amusement park — a copper king’s political gift that became a community treasure. For 74 years, families rode carousels and swam in a mountain oasis. Then a corporation, an expanding pit mine, and a suspicious fire erased it forever. What remained? Grief, scattered relics, and unanswered questions.

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/places/columbia-gardens

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

Quaker lawyer meets copper kings. Joseph M. Dixon clawed his way from frontier Missoula to the U.S. Senate, ran Teddy Roosevelt’s legendary Bull Moose campaign, then waged war on Anaconda Copper as Montana’s governor — and lost his job while winning his biggest reform. A complicated legacy worth knowing.

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/people/joseph-m-dixon

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

In June 1876, as Custer’s men died at the Little Bighorn, a steamboat captain made a legendary rescue dash down Montana’s Bighorn River — and may have buried a fortune in gold along the way. Or did he? The story has captivated treasure hunters for 150 years. But what does the historical record actually say? The answer is more interesting than the legend.

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/mysteries/bighorn-river-treasure

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

A sitting U.S. president laid the cornerstone. Earthquake rubble became a star-gazing observatory. A runaway train nearly took out a women’s dorm at 35 mph in minus-27 degree temps. Carroll College in Helena has survived a century of crises — and somehow kept growing. Here’s how Montana’s little Catholic college became one of the West’s best.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/institutions/carroll-college

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons

Before Montana had Hollywood, it had Where Rivers Rise — a vanished silent film from the early 1920s that may be the state's very first movie. Shot in the wild Flathead Valley, screened once in 1947, then swallowed by history. No reels. No cast. No plot. Just a title — and one tantalizing mystery.

Web:
https://www.bigskytreasure.org/history/events/where-rivers-rise

#WorldHistory #USHistory #MTHistory #Montana #History #BSTS #Fourosix #MontanaToday #histodons