Yellowstone County Trivia

• Billings is named after the first president of the Northern Pacific Railway, Frederick H. Billings. The railroad spurred the growth of the town, which was nicknamed “The Magic City” because it seemed to appear overnight.

• Hesper is named after Hesperus, the personification of the Evening Star in Greek mythology associated with the West.

• The towns of Ballantine, Huntley, Pompey’s Pillar, and Worden, began as arid land filled with sagebrush and bison, but was irrigated to make the land farmable during the U.S. Department of Interior’s Huntley Project, beginning in 1905.

• Sugar beets and alfalfa were the two staple crops of Huntley Project farms. Today, sugar beets produce about a third of the world’s sugar.

• William Clark’s carving on Pompey’s Pillar (of his name, and the date he arrived there: July 25, 1806) is the only remaining physical evidence of the Lewis and Clark Expedition along their route. Clark wrote in his journal: “. . . At 4 PM arrived at a remarkable rock . . . This rock I ascended and from its top at a most extensive view in every direction.”

• Mossmain was a planned city intended to compete with Billings as a “Future City” and “America’s First Garden City.” However, the Great Depression hurt the town’s development significantly, and a railroad line established through the nearby town Laurel sealed the declining town’s fate. Today, some of the ghost town remains of Mossmain can be seen off East Laurel interchange on I-90. Huntley houses a similar ghost town, and is home to the Huntley Project Museum of Irrigated Agriculture.

• H.M. “Muggins” Taylor, a Coulson Deputy Sheriff nicknamed for his favorite card game, brought the news of General George Custer’s defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn to Fort Ellis, the nearest town with a telegraph. His is the most famous grave in Billings’ Boothill Cemetery, named “Boothill” because many of the people buried there died still wearing their boots.

Image courtesy of franky242 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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