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Feb. 18, 1843

The fur trade on the upper Missouri River was rocked by a massacre of Blackfeet Indians by traders at Fort McKenzie.

The fort, located downstream from present-day Fort Benton, had been a successful trading post for the American Fur Company in hostile Blackfeet country for 10 years. Its proprietor, Alexander Harvey, and Francois Chardon, who was in charge of Fort Union, plotted revenge when Indians killed Chardon’s black servant.

They used a hidden cannon to launch a surprise attack on Blackfeet camped at the fort to trade, killing 21 outright. The wounded were then killed and all the corpses were scalped.

The atrocity forced the abandonment of the post that summer. Successful trade was restored in the upper Missouri country until 1845, when Fort Lewis, the forerunner to Fort Benton, was built.

Feb. 17, 1871

The Diamond R freight outfit announced a fast-freight service between Helena and Corinne, Utah.

The company’s wagons were to leave Helena every other day for the eight-day trip. Corinne was on the Union Pacific line and the closest railroad shipping point to Montana.

Before the railroads arrived in the 1880s, Montana points found they could obtain goods from the east and west much quicker by having them shipped by rail to Corinne, rather than by steamboat up the Missouri to Fort Benton.

The Diamond R had been using its ox- and mulepowered wagons to supply Montana towns with necessities, and some luxuries, since 1864. The company transported the first piano and church bell to Helena, and in 1875 would move the territorial records from Virginia City to the new capital in Helena.

Feb. 22, 1889

Outgoing President Grover Cleveland celebrated George Washington’s birthday by signing the Omnibus Bill that ushered four new states, including Montana, into the union.

North and South Dakota, as well as Washington, were also admitted pending each territory’s approval of a state constitution. Montana’s constitutional convention met that summer in Helena, and voters ratified the document at the elections in October, enabling Montana to officially become the 41st state in November.

“These four states will therefore come into the Union during the centennial year of our national government,” noted the New York Times. “But for the narrow strip of Idaho which stretches to the northern border between Montana and Washington, they would carry the union of states continuously across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.”

Cleveland’s signature came after years of political maneuvering in Congress, where Republicans were reluctant to admit a territory that leaned to the Democratic side. Likewise, Democrat lawmakers were opposed to a package deal that would make states of Republican territories.

When Republicans gained control of Congress in 1888, lame duck Democrats dropped their objections to the admission of the Dakotas and Washington, which were all Republican.

Kim Briggeman can be reached at 523-5266 or kbriggeman@missoulian.com.

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