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133-484: 45°19′31″N 112°04′38″W  /  45.32528°N 112.07722°W  / 45.32528; -112.07722 Alder Gulch (alternatively called Alder Creek ) is a place in the Ruby River valley, in the U.S. state of Montana , where gold was discovered on May 26, 1863, by William Fairweather and a group of men including Barney Hughes, Thomas Cover, Henry Rodgers, Henry Edgar and Bill Sweeney who were returning to

266-425: A keystone species and the primary protein source that Native people had survived on for many centuries, were being destroyed. Experts estimate that around 13 million bison roamed Montana in 1870. In 1875, General Philip Sheridan pleaded to a joint session of Congress to authorize the slaughtering of bison herds to deprive Native people of their source of food. By 1884, commercial hunting had brought bison to

399-454: A temperate climate and a varied view. According to Theodore Roosevelt : We have taken into our language the word prairie , because when our backwoodsmen first reached the land [in the Midwest ] and saw the great natural meadows of long grass—sights unknown to the gloomy forests wherein they had always dwelt—they knew not what to call them, and borrowed the term already in use among

532-448: A bill to establish a temporary government in 1864 for a new territory to be carved out of Idaho, he again chose Montana Territory . This time, representative Samuel Cox , also of Ohio, objected to the name. Cox complained that the name was a misnomer given that most of the territory was not mountainous, and thought a Native American name would be more appropriate than a Spanish one. Other names, such as Shoshone , were suggested, but

665-407: A cliff (called a buffalo jump ), to kill or injure the bison en masse . The introduction of the horse and the gun greatly expanded the killing power of the plains Natives. That was followed by the policy of indiscriminate killing by European Americans and Canadians for both commercial reasons and to weaken the independence of plains Natives, and caused a dramatic drop in bison numbers from millions to

798-545: A completed battleship being named for it. Alaska and Hawaii have both had nuclear submarines named after them. Montana is the only state in the union without a modern naval ship named in its honor. However, in August 2007, Senator Jon Tester asked that a submarine be christened USS Montana . Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced on September 3, 2015, that Virginia Class attack submarine SSN-794 will become

931-513: A derisive manner at homesteaders, who were perceived as being "greenhorns", "new at his business", or "unprepared". However, most of these new settlers had farming experience, though many did not. Honyocker, scissorbill, nester ... He was the Joad of a [half] century ago, swarming into a hostile land: duped when he started, robbed when he arrived; hopeful, courageous, ambitious: he sought independence or adventure, comfort and security ... The honyocker

1064-559: A district court judge from Forsyth was impeached . Burnings of German-language books and several near-hangings occurred. The prohibition on speaking German remained in effect into the early 1920s. Complicating the wartime struggles, the 1918 influenza epidemic claimed the lives of more than 5,000 Montanans. The suppression of civil liberties that occurred led some historians to dub this period "Montana's Agony". An economic depression began in Montana after World War I and lasted through

1197-402: A few hundred in a century's time, and almost caused their extinction. The very dense soil plagued the first European settlers who were using wooden plows , which were more suitable for loose forest soil. On the prairie, the plows bounced around, and the soil stuck to them. This problem was solved in 1837 by an Illinois blacksmith named John Deere who developed a steel moldboard plow that

1330-662: A joint U.S.-Canadian commando-style force that trained at Fort William Henry Harrison for experience in mountainous and winter conditions before deployment. Air bases were built in Great Falls, Lewistown, Cut Bank, and Glasgow , some of which were used as staging areas to prepare planes to be sent to allied forces in the Soviet Union . During the war, about 30 Japanese Fu-Go balloon bombs were documented to have landed in Montana, though no casualties nor major forest fires were attributed to them. In 1940, Jeannette Rankin

1463-615: A large channel in which the Minnesota River evident today. The Red River of the North flows northward through a plain formerly covered by Lake Agassiz. Certain extraordinary features were produced when the retreat of the ice sheet had progressed so far as to open an eastward outlet for the marginal lakes. This outlet occurred along the depression between the northward slope of the Appalachian plateau in west-central New York and

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1596-692: A major open-range cattle operation in Fergus County in 1879. The Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site in Deer Lodge is maintained today as a link to the ranching style of the late 19th century. Operated by the National Park Service , it is a 1,900-acre (7.7 km ) working ranch. Tracks of the Northern Pacific Railroad (NPR) reached Montana from the west in 1882 and from the east in 1883. However,

1729-598: A per capita basis. Montana's Remount station in Miles City provided 10,000 cavalry horses for the war, more than any other Army post in the country. The war created a boom for Montana mining, lumber, and farming interests, as demand for war materials and food increased. In June 1917, the U.S. Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917 , which was extended by the Sedition Act of 1918 . In February 1918,

1862-642: A railroad trestle, considered a lynching . Little's murder and the strikes that followed resulted in the National Guard being sent to Butte to restore order. Overall, anti-German and antilabor sentiment increased and created a movement that led to the passage of the Montana Sedition Act the following February. In addition, the Council of Defense was made a state agency with the power to prosecute and punish individuals deemed in violation of

1995-667: A substantial portion of global energy needs, and leave fertile land for food production." Unlike corn and soybeans, which are both directly and indirectly major food crops, including livestock feed, prairie grasses are not used for human consumption. Prairie grasses can be grown in infertile soil, eliminating the cost of adding nutrients to the soil. Tilman and his colleagues estimate that prairie grass biofuels would yield 51 percent more energy per acre than ethanol from corn grown on fertile land. Some plants commonly used are lupine, big bluestem (turkey foot), blazing star, switchgrass , and prairie clover . Because rich and thick topsoil made

2128-589: Is a garden consisting primarily of plants from a prairie. The originally treeless prairies of the upper Mississippi basin began in Indiana and extended westward and north-westward until they merged with the drier region known as the Great Plains . An eastward extension of the same area, originally tree-covered, extended to central Ohio . Thus, the prairies generally lie between the Ohio and Missouri rivers on

2261-498: Is below the soil surface and will re-grow from its deep (upwards of 20 feet ) roots . Without disturbance , trees will encroach on a grassland and cast shade, which suppresses the understory . Prairie and widely spaced oak trees evolved to coexist in the oak savanna ecosystem. Prairie ecosystems in the United States and Canada are divided into the easternmost tallgrass prairie , the westernmost shortgrass prairie , and

2394-464: Is estimated at over 6,000, and in southern Wisconsin, where it is placed at 5,000. They completely dominate the topography of their districts. A curious deposit of an impalpably fine and unstratified silt, known by the German name bess (or loess ), lies on the older drift sheets near the larger river courses of the upper Mississippi basin. It attains a thickness of 20 ft (6.1 m) or more near

2527-463: Is evidenced by the angularity of its grains (a bank of it will stand without slumping for years), whereas, if it had been transported significantly by water, the grains would have been rounded and polished. Loess is parent material for an extremely fertile, but droughty soil. Southwestern Wisconsin and parts of the adjacent states of Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota are known as the driftless zone , because, although bordered by drift sheets and moraines, it

2660-400: Is free from glacial deposits. It must therefore have been a sort of oasis, when the ice sheets from the north advanced past it on the east and west, and joined around its southern border. The reason for this exemption from glaciation is the converse of that for the southward convexity of the morainic loops. While they mark the paths of greatest glacial advance along lowland troughs (lake basins),

2793-603: Is in cemetery prairies , railroad rights-of-way, or rocky/sandy/hilly places unsuitable for agriculture. States formerly with landcover in native tallgrass prairie including Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Missouri have become valued for their highly productive soils and are included in the Corn Belt . As an example of this land use intensity, Illinois and Iowa rank 49th and 50th, out of 50 US states, in total uncultivated land remaining. Drier shortgrass prairies were once used mostly for open-range ranching. With

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2926-416: Is not known if that is because of inherent differences in the species or because farmed cattle tend to be confined in smaller areas. Bison dung is a vital source of nutrients for prairie soil, spreads seeds, and supports over 1,000 insect species, including specialist dung beetles which cannot subsist on the feces of any other animal. In spite of long recurrent droughts and occasional torrential rains ,

3059-430: Is now buried under the drift. The most significant area of the prairies, from Indiana to North Dakota , consists of till plains, that is, sheets of unstratified drift. The plains are 30, 50 or even 100 ft (up to 30 m) thick covering the underlying rock surface for thousands of square miles except where postglacial stream erosion has locally laid it bare. The plains have an extraordinarily even surface. The till

3192-713: Is one of few geographic areas in the world whose rivers form parts of three major watersheds (i.e. where two continental divides intersect). Its rivers feed the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico , and Hudson Bay . The watersheds divide at Triple Divide Peak in Glacier National Park. If Hudson Bay is considered part of the Arctic Ocean, Triple Divide Peak is the only place on Earth with drainage to three different oceans. All waters in Montana west of

3325-525: Is presumably made in part of preglacial soils, but it is largely composed of rock waste mechanically transported by the creeping ice sheets. Although the crystalline rocks from Canada and some of the more resistant stratified rocks south of the Great Lakes occur as boulders and stones, a great part of the till has been crushed and ground to a clayey texture. The till plains, although sweeping in broad swells of slowly changing altitude, often appear level to

3458-400: Is similar to the Appalachian piedmont which though not exhausted by the primeval forest cover, are by no means so rich as the till sheets of the prairies. Moreover, whatever the rocky understructure, the till soil has been averaged by a thorough mechanical mixture of rock grindings. Hence, the prairies are continuously fertile for scores of miles together. The true prairies were once covered with

3591-830: Is the dominant habitat type in the Southern Canadian agricultural and climatic region which is known as Palliser's Triangle . It was once thought to be completely unarable, but is now one of the most important agricultural regions in Canada thanks to advances in irrigation technology. The dominant plant life in prairies consists of grasses , which may include 40 to 60 different grass species. In addition to grasses, prairies can include over 300 species of flowering plants. The Konza Tallgrass Prairie in Kansas hosts 250 species of native plants and provides habitat for 208 birds, 27 mammals, 25 reptiles, and over 3,000 insects. Some of

3724-791: Is the largest continuous land mass over 10,000 feet (3,000 m) high in the continental United States. It contains the state's highest point, Granite Peak , 12,799 feet (3,901 m) high. North of these ranges are the Big Belt Mountains , Bridger Mountains , Tobacco Roots , and several island ranges, including the Crazy Mountains and Little Belt Mountains . Between many mountain ranges are several rich river valleys. The Big Hole , Bitterroot , Gallatin , Flathead , and Paradise Valleys have extensive agricultural resources and multiple opportunities for tourism and recreation. East and north of this transition zone are

3857-459: Is to the west and southwest, and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia , Alberta , and Saskatchewan are to the north, making it the only state to border three Canadian provinces. With an area of 147,040 square miles (380,800 km ), Montana is slightly larger than Japan or Germany . It is the fourth-largest state in the United States after Alaska , Texas , and California , and

3990-645: The Fred Robinson Bridge at the western boundary of Fort Peck Reservoir was designated a National Wild and Scenic River in 1976. The Missouri enters North Dakota near Fort Union , having drained more than half the land area of Montana (82,000 square miles (210,000 km )). Nearly one-third of the Missouri River in Montana lies behind 10 dams: Toston , Canyon Ferry , Hauser , Holter , Black Eagle , Rainbow , Cochrane , Ryan , Morony , and Fort Peck. Other major Montana tributaries of

4123-1030: The Garnet Range , the Sapphire Mountains , and the Flint Creek Range . The divide's northern section, where the mountains rapidly give way to prairie, is part of the Rocky Mountain Front . The front is most pronounced in the Lewis Range , located primarily in Glacier National Park . Due to the configuration of mountain ranges in Glacier National Park, the Northern Divide (which begins in Alaska's Seward Peninsula ) crosses this region and turns east in Montana at Triple Divide Peak . It causes

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4256-506: The Great Depression until the beginning of World War II . This caused great hardship for farmers, ranchers, and miners. By the time the U.S. entered World War II on December 8, 1941, many Montanans had enlisted in the military to escape the poor national economy of the previous decade. Another 40,000-plus Montanans entered the armed forces in the first year following the declaration of war, and more than 57,000 joined up before

4389-670: The Great Northern Railroad (GNR) reached eastern Montana in 1887 and when they reached the northern Rocky Mountains in 1890, the GNR became a significant promoter of tourism to Glacier National Park region. The transcontinental GNR was completed on January 6, 1893, at Scenic, Washington and is known as the Hi Line , being the northernmost transcontinental rail line in the United States. EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D.C. November 7, 1889 To Hon. Joseph K. Toole, Governor of

4522-541: The Great Plains ecoregion. The Dust Bowl was a major reason for the Great Depression . Nomadic hunting has been the main human activity on the prairies for the majority of the archaeological record. This once included many now-extinct species of megafauna . After the other extinctions, the main hunted animal on the prairies was the plains bison . Using loud noises and waving large signals, Native peoples would drive bison into fenced pens called buffalo pounds to be killed with bows and arrows or spears, or drive them off

4655-670: The Great Sioux War of 1876 . The transcontinental NPR was completed on September 8, 1883, at Gold Creek . In 1881, the Utah and Northern Railway , a branch line of the Union Pacific , completed a narrow-gauge line from northern Utah to Butte. A number of smaller spur lines operated in Montana from 1881 into the 20th century, including the Oregon Short Line , Montana Railroad , and Milwaukee Road . Tracks of

4788-727: The Marias Massacre (1870), Battle of the Little Bighorn (1876), Battle of the Big Hole (1877), and Battle of Bear Paw (1877). The last recorded conflict in Montana between the U.S. Army and Native Americans occurred in 1887 during the Battle of Crow Agency in the Big Horn country. Native survivors who had signed treaties were generally required to move onto reservations . Simultaneously with these conflicts, bison ,

4921-705: The Reclamation Act was passed, allowing irrigation projects to be built in Montana's eastern river valleys. In 1909, Congress passed the Enlarged Homestead Act that expanded the amount of free land from 160 to 320 acres (0.6 to 1.3 km ) per family and in 1912 reduced the time to "prove up" on a claim to three years. In 1916, the Stock-Raising Homestead Act allowed homesteads of 640 acres in areas unsuitable for irrigation. This combination of advertising and changes in

5054-652: The Waterton River , Belly , and Saint Mary rivers to flow north into Alberta , Canada. There they join the Saskatchewan River , which ultimately empties into Hudson Bay . East of the divide, several roughly parallel ranges cover the state's southern part, including the Gravelly Range , Madison Range , Gallatin Range , Absaroka Mountains , and Beartooth Mountains . The Beartooth Plateau

5187-483: The Act. The council also passed rules limiting public gatherings and prohibiting the speaking of German in public. In the wake of the legislative action in 1918, emotions rose. U.S. Attorney Burton K. Wheeler and several district court judges who hesitated to prosecute or convict people brought up on charges were strongly criticized. Wheeler was brought before the Council of Defense, though he avoided formal proceedings, and

5320-715: The Columbia. East of the divide the Missouri River , which is formed by the confluence of the Jefferson , Madison , and Gallatin Rivers near Three Forks , flows due north through the west-central part of the state to Great Falls . From this point, it then flows generally east through fairly flat agricultural land and the Missouri Breaks to Fort Peck reservoir . The stretch of river between Fort Benton and

5453-669: The Committee on Territories decided that they had discretion to choose the name, so the original name of Montana was adopted. For thousands of years, various indigenous peoples have inhabited the land that is now Montana. Historic tribes encountered by Europeans and settlers from the United States included the Crow in the south-central area, the Cheyenne and Lakota in the southeast, the Blackfeet , Assiniboine , and Gros Ventres in

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5586-738: The French inhabitants. Prairie ( pronounced [pʁɛʁi] ) is the French word for "meadow", formed ultimately from the Latin root word pratum (which has the same meaning). The formation of the North American Prairies started with the uplift of the Rocky Mountains near Alberta . The mountains created a rain shadow which resulted in lower precipitation rates downwind. The parent material of most prairie soil

5719-480: The Great Falls land office alone had more than a thousand homestead filings per month, and at the peak of 1917–1918 it had 14,000 new homesteads each year. Significant drops occurred following the drought in 1919. As World War I broke out, Jeannette Rankin , representative of Montana and the first woman in the United States to be a member of Congress, voted against the United States' declaration of war. Her actions were widely criticized in Montana, where support for

5852-468: The Homestead Act drew tens of thousands of homesteaders, lured by free land, with World War I bringing particularly high wheat prices. In addition, Montana was going through a temporary period of higher-than-average precipitation. Homesteaders arriving in this period were known as "honyockers", or "scissorbills". The word honyocker possibly derived from the ethnic slur hunyak and was applied in

5985-506: The Midwest and western United States. Montana did not see a large influx of immigrants from this act because 160 acres were usually insufficient to support a family in the arid territory. The first homestead claim under the act in Montana was made by David Carpenter near Helena in 1868. The first claim by a woman was made near Warm Springs Creek by Gwenllian Evans, the daughter of Deer Lodge Montana pioneer, Morgan Evans. By 1880, farms were in

6118-670: The Missouri River. In the 1850s, settlers began moving into the Beaverhead and Big Hole valleys from the Oregon Trail and into the Clark's Fork valley. The first gold discovered in Montana was at Gold Creek near present-day Garrison in 1852. The Gold rush in the region commenced in earnest starting in 1862. A series of major mineral discoveries in the western part of the state found gold, silver, copper, lead, and coal (and later oil) which attracted tens of thousands of miners to

6251-684: The Missouri include the Smith , Milk , Marias , Judith , and Musselshell Rivers . Montana also claims the disputed title of possessing the world's shortest river, the Roe River , just outside Great Falls . Through the Missouri, these rivers ultimately join the Mississippi River and flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Prairie In the U.S., the area is constituted by most or all of

6384-546: The Montana Sedition Act. The Montanans who opposed U.S. entry into the war included immigrant groups of German and Irish heritage, as well as pacifist Anabaptist people such as the Hutterites and Mennonites , many of whom were also of Germanic heritage. In turn, pro-War groups formed, such as the Montana Council of Defense, created by Governor Samuel V. Stewart and local "loyalty committees". War sentiment

6517-508: The Montana legislature had passed the Montana Sedition Act, which was a model for the federal version. In combination, these laws criminalized criticism of the U.S. government, military, or symbols through speech or other means. The Montana Act led to the arrest of more than 200 individuals and the conviction of 78, mostly of German or Austrian descent. More than 40 spent time in prison. In May 2006, then-Governor Brian Schweitzer posthumously issued full pardons for all those convicted of violating

6650-539: The Montana prairie for three years, did little to irrigate the land and then abandoned it without paying the final fees. Some farmers came with the arrival of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroads throughout the 1880s and 1890s, though in relatively small numbers. In the early 1900s, James J. Hill of the Great Northern began to promote settlement in the Montana prairie to fill his trains with settlers and goods. Other railroads followed suit. In 1902,

6783-792: The State of Montana: The president signed and issued the proclamation declaring Montana a state of the union at 10:40 o'clock this morning. Under Territorial Governor Thomas Meagher , Montanans held a constitutional convention in 1866 in a failed bid for statehood. A second constitutional convention held in Helena in 1884 produced a constitution ratified 3:1 by Montana citizens in November 1884. For political reasons, Congress did not approve Montana statehood until February 1889 and President Grover Cleveland signed an omnibus bill granting statehood to Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Washington once

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6916-405: The U.S. were sent to Montana during the war as smokejumpers and for other forest fire-fighting duties. In 1942, the U.S. Army established Camp Rimini near Helena for the purpose of training sled dogs in winter weather. During World War II, the planned battleship USS Montana was named in honor of the state but it was never completed. Montana is the only one of the first 48 states lacking

7049-645: The appropriate state constitutions were crafted. In July 1889, Montanans convened their third constitutional convention and produced a constitution accepted by the people and the federal government. On November 8, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed Montana the union's 41st state. The first state governor was Joseph K. Toole . In the 1880s, Helena (the state capital) had more millionaires per capita than any other United States city. The Homestead Act of 1862 provided free land to settlers who could claim and "prove-up" 160 acres (0.65 km ) of federal land in

7182-410: The area is still very prone to extended periods of drought, which can be disastrous for the industry if it is significantly prolonged. Research by David Tilman , ecologist at the University of Minnesota , suggests " Biofuels made from high-diversity mixtures of prairie plants can reduce global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Even when grown on infertile soils, they can provide

7315-519: The area. The richest of all gold placer diggings was discovered at Alder Gulch, where the town of Virginia City was established. Other rich placer deposits were found at Last Chance Gulch, where the city of Helena now stands, Confederate Gulch , Silver Bow, Emigrant Gulch, and Cooke City . Gold output between 1862 and 1876 reached $ 144 million, after which silver became even more important. The largest mining operations were at Butte, with important silver deposits and expansive copper deposits. Before

7448-434: The area. Though the increased interaction between fur traders and indigenous peoples frequently proved to be a profitable partnership, conflicts broke out when indigenous interests were threatened, such as the conflict between American trappers and the Blackfeet . Indigenous peoples in the region were also decimated by diseases introduced by fur traders to which they had no immunity. The trading post Fort Raymond (1807–1811)

7581-405: The central and north-central area, and the Kootenai and Salish the ( Séliš or “Flathead” ) in the west. The ( Ql̓ispé or Pend d'Oreilles ) and Kalispel tribes lived near Flathead Lake and the western mountains, respectively. A part of southeastern Montana was used as a corridor between the Crows and the related Hidatsas in North Dakota. As part of the Missouri River watershed, all of

7714-462: The central mixed-grass prairie. Tallgrass prairies receive over 30 inches of rainfall per year, whereas shortgrass prairies are much more arid, receiving only 12 inches or so, and mixed-grass prairies receive intermediate rainfall. Wet, mesic, and dry prairie ecosystems can also form more locally due to soil and terrain characteristics. Wet prairies may form in low-lying areas with poor drainage; dry prairie can be found on uplands or slopes. Dry prairie

7847-439: The creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872. As settlers began populating Montana from the 1850s through the 1870s, disputes with Native Americans ensued, primarily over land ownership and control. In 1855, Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens negotiated the Hellgate Treaty between the United States government and the Salish, Pend d'Oreille, and Kootenai people of western Montana, which established boundaries for

7980-506: The creation of Montana Territory (1864–1889), areas within present-day Montana were part of the Oregon Territory (1848–1859), Washington Territory (1853–1863), Idaho Territory (1863–1864), and Dakota Territory (1861–1864). Montana Territory became a territory of the United States on May   26, 1864. The first territorial capital was located at Bannack . Sidney Edgerton served as the first territorial governor. The capital moved to Virginia City in 1865 and to Helena in 1875. In 1870,

8113-490: The development of barbed wire in the 1870s and improved irrigation techniques, this region has mostly been converted to cropland and small fenced pastures. In southern Canada, Palliser's Triangle has been changed into one of the most important sources of wheat in the world as a result of improved methods of watering wheat fields (along with the rest of the Southern prairie provinces which also grow wheat, canola and many other grains). Despite those advances in farming technology,

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8246-437: The discoverers were entitled to two claims and first choice. The first stampede of miners reached Alder Gulch June 6, 1863, and the population swelled to over 10,000 in less than 3 months. The "Fourteen Mile City" ran the length of the gulch, and included the towns of Junction City, Adobe Town, Nevada City , Central City, Virginia City, Montana , Bear Town, Highland, Pine Grove French Town, Hungry Hollow, and Summit. Upon arrival

8379-484: The disturbances of grazing and fire. Native ungulates such as bison , elk , and white-tailed deer roamed the expansive, diverse grasslands before European colonization of the Americas . For 10,000-20,000 years, native people used fire annually as a tool to assist in hunting, transportation, and safety. Evidence of ignition sources of fire in the tall grass prairie are overwhelmingly human as opposed to lightning. Humans, and grazing animals, were active participants in

8512-472: The diverse grasses and herbaceous plants. Prairies also depend on the presence of large grazing animals, particularly bison . Bison are important to the prairie ecosystem because they shape and alter the environment by grazing, trampling areas with their hooves, wallowing, and depositing manure. Bison eat more grass than flowering plants, increasing the diversity of plants in the prairie. Cattle are thought to prefer to eat flowering plants over grasses, but it

8645-406: The divide flow into the Columbia River . The Clark Fork of the Columbia (not to be confused with the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River) rises near Butte and flows northwest to Missoula , where it is joined by the Blackfoot River and Bitterroot River . Farther downstream, it is joined by the Flathead River before entering Idaho near Lake Pend Oreille . The Pend Oreille River forms

8778-431: The dominant grasses of prairies are Indian grass , big bluestem , side-oats grama , Canada wildrye , and switchgrass . Prairies are considered to be fire-dependent ecosystems . Regular controlled burning by Native Americans, practices developed through observation of non-anthropogenic fire and its effects, maintained the biodiversity of the prairie, clearing away dead vegetation and preventing trees from shading out

8911-410: The drift on the under rock. Further south, as far as the entrance of the Ohio River, the Mississippi follows a rock-walled valley 300 to 400 ft (91 to 122 m) deep, with a flood-plain 2 to 4 mi (3.2 to 6.4 km) wide. This valley seems to represent the path of an enlarged early-glacial Mississippi, when much precipitation that is today discharged to Hudson Bay and the Gulf of St. Lawrence

9044-401: The driftless zone is a district protected from ice invasion by reason of the obstruction which the highlands of northern Wisconsin and Michigan (part of the Superior upland) offered to glacial advance. The course of the upper Mississippi River is largely consequent upon glacial deposits. Its sources are in the morainic lakes in northern Minnesota. The drift deposits thereabouts are so heavy that

9177-457: The eastern tallgrass prairies were plowed and turned into agricultural lands, the prairie grasses with their strong root systems were destroyed. In combination with severe droughts that resulted in the Dust Bowl , a major ecological disaster in which winds picked up the dry, unprotected prairie soil and formed it into "black blizzards" of airborne dirt that blackened the skies for days at a time across 19 states and forced 400,000 people to abandon

9310-426: The entire mountainous region of the west. The name Montana was added in 1863 to a bill by the United States House Committee on Territories (chaired at the time by James Ashley of Ohio ) for the territory that would become Idaho Territory . The name was changed by representatives Henry Wilson (Massachusetts) and Benjamin F. Harding (Oregon), who complained that Montana had "no meaning". When Ashley presented

9443-486: The environment. Weather and agricultural conditions are much harsher and drier west of the 100th meridian. Then, the droughts of 1917–1921 proved devastating. Many people left, and half the banks in the state went bankrupt as a result of providing mortgages that could not be repaid. As a result, farm sizes increased while the number of farms decreased. By 1910, homesteaders filed claims on over five million acres, and by 1923, over 93 million acres were farmed. In 1910,

9576-693: The escarpment to the lower, Lake Ontario . That gave rise to Niagara Falls . Lake Ontario's outlet for a time ran down the Mohawk Valley to the Hudson River. At the higher elevation, it was known as Lake Iroquois . When ice melted from the northeastern end of the lake, it dropped to a lower level, and drained through the St. Lawrence area creating a lower base level for the Niagara River and increasing its erosive capacity. In certain districts,

9709-656: The expansive and sparsely populated Northern Plains , with tableland prairies, smaller island mountain ranges, and badlands . The isolated island ranges east of the Divide include the Bear Paw Mountains, Bull Mountains , Castle Mountains , Crazy Mountains , Highwood Mountains , Judith Mountains , Little Belt Mountains , Little Rocky Mountains , the Pryor Mountains , Little Snowy Mountains , Big Snowy Mountains , Sweet Grass Hills , and—in

9842-435: The eye with a view stretching to the horizon. Here and there, faint depressions occur, occupied by marshy sloughs or floored with a rich black soil of postglacial origin. Thus, by sub-glacial aggradation, the prairies have been leveled up to a smooth surface, in contrast to the higher and non-glaciated hilly country just to the south. The great ice sheets formed terminal moraines around their border at various stages. However,

9975-479: The father of waters, like so many other rivers in the Northern states, owes many of its features more or less directly to glacial action. The fertility of the prairies is a natural consequence of their origin. During the mechanical transportation of the till, no vegetation was present to remove the minerals essential to plant growth, as is the case in the soils of normally weathered and dissected peneplains. The soil

10108-590: The gold fields of Grasshopper Creek, Bannack, Montana . They were on their way to Yellowstone Country from Bannack but were waylaid by a band of Crow Indians . After being ordered out of Crow hunting grounds, they crossed the East Slope of the Tobacco Root Mountains and camped for the night in Elk Park, where William "Bill" Fairweather and Henry Edgar discovered gold, while the remaining party

10241-461: The grasslands of the Great Plains were not subject to great soil erosion . The root systems of native prairie grasses firmly held the soil in place to prevent run-off of soil. When the plant died, the fungi and bacteria returned its nutrients to the soil. These deep roots also helped native prairie plants reach water in even the driest conditions. Native grasses suffer much less damage from dry conditions than many farm crops currently grown. When

10374-417: The head of the gorges are now occupied by little lakes. The most significant stage in this series of changes occurred when the glacio-marginal lake waters were lowered so that the long escarpment of Niagara limestone was laid bare in western New York. The previously confluent waters were then divided into two lakes. The higher one, Lake Erie , supplied the outflowing Niagara River , which poured its waters down

10507-581: The hole", referring directly to the Minuteman missiles in Montana. Montana eventually became home to the largest ICBM field in the U.S. covering 23,500 square miles (61,000 km ). Montana is one of the eight Mountain States , located in the north of the region known as the Western United States . It borders North Dakota and South Dakota to the east. Wyoming is to the south, Idaho

10640-416: The ice of the last glacial epoch had retreated so far that its front border lay on a northward slope, belonging to the drainage area of the Great Lakes, bodies of water accumulated in front of the ice margin, forming glacio-marginal lakes. The lakes were small at first, and each had its own outlet at the lowest depression of land to the south. As the ice melted further back, neighboring lakes became confluent at

10773-489: The ice sheets advanced in lobes along the lowlands of the Great Lakes . Neighboring morainic loops join each other in re-entrants (north-pointing cusps), where two adjacent glacial lobes came together and formed their moraines in largest volume. The moraines are of too small relief to be shown on any maps except of the largest scale. Small as they are, they are the chief relief of the prairie states, and, in association with

10906-477: The ice sheets extended to the land sloping southward to the Ohio River , Mississippi River and Missouri River , the drift-laden streams flowed freely away from the ice border. As the streams escaped from their subglacial channels, they spread into broader channels and deposited some of their load, and thus aggraded their courses. Local sheets or aprons of gravel and sand are spread more or less abundantly along

11039-655: The land in Montana east of the Continental Divide was part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, except for a tiny portion in the northeast that is part of the Hudson Bay drainage . Subsequent to and particularly in the decades following the Lewis and Clark Expedition , European, Canadian and American traders operated a fur trade , trading with indigenous peoples in both western and eastern portions of

11172-525: The land well suited for agricultural use, only 1% of tallgrass prairie remains in the U.S. today. Shortgrass prairie is more abundant. Significant preserved areas of prairie include: Virgin prairie refers to prairie land which has never been plowed. Small virgin prairies exist in the American Midwestern states and in Canada. Restored prairie refers to a prairie that has been reseeded after plowing or other disturbance. A prairie garden

11305-401: The largest landlocked state. The state's topography is roughly defined by the Continental Divide , which splits much of the state into distinct eastern and western regions. Most of Montana's hundred or more named mountain ranges are in the state's western half, most of which is geologically and geographically part of the northern Rocky Mountains . The Absaroka and Beartooth ranges in

11438-446: The level of the lowest outlet of the group. The outflowing streams grew in the same proportion and eroded a broad channel across the height of land and far down stream, while the lake waters built sand reefs or carved shore cliffs along their margin, and laid down sheets of clay on their floors. All of these features are easily recognized in the prairie region. The present site of Chicago was determined by an Indian portage or carry across

11571-833: The longest continuous ranges in the Rocky Mountain chain from Alaska to Mexico —along with smaller ranges, including the Coeur d'Alene Mountains and the Cabinet Mountains , divide the state from Idaho. The southern third of the Bitterroot range blends into the Continental Divide. Other major mountain ranges west of the divide include the Cabinet Mountains , the Anaconda Range , the Missions ,

11704-507: The low divide between Lake Michigan and the headwaters of the Illinois River . This divide lies on the floor of the former outlet channel of the glacial Lake Michigan. Corresponding outlets are known for Lake Erie , Lake Huron , and Lake Superior . A very large sheet of water, named Lake Agassiz , once overspread a broad till plain in northern Minnesota and North Dakota. The outlet of this glacial lake, called river Warren, eroded

11837-665: The miners lived in brush wickiups , dugouts and under overhanging rocks until cabins could be built. The first structure built in Virginia City was the Mechanical Bakery. Virginia City, and Nevada City were the centers of commerce during the height of the Alder Gulch gold rush. In the first year the area had over 10,000 people living there. Montana Territory was established in May 1864, and the first territorial capital

11970-419: The morainic belts are of slight relief in comparison to the great area of the ice. They rise gently from the till plains to 50, 100 or more feet. They may be one, two or three miles (5 km) wide and their hilly surface, dotted over with boulders, contains many small lakes in basins or hollows, instead of streams in valleys. The morainic belts are arranged in groups of concentric loops, convex southward, because

12103-492: The more verdant valleys of central and western Montana, but few were on the eastern plains. The Desert Land Act of 1877 was passed to allow settlement of arid lands in the west and allotted 640 acres (2.6 km ) to settlers for a fee of $ .25 per acre and a promise to irrigate the land. After three years, a fee of one dollar per acre would be paid and the settler would own the land. This act brought mostly cattle and sheep ranchers into Montana, many of whom grazed their herds on

12236-800: The most scenic badlands regions in the state. The Hell Creek Formation in Northeast Montana is a major source of dinosaur fossils . Paleontologist Jack Horner of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman brought this formation to the world's attention with several major finds. Montana has thousands of named rivers and creeks, 450 miles (720 km) of which are known for "blue-ribbon" trout fishing. Montana's water resources provide for recreation, hydropower , crop and forage irrigation, mining, and water for human consumption. Montana

12369-406: The nearly imperceptible slopes of the till plains, they determine the course of many streams and rivers, which as a whole are consequent upon the surface form of the glacial deposits. The complexity of the glacial period and its subdivision into several glacial epochs, separated by interglacial epochs of considerable length (certainly longer than the postglacial epoch) has a structural consequence in

12502-687: The newly formed Metal Mine Workers' Union, opposed the war on grounds it mostly profited large lumber and mining interests. In the wake of ramped-up mine production and the Speculator Mine disaster in June 1917, Industrial Workers of the World organizer Frank Little arrived in Butte to organize miners. He gave some speeches with inflammatory antiwar rhetoric. On August 1, 1917, he was dragged from his boarding house by masked vigilantes , and hanged from

12635-803: The non-Indian population of the Montana Territory was 20,595. The Montana Historical Society , founded on February   2, 1865, in Virginia City, is the oldest such institution west of the Mississippi (excluding Louisiana). In 1869 and 1870 respectively, the Cook–Folsom–Peterson and the Washburn–Langford–Doane Expeditions were launched from Helena into the Upper Yellowstone region. The extraordinary discoveries and reports from these expeditions led to

12768-417: The outer side of the morainic belts. Long trains of gravel and sands clog the valleys that lead southward from the glaciated to the non-glaciated area. Later, when the ice retreated further and the unloaded streams returned to their earlier degrading habit, they more or less completely scoured out the valley deposits, the remains of which are now seen in terraces on either side of the present flood plains. When

12901-609: The outflow of Lake Pend Oreille. The Pend Oreille River joined the Columbia River, which flows to the Pacific Ocean—making the 579-mile (932 km) long Clark Fork/Pend Oreille (considered a single river system) the longest river in the Rocky Mountains. The Clark Fork discharges the greatest volume of water of any river exiting the state. The Kootenai River in northwest Montana is another major tributary of

13034-555: The present divides between the drainage basins of Hudson Bay , Lake Superior , and the Gulf of Mexico evidently stand in no very definite relation to the preglacial divides. The course of the Mississippi through Minnesota is largely guided by the form of the drift cover. Several rapids and the Saint Anthony Falls (determining the site of Minneapolis ) are signs of immaturity, resulting from superposition through

13167-410: The process of prairie formation and the establishment of the diversity of graminoid and forbs species. Fire has the effect on prairies of removing trees , clearing dead plant matter, and changing the availability of certain nutrients in the soil from the ash produced. Fire kills the vascular tissue of trees, but not prairie species, as up to 75% (depending on the species) of the total plant biomass

13300-675: The railroad played a major role in sparking tensions with Native American tribes in the 1870s. Jay Cooke , the NPR president, launched major surveys into the Yellowstone valley in 1871, 1872, and 1873, which were challenged forcefully by the Sioux under chief Sitting Bull . These clashes, in part, contributed to the Panic of 1873 , a financial crisis that delayed the construction of the railroad into Montana. Surveys in 1874, 1875, and 1876 helped spark

13433-655: The region during the Oligocene 33 to 23 million years ago. Tablelands are often topped with argillite gravel and weathered quartzite, occasionally underlain by shale. The glaciated plains are generally covered in clay, gravel, sand, and silt left by the proglacial Lake Great Falls or by moraines or gravel-covered former lake basins left by the Wisconsin glaciation 85,000 to 11,000 years ago. Farther east, areas such as Makoshika State Park near Glendive and Medicine Rocks State Park near Ekalaka contain some of

13566-460: The rivers and gradually fades away at a distance of ten or more miles (16 or more km) on either side. It contains land shells, and hence cannot be attributed to marine or lacustrine submergence. The best explanation is that, during certain phases of the glacial period, it was carried as dust by the winds from the flood plains of aggrading rivers, and slowly deposited on the neighboring grass-covered plains. The glacial and eolian origin of this sediment

13699-542: The second commissioned warship to bear the name. In the post-World War II Cold War era, Montana became host to U.S. Air Force Military Air Transport Service (1947) for airlift training in C-54 Skymasters and eventually, in 1953 Strategic Air Command air and missile forces were based at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls. The base also hosted the 29th Fighter Interceptor Squadron , Air Defense Command from 1953 to 1968. In December 1959, Malmstrom AFB

13832-565: The sedimentary rock. The underlying surface consists of sandstone and shale . Surface soils in the area are highly diverse, and greatly affected by the local geology, whether glaciated plain, intermountain basin, mountain foothills, or tableland. Foothill regions are often covered in weathered stone or broken slate , or consist of uncovered bare rock (usually igneous, quartzite , sandstone, or shale). The soil of intermountain basins usually consists of clay , gravel , sand , silt , and volcanic ash , much of it laid down by lakes which covered

13965-523: The south and the Great Lakes on the north. The prairies are a contribution of the glacial period. They consist of glacial drift deposited unconformably on an underlying rock surface of moderate or small relief. Here, the rocks are an extension of the same stratified Palaeozoic formations already described as occurring in the Appalachian region and around the Great Lakes . They are usually fine-textured limestones and shales lying horizontal. The moderate or small relief they were given by mature preglacial erosion

14098-502: The south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta , British Columbia , and Saskatchewan to the north. It is the fourth-largest state by area , but the eighth-least populous state and the third-least densely populated state . Its capital is Helena , while the most populous city is Billings . The western half of the state contains numerous mountain ranges, while the eastern half is characterized by western prairie terrain and badlands , with smaller mountain ranges found throughout

14231-513: The southward slope of the melting ice sheet. When this eastward outlet came to be lower than the south-westward outlet across the height of land to the Ohio or Mississippi river, the discharge of the marginal lakes was changed from the Mississippi system to the Hudson system. Many well-defined channels, cutting across the north-sloping spurs of the plateau in the neighborhood of Syracuse, New York mark

14364-481: The spot of that incredible discovery of May 26, 1863. Alder Gulch is named for the alder bushes that grew along the creek. Montana Montana ( / m ɒ n ˈ t æ n ə / mon- TAN -ə ) is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States . It borders Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to

14497-513: The state's economy. Montana's fastest-growing sector is tourism, with 12.6 million tourists (as of 2019) visiting the state each year. The name Montana comes from the Spanish word montaña , which in turn comes from the Latin word montanea , meaning "mountain" or more broadly "mountainous country". Montaña del Norte ('Northern Mountain') was the name given by early Spanish explorers to

14630-584: The state's main economic engine through the mid-20th century. Montana has no official nickname but several unofficial ones, most notably "Big Sky Country", "The Treasure State", "Land of the Shining Mountains", and " The Last Best Place ". Its economy is primarily based on agriculture , including ranching and cereal grain farming. Other significant economic resources include oil , gas , coal , mining , and lumber . The health care, service, defense, and government sectors are also significant to

14763-542: The state's south-central part are technically part of the Central Rocky Mountains. The Rocky Mountain Front is a significant feature in the state's north-central portion, and isolated island ranges that interrupt the prairie landscape common in the central and eastern parts of the state. About 60 percent of the state is prairie, part of the northern Great Plains . The Bitterroot Mountains —one of

14896-693: The state's southeastern corner near Ekalaka —the Long Pines . Many of these isolated eastern ranges were created about 120 to 66 million years ago when magma welling up from the interior cracked and bowed the earth's surface here. The area east of the divide in the state's north-central portion is known for the Missouri Breaks and other significant rock formations . Three buttes south of Great Falls are major landmarks: Cascade, Crown, Square, Shaw, and Buttes. Known as laccoliths , they formed when igneous rock protruded through cracks in

15029-643: The state. Most of Montana first came under American sovereignty with the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803 and was explored by the Lewis and Clark Expedition shortly thereafter. Fur trappers followed and were the main economic activity in the area until gold was discovered in 1852. The ensuing gold rush, along with the passage of the Homestead Acts in 1862, brought large numbers of American settlers to Montana. Rapid population growth and development culminated in statehood on November 8, 1889. Mining, particularly around Butte and Helena , would remain

15162-654: The states, from north to south, of North Dakota , South Dakota , Nebraska , Kansas , and Oklahoma , and sizable parts of the states of Montana , Wyoming , Colorado , New Mexico , Texas in the west, and to the east, Minnesota , Wisconsin , Iowa , Missouri , Illinois , and Indiana . The Palouse of Washington and the Central Valley of California are also prairies. The Canadian Prairies occupy vast areas of Manitoba , Saskatchewan , and Alberta . Prairies may contain various lush flora and fauna , often contain rich soil maintained by biodiversity , with

15295-513: The subglacial till was not spread out in a smooth plain, but accumulated in elliptical mounds, 100–200 feet. high and 0.5 to 1 mile (0.80 to 1.61 kilometres) long with axes parallel to the direction of the ice motion as indicated by striae on the underlying rock floor. These hills are known by the Irish name, drumlins , used for similar hills in north-western Ireland . The most remarkable groups of drumlins occur in western New York , where their number

15428-425: The superposition of successive till sheets, alternating with non-glacial deposits. It also has a physiographic consequence in the very different amount of normal postglacial erosion suffered by the different parts of the glacial deposits. The southernmost drift sheets, as in southern Iowa and northern Missouri , have lost their initially plain surface and are now maturely dissected into gracefully rolling forms. Here,

15561-413: The temporary paths of the ice-bordered outlet river. Successive channels are found at lower and lower levels on the plateau slope, indicating the successive courses taken by the lake outlet as the ice melted further and further back. On some of the channels, deep gorges were eroded heading in temporary cataracts which exceeded Niagara in height but not in breadth. The pools excavated by the plunging waters at

15694-650: The tribal nations. The treaty was ratified in 1859. While the treaty established what later became the Flathead Indian Reservation , trouble with interpreters and confusion over the terms of the treaty led Whites to believe the Bitterroot Valley was opened to settlement, but the tribal nations disputed those provisions. The Salish remained in the Bitterroot Valley until 1891. The first U.S. Army post established in Montana

15827-456: The valleys of even the small streams are well opened and graded, and marshes and lakes are rare. These sheets are of early Pleistocene origin. Nearer the Great Lakes, the till sheets are trenched only by the narrow valleys of the large streams. Marshy sloughs still occupy the faint depressions in the till plains and the associated moraines have abundant small lakes in their undrained hollows. These drift sheets are of late Pleistocene origin. When

15960-606: The verge of extinction; only about 325 bison remained in the entire United States. Cattle ranching has been central to Montana's history and economy since Johnny Grant began wintering cattle in the Deer Lodge Valley in the 1850s and traded cattle fattened in fertile Montana valleys with emigrants on the Oregon Trail. Nelson Story brought the first Texas Longhorn cattle into the territory in 1866. Granville Stuart , Samuel Hauser , and Andrew J. Davis started

16093-438: The war and patriotism was strong. In 1917–1918, due to a miscalculation of Montana's population, about 40,000 Montanans, 10% of the state's population, volunteered or were drafted into the armed forces. This represented a manpower contribution to the war that was 25% higher than any other state on a per capita basis. Around 1,500 Montanans died as a result of the war and 2,437 were wounded, also higher than any other state on

16226-577: The war ended. These numbers constituted about ten percent of the state's population, and Montana again contributed one of the highest numbers of soldiers per capita of any state. Many Native Americans were among those who served, including soldiers from the Crow Nation who became Code Talkers . At least 1,500 Montanans died in the war. Montana also was the training ground for the First Special Service Force or "Devil's Brigade",

16359-542: Was Camp Cooke in 1866, on the Missouri River, to protect steamboat traffic to Fort Benton. More than a dozen additional military outposts were established in the state. Pressure over land ownership and control increased due to discoveries of gold in various parts of Montana and surrounding states. Major battles occurred in Montana during Red Cloud's War , the Great Sioux War of 1876 , and the Nez Perce War and in conflicts with Piegan Blackfeet . The most notable were

16492-434: Was Bannack. The capital then moved to Virginia City, where it remained until 1875. The Alder Gulch diggings were the richest gold placer deposits ever discovered, and in three years $ 30,000,000 was taken from them, with $ 10,000,000 taken out in the first year. Nowadays, except during summertime, the streets of Virginia City are usually quiet and relatively few visitors find their way to the 16 ton granite monument that marks

16625-507: Was again elected to Congress. In 1941, as she had in 1917, she voted against the United States' declaration of war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor . Hers was the only vote against the war, and in the wake of public outcry over her vote, Rankin required police protection for a time. Other pacifists tended to be those from "peace churches" who generally opposed war. Many individuals claiming conscientious objector status from throughout

16758-399: Was complicated by labor issues. The Anaconda Copper Company , which was at its historic peak of copper production, was an extremely powerful force in Montana, but it also faced criticism and opposition from socialist newspapers and unions struggling to make gains for their members. In Butte, a multiethnic community with a significant European immigrant population, labor unions, particularly

16891-671: Was constructed in Crow Indian country in 1807. Until the Oregon Treaty of 1846, land west of the continental divide was disputed between the British and U.S. governments and was known as the Oregon Country . The first permanent settlement by Euro-Americans in what today is Montana was St. Mary's , established in 1841 near present-day Stevensville . In 1847, Fort Benton was built as the uppermost fur-trading post on

17024-481: Was delivered to the Gulf of Mexico, for the curves of the present river are of distinctly smaller radii than the curves of the valley. Lake Pepin (30 mi [48 km] below St. Paul ), a picturesque expansion of the river across its flood-plain, is due to the aggradation of the valley floor where the Chippewa River , coming from the northeast, brought an overload of fluvio-glacial drift. Hence, even

17157-450: Was distributed during the last glacial advance that began about 110,000 years ago. The glaciers expanding southward scraped the landscape, picking up geologic material and leveling the terrain. As the glaciers retreated about 10,000 years ago, they deposited this material in the form of till . Wind-based loess deposits also form an important parent material for prairie soils. Tallgrass prairie evolved over tens of thousands of years with

17290-617: Was farmer, spinster, deep-sea diver; fiddler, physician, bartender, cook. He lived in Minnesota or Wisconsin, Massachusetts or Maine. There the news sought him out—Jim Hill's news of free land in the Treasure State ... However, farmers faced a number of problems. Massive debt was one. Also, most settlers were from wetter regions, unprepared for the dry climate, lack of trees, and scarce water resources. In addition, small homesteads of fewer than 320 acres (130 ha) were unsuited to

17423-598: Was out hunting for meat. Agreeing to keep the new discovery quiet the group of miners returned to the town of Bannack for supplies. However, word leaked out about the new strike, and miners followed the Fairweather party out of town. The party stopped at the Point of Rocks, part way between Bannack and Alder Gulch, and established the Fairweather Mining District in a miners meeting. It was agreed that

17556-548: Was selected as the home of the new Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missile . The first operational missiles were in place and ready in early 1962. In late 1962, missiles assigned to the 341st Strategic Missile Wing played a major role in the Cuban Missile Crisis . When the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba, President John F. Kennedy said the Soviets backed down because they knew he had an "ace in

17689-472: Was stronger and cut the roots, making the fertile soils ready for farming. Former grasslands are now among the most productive agricultural lands on Earth. The tallgrass prairie has been converted into one of the most intensive crop producing areas in North America. Less than one tenth of one percent (<0.09%) of the original landcover of the tallgrass prairie biome remains. Much of what persists

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