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What do you consider Eastern Montana

What do you consider Eastern Montana

  • Everything east of the divide.

    Votes: 16 15.8%
  • Everything east of the Rocky Mountain Front.

    Votes: 15 14.9%
  • Everything east of Bozeman.

    Votes: 27 26.7%
  • Everything east of 11 miles west of Lewiston, the geographical center of Montana.

    Votes: 13 12.9%
  • Everything east of Billings.

    Votes: 28 27.7%
  • Everything east of Miles City.

    Votes: 2 2.0%
  • Everything east of Glendive.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Everything east of Wibaux.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • There is no eastern Montana, it’s actually western North Dakota.

    Votes: 7 6.9%
  • Bobcats suck.

    Votes: 66 65.3%
  • Western North Dakota sucks.

    Votes: 7 6.9%
  • All of North Dakota sucks.

    Votes: 47 46.5%

  • Total voters
    101
Grizfan-24 said:
Can all of the options be true?

Semantically, grew up listening to friends and family consistently referring to Great Falls as "Eastern Montana." I know that geographically it makes no rational sense to refer Great Falls, the Golden Triangle, as Eastern Montana, but it was a part of the lexicon. So it 'feels' Eastern Montana while making those many car trips to Big Sandy and Havre in my youth, but the geographic reality not so much.

As a side note about drives:
1. Highway 200 might be my favorite road to travel in the state. Provides one of the most scenically diverse drives you could find, including long stretches of the Blackfoot, Clark Fork and Flathead Rivers but my favorite is coming over the top of Rogers Pass to the east and watching the whole plains open up before your eyes and it takes you through Lewistown which during the spring is so visually appealing.
2. For nostalgic purposes the other drive that I enjoy is the road between Malta to Grass Range/Judith Gap. Two particular reasons: First love that you can drive that road for five hours and not see another car (grass growing in the highway is an added bonus). The other it is you get to see the back side of the Bears Paw, the Missouri River Breaks (Fred Robinson Bridge) and the Crazies. Might seem desolate to some, but I enjoy the remoteness of that drive and how you can easily visualize what the plains looked like pre- American civilization.

Well said 24. I remember Great Falls referred too as Eastern Montana. I was a sales rep so traveled Montana and Wyoming extensively. It hasn’t changed much which is good.
 
Grizfan-24 said:
Can all of the options be true?

Semantically, grew up listening to friends and family consistently referring to Great Falls as "Eastern Montana." I know that geographically it makes no rational sense to refer Great Falls, the Golden Triangle, as Eastern Montana, but it was a part of the lexicon. So it 'feels' Eastern Montana while making those many car trips to Big Sandy and Havre in my youth, but the geographic reality not so much.

As a side note about drives:
1. Highway 200 might be my favorite road to travel in the state. Provides one of the most scenically diverse drives you could find, including long stretches of the Blackfoot, Clark Fork and Flathead Rivers but my favorite is coming over the top of Rogers Pass to the east and watching the whole plains open up before your eyes and it takes you through Lewistown which during the spring is so visually appealing.
2. For nostalgic purposes the other drive that I enjoy is the road between Malta to Grass Range/Judith Gap. Two particular reasons: First love that you can drive that road for five hours and not see another car (grass growing in the highway is an added bonus). The other it is you get to see the back side of the Bears Paw, the Missouri River Breaks (Fred Robinson Bridge) and the Crazies. Might seem desolate to some, but I enjoy the remoteness of that drive and how you can easily visualize what the plains looked like pre- American civilization.
100% to both of them. Only did that Malta to Lewistown drive once but thought it was pretty cool (Especially the Missouri Breaks and the Bear Paws, course turned out to be a pretty girl at the end of it, so that never hurts a memory.
 
Grizfan-24 said:
Can all of the options be true?

Semantically, grew up listening to friends and family consistently referring to Great Falls as "Eastern Montana." I know that geographically it makes no rational sense to refer Great Falls, the Golden Triangle, as Eastern Montana, but it was a part of the lexicon. So it 'feels' Eastern Montana while making those many car trips to Big Sandy and Havre in my youth, but the geographic reality not so much.

As a side note about drives:
1. Highway 200 might be my favorite road to travel in the state. Provides one of the most scenically diverse drives you could find, including long stretches of the Blackfoot, Clark Fork and Flathead Rivers but my favorite is coming over the top of Rogers Pass to the east and watching the whole plains open up before your eyes and it takes you through Lewistown which during the spring is so visually appealing.
2. For nostalgic purposes the other drive that I enjoy is the road between Malta to Grass Range/Judith Gap. Two particular reasons: First love that you can drive that road for five hours and not see another car (grass growing in the highway is an added bonus). The other it is you get to see the back side of the Bears Paw, the Missouri River Breaks (Fred Robinson Bridge) and the Crazies. Might seem desolate to some, but I enjoy the remoteness of that drive and how you can easily visualize what the plains looked like pre- American civilization.

I think growing up in Missoula, every thing east of us was eastern Montana to me😄.
 
Eastern Montana does have its charms, IF you know what to look for. I lived for years out yonder and found some beauty in the damnedest places. Were else could you stop your car in the middle of the road, get out and write your name in cursive, in urine, and still dot the 'I's and cross the 'T's, and still not even see the glow of headlights on any horizon?
 
3-7-77 said:
Eastern Montana does have its charms, IF you know what to look for. I lived for years out yonder and found some beauty in the damnedest places. Were else could you stop your car in the middle of the road, get out and write your name in cursive, and still dot the 'I's and cross the 'T's, and still not even see the glow of headlights on any horizon?

Most of northern Montana, southern Montana, and parts of western Montana where you can see a horizon that isn’t looking straight up a mountain side.
 
Grizfan-24 said:
I know that geographically it makes no rational sense to refer Great Falls, the Golden Triangle, as Eastern Montana, but it was a part of the lexicon.
Huh? Why would choach’s MILF camp have anything to do with it?
 
kemajic said:
billingsgriz said:
And I have to smile when some of my Missoula friends, some of whom have never been west of the Continental Divide or if they have, it was when they went to a wedding or funeral when they were 7 years old, tell me Billings is flat and ugly.
Hmmm.... Last time I checked Missoula itself is west of the Continental Divide.

That's like that line from Wagon Wheel and heading west to the Cumberland Gap from Johnson City, Tennessee...

We all know the Black Crows were pretty much the same as the Mission Mountain Wood Band
 
kemajic said:
Hmmm.... Last time I checked Missoula itself is west of the Continental Divide.

When they drew the Western Congressional District lines, they also gerrymandered the Continental Divide to the west of Missoula. Helena and its politicians. :roll:
 
3-7-77 said:
kemajic said:
Hmmm.... Last time I checked Missoula itself is west of the Continental Divide.

When they drew the Western Congressional District lines, they also gerrymandered the Continental Divide to the west of Missoula. Helena and its politicians. :roll:

If we are debating the ethical nature of political boundary drawing, Missoula and western Montana was originally a part of the Idaho Territory. Edgerton had the western boundary redrawn to use the Bitteroot/Selway watershed as the dividing the boundary between Montana and Idaho. This of course didn't make Idaho lawmakers happy, who had previous control of Western Montana from their territorial capital in Lewiston. Edgerton had the boundary redrawn for multiple reasons, but mostly to enhance his own political power and to include the new mining centers of Eastern Idaho as a new part of the Montana Territory.

So if your beef that Missoula is at all part of Montana, blame Sidney Edgerton.
 
Other than Player, have any of you lived/worked on a ranch. I lived on three Eastern Montana ranches and have done the many required tasks, some not so pleasant. Have you been on a haystack with a rattlesnake?
 
Spanky2 said:
Other than Player, have any of you lived/worked on a ranch. I lived on three Eastern Montana ranches and have done the many required tasks, some not so pleasant. Have you been on a haystack with a rattlesnake?
I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express once, does that count?
 
Grizfan-24 said:
3-7-77 said:
When they drew the Western Congressional District lines, they also gerrymandered the Continental Divide to the west of Missoula. Helena and its politicians. :roll:

If we are debating the ethical nature of political boundary drawing, Missoula and western Montana was originally a part of the Idaho Territory. Edgerton had the western boundary redrawn to use the Bitteroot/Selway watershed as the dividing the boundary between Montana and Idaho. This of course didn't make Idaho lawmakers happy, who had previous control of Western Montana from their territorial capital in Lewiston. Edgerton had the boundary redrawn for multiple reasons, but mostly to enhance his own political power and to include the new mining centers of Eastern Idaho as a new part of the Montana Territory.

So if your beef that Missoula is at all part of Montana, blame Sidney Edgerton.

I thank God for Sidney Edgerton. I can’t imagine what my life would’ve been like growing up a potato head.
 
Montana history. Fascinating. Just wondering how many of you out there had the pleasure of K. Ross Toole's 'Montana and the West' class? There has to be a shit load of you. Class was in the Music Building auditorium. All seats were taken and the isles were shoulder to shoulder, SRO to say the least.
 
3-7-77 said:
Montana history. Fascinating. Just wondering how many of you out there had the pleasure of K. Ross Toole's 'Montana and the West' class? There has to be a shit load of you. Class was in the Music Building auditorium. All seats were taken and the isles were shoulder to shoulder, SRO to say the least.

When I took the class, there were over 1000 in the class. The rumor was, Toole was retiring and this would be the last one. There were only about 7000 total enrollment at that time. Great class by a great professor. Still have his signed books in my collection.
 
Spanky2 said:
Other than Player, have any of you lived/worked on a ranch. I lived on three Eastern Montana ranches and have done the many required tasks, some not so pleasant. Have you been on a haystack with a rattlesnake?

I use to spend 2 weeks, every summer, working at my families farms north of Chester... Not a ranch, but trying to drive a grain truck at 11 years old (when never driving before that day, and being the "City Kid" because I was from Bozeman). Picking wild oats and rocks all day was not fun.
 
3-7-77 said:
Montana history. Fascinating. Just wondering how many of you out there had the pleasure of K. Ross Toole's 'Montana and the West' class? There has to be a shit load of you. Class was in the Music Building auditorium. All seats were taken and the isles were shoulder to shoulder, SRO to say the least.

I took it from Fritz in the music building. That music lecture hall was home to two of my favorite courses in my years at the UM. Montana History and History of Rock and Roll.

Much of Fritz's course was Toole's book and Toole's overall philosophy. Not sure if Toole had seven thousand references to a good burger and beer in Saco, Joplin or Forsyth, but good gravy Fritz was a great listen. On top of that Fritz was at least per my experience a great guy to have in the department as I went through it. The occasional meet up with Fritz at the Press Box was so much fun with other department members. He truly held court in there.

There are three books that are essential reading for any burgeoning Montana historian:
1. K. Ross Toole Montana: An Uncommon Land
2. Michael Malone: A history of two centuries
3. Montana Heritage: A collection of essays on historial Montana events.
 
Harry graduated from Missoula County High School in 1956. After spending four years as a chemistry major at Dartmouth College, he completely reversed course by completing a Master’s Degree in history at UM. Properly focused on what would be his life’s work, he went to Washington University in St. Louis for a Ph.D.“
 
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