From our scenic mountains to our wide open prairies, we can still boast the same beautiful country that Charlie Russell described & painted.




"Shut off from the outside world, it was a hunter's paradise, bounded by walls of mountains and containing miles of grassy open spaces, more green and beautiful than any man-made parks.  These parks and the mountains behind them swarmed with deer, elk, mountain sheep, and bear, besides beaver and other small furbearing animals.  The creeks were alive with trout.  Nature surely done her best, and no king of the old times could have claimed a more beautiful and bountiful domain."

Charles M. Russell's description of the South Fork of the Judith, "A Slice of Charlie Russell's Early Life, "THE ROUNDUP II (1918) pp.48-50

A young man from Missouri named Charlie Russell arrived in the Judith Basin in 1880.  For the next ten years, the cowboy artist lived and worked here; the Western epic was faithfully captured with his paints and canvas, and many of the scenes are from the Judith Basin.

Charlie’s art provides a window to the past to tell the story of American Indians, buffalo and wolves, cowboys and the open range, mountain men and miners, and the inevitable change that came with progress – homesteaders, railroads, highways.  And the story is told where it happened – out on the range and in the mountains where people can experience the West as it was, and as it is today.

Consider the experiences of Russell during the tumultuous decade of the 1880’s:  When Charlie arrived in 1880; buffalo herds were still plentiful in the Basin.  Within three years, they were gone.

Blackfeet, Crow, and Assiniboine freely travels and hunted across the Judith Basin, one of their favorite hunting grounds.  That quickly ended as the Indians were confined to their reservations.

The rancher and the cowboy rapidly tamed the wild country as the herds of cattle replaced the buffalo. The mountain men, buffalo hunters, wolfers, and rustlers all had their hey-days in the 1880’s before law, order and civilization ruled.  Wide-open range with grass side up was fenced and plowed "grass side down."

Explore the Judith Basin and ride the Russell Trail!  The land continues to stir the imagination and spirit today as it did for a cowboy artist over 100 years ago.

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