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The legendary western artist Charlie Russell learned the ways of the cowboy and mountain man in this basin, and many of his famous paintings were inspired by the landscape, the people, the drama, and the history that unfolded here at the turn of the century. The artist lends his name to the stretch of Hwy 87 between Great Falls and Lewistown known as the Charlie Russell Trail. Square Butte, Utica, Stanford, and the Judith Basin country are scene's captured in Russell's art, and traveling through the basin, much of the country remains unscathed from those early renditions of the area.
 Stanford - 59479 Stanford is the County seat. 1880 Calvin and Edward Bower came here with a thousand head of sheep and acquired 100,000 acres. The Bowers named the settlement for their old home, Stanfordville, in Duchess County, New York. Stanford was a station on the Fort Benton-Billings stage route and a meeting place for cowboys from the Judith Basin Pool and other cattle companies (more) |
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 Windham - 59479Not much is known about the beginning of Windham prior to a story which begins with the time Duncan Gilliespie came in 1914. It is known that in 1909 there was a hotel and that the Post Office was located in it. Also there was a small store. Duncan Gillespie came from Butte to Windham in 1914. At that time there was a population of about 100. He opened a drug store and operated a Dance Hall. It proved to (more) |
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 Geyser - 59447It is common knowledge in the area that the old town of Geyser derived its names from the mud geysers which still mark the location of the old town. The present town Geyser adopted the name of the old stage station when the town was moved to its present location on the railroad. In the very early days, it was a stagecoach overnight stopping place on the trail from Lewistown to Great Falls. There are few people (more) |
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Raynesford - 59469Raynesford was the maiden name of a woman who boarded the Great Northern survey crew while the railroad was being built. The new station was between Stanford and Belt. Land for the townsite was obtained from Edmund Higgins, who homesteaded the land around here in 1891. In 1907, when the railroad was coming through, supplies for (more) |
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 Benchland - 59462In 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition traversed this basin and they noted a very beautiful little river which, legend has it, was named Judith in honor of a sweetheart of one of them. This was how the Judith River and the Judith Basin got their names. In succession came the buffalo and Indians, trappers and hunters, miners, cowboys (more) |
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Hobson - 59452Hobson was named for S. S. Hobson, an early-day cowboy and rancher who lived between Hobson and Utica on the Judith River and owned the Campbell and Clendendan ranches. He later became state senator from Judith Basin County. (from Cheney’s Names on the Face of Montana, Mountain Press Publishing Company). The nearby towns of Stanford and Utica have several museums of interest. The Judith Basin (more) |
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 Moccasin - 59462Moccasin was named after a mountain range, but these mountains with low, rounded summits and densely forested with lodgepole did look a little like Indian moccasins. Moccasin has been plagued by destructive fires—in 1916, 1919, 1922, and 1955. The town never really recovered from the 1919 blaze, the biggest of all, which burned an entire block of buildings. Moccasin is in the productive wheat-raising area (more) |
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 Utica - 59452Utica, on the Judith River, was a hangout for cowboys and headquarters for the Judith Basin Cattle Pool in the early 1880s. There was a storehouse for saddles, bridles, and other gear for roundups from one season to the next. When the riders came to town, Utica was the liveliest town around. Jake Hoover discovered a sapphire mine in Yogo Gulch above Utica; that’s the same Hoover who gave Charlie (more) |
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 Sapphire Village - 59452While the Royal American Sapphire is a part of the world of big business, high finance, national marketing and aggressive advertising, the same stone, in Central Montana, is and will always be known as the Yogo sapphire. Its origin, the Yogo dike, and the country that surrounds it, is part of a different world, that of Jake Hoover, Charlie Russell and Charles Gadsden. A visit here is a long step back in time. (more) |
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 Buffalo - 59418Buffalo is located in Judith Basin County and is almost on the Fergus County line. It was named for the great shaggy native Montanan that served as a source of food, shelter, and tools for the Plains Indian. Lewis and Clark, in their journal for July 11, 1806, describe this strange new animal: “A gangue of buffalow…the bulls keep a tremendous roaring we could hear them many miles and there are such (more) |
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