Distinctly Montana Magazine

26 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S U M M E R 2 0 2 3 F ort Benton today is a small town of only about 1,500 in- habitants, which ranks it as the 75th largest "city" in the state. Despite its size, Fort Benton holds the title "The Birthplace of Montana," and for good reasons. It is the longest con- tinually inhabited white settlement in the state and, during most of the nineteenth century, it certainly was the most important city in the pre-statehood Montana Territory. The Missouri River was a major trade artery that reaches deep into the continental U.S. With its strategic location on the Missouri River as the furthermost navi- gable point inland, the settlement became the focus of most things that either came into or out of Montana until the arrival of the railroad in the late 1880s. The river was the insepa- rable heartbeat of Fort Benton, and gave Fort Benton a very colorful, checkered past—one which has un- dergone more changes over the years than a runway model at a fashion show! It was near present-day Fort Benton that Cap- tain Lewis and his small party rendezvoused with Clark and the rest of the Voyage of Discovery troupe in 1806 on their way home to St. Louis. Fearing a swift reprisal, Lewis had ridden hard from the Two Medicine area where they had killed two Blackfeet, an episode that would severely affect relations be- tween whites and Indians on the up- per Missouri for decades. The first main settlement along the Missouri was Fort Union, at the confluence with the Yellowstone, just outside of Montana, established in 1828. Sporadic attempts were made further up the Missouri to trade for furs, but the killing of those two braves by Lewis's party instilled distrust of the whites by the Blackfeet, so their success was always limited and short-lived. Enter Alexander Culbertson, the most influential person in the establishment and development of Fort Benton. Culbertson joined the American Fur Company in 1829 and soon became the principal trader with the Blackfeet. His wife, Natawista, was of the Canadian Blackfoot Blood Band, which gave Culbertson a great advantage in building trust with area tribes. In 1834, Culbertson took over the Company's fledgling trading post, Fort McKenzie, built two years earlier, a little downstream of the future Fort Benton site. In the spring, keelboats would come upriver from Fort Union with supplies and would take the season's take of pelts and hides back down in the fall before the river froze. Under Culbertson trading flourished and he remained in charge there until 1841. Culbertson's replacements were not so reputable and ended up massacring a number of Blackfeet trad- ers in January, 1842. Knowing the Blackfeet would come for revenge, they immediately abandoned the fort, running down river, leaving Fort McK- enzie to be burned to the ground by the Black- A Town Born of e River Fort Benton by DOUG STEVENS Alexander Culbertson, Founder of Fort Benton

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