The Montana Post was the state’s first newspaper, started in Virginia City on July 17, 1864. It was started by Thomas Josiah Dimsdale, who ran the newspaper until August, 1866, when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 35.
Mullan Road was the first wagon road to cross the Rocky Mountains into the Pacific Northwest (from Fort Benton to Fort Walla Walla, Washington). Although construction was led by Lieutenant John Mullan in 1859, the route was never heavily used by military and primarily served as a road for civilians settling the northwestern U.S.
The First Nations of Montana were Native Americans who inhabited the region long before white settlers. These tribes include the Crow, Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Assiniboine, Gros Ventres, Kootenai, Salish, Pend d’Oreille, and Kalispel.
The Alice Mine in Walkerville (a suburb of Butte) was the site of Montana’s first electric light bulb. Conflicting reports say that the light was installed in either 1880 or 1881.
The Utah & Northern Rail Company laid the first rails in Montana Territory on May 9, 1880. Although the company had been trying to connect Salt Lake City to Montana for years, insufficient funding led to a takeover by the Union Pacific in 1877, with the first Union Pacific train pulling into Butte on December 26, 1881.
Alice Greenough Orr of Red Lodge was the first inductee into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Texas in 1975. Widely considered the original rodeo queen, she won three national rodeo titles in the 1930s and 1940s, and occasionally did stunt work in films.