Bozeman Magazine

The year Montana became a state comes alive in Ken Egan Jr.’s “Montana 1889,” a vivid description of the people and politics swirling through Montana during that crucial time. Insightful and compelling, Egan’s new book makes a worthy sequel to his “Montana 1864,” the highly acclaimed history about Montana’s territorial year.

Egan, executive director of Humanities Montana in Missoula, said he was was struck by the changes between those years. “It was one of the most rapid and dramatic transformations of land and peoples in United States history,” Egan said.

Between 1864 and 1889, the buffalo were exterminated, the Indian wars ended, tribal nations were confined to reservations, cattle and sheep by the tens of thousands grazed the open range, Butte exploded into a city with electricity and millionaires, and multiple railroads connected Montana to the world. “Montana 1889” tells the many stories of this overwhelming transformation by entering into the lives, emotions, and decisions of Indians, miners, cowboys, women, and entrepreneurs who were cooperating and competing in the new state.