History of Billings

Perhaps 40,000 years ago, prehistoric man stalked the woolly mammoth in this valley. He called the grassy plain beneath the sandstone cliffs home. Both he and the mammoth had vanished when the Crow Nation acquired its first horses and began its reign along the stream they called the Elk River

Fur trappers found their way into this area following that same stream--the river that came to be known as the Yellowstone. Then came the steamboats and the town of Coulson. But even Coulson was doomed. Far away, men sweating in the summer sun were laying track. The twin iron snakes of the railroad were inching toward this valley to bring change unlike any witnessed by the previous freeholders of this land. Men drew lines on paper, and then used those papers to guide them in cutting the land into checkerboard squares. In 1882 the Northern Pacific Railroad owned the land and a spot beneath the cliffs called Billings, named for its then President, Frederick Billings Sr.

In its muddy streets, along its rows of tents, newcomers swarmed filled with excitement of a town being born. The men and women who filled the fledging settlement re-christened the local geography. They labeled dry watercourses Alkali Creek, Blue Creek, Pryor Creek, Duck Creek, and Canyon Creek. They called the soaring yellow cliffs "the Rimrocks." And they nicknamed their settlement the "Magic City". It was growing like magic, they said.

Daily the trains arrived and settlers stepped off into a community buzzing with dreams. Judge Moss built his mansion on Division Street and surrounded it with the City's first paved streets. Calamity Jane tended her horses west of town and tended her thirst in the city's saloons. The city grew. Like they said, it was magic.

The pace quickened and the builders swallowed up farms surrounding the cluster of houses around the NP depot. World War II came and ended, with young men who had left their family's homes returning to buy their own houses and start their own families. The City became an agricultural center, a trade center, home of the area's medical complex and a colony of oilmen with Texas accents.

In 1970, Mayor Willard Fraser would meet celebrities at the airport on top of the Rims and take them to the edge of the cliff. With a sweep of his arm, he would say: "This is our city. Its borders extend 300 miles in any direction." It was true then and it is true today. Billings has become the "uptown" for the area that stretches south into Wyoming and north nearly to the Canadian border. It is the wholesaler's headquarters, the transportation hub, the home office of government and industry in this region.

And the growth continues, feeding on itself. "It's magic."