Fort Benton, Montana's
National Historic Landmark District
&
Steamboat Levee Walk
|
The levee at Fort Benton
saw
its first
visitor when Captain Meriwether Lewis, beating a hasty retreat from the
Blackfeet, boarded his canoe here and
hurried down river.
During the early years of
the fort the levee was a quiet place. A few keel boats were tied up, canoes and
bullboats rested on the bank and mackinaws were under construction for the one-way trip
with buffalo robes to St. Louis in the fall.
|
|
|
|
|
That all changed overnight with the arrival
of the first steamboat in 1860 and discovery of gold in 1862. Buildings sprang up on
the levee for over a mile upriver from the fort. Fort Benton became the world's
innermost port...and the toughest town in the West. With the civil war over and the
glint of gold in most people's eyes. Southerner and Yankee alike headed upriver to
strike it rich. For ten years people from all walks of live came and went across the
Fort Benton levee. There was little or no law on the upper river except for
vigilante justice. |
As you walk along the levee today, you can
almost picture the saloons, dance halls and brothels open to all comers.
Do you see
Madame Moustache dashing out to drive off a smallpox-laden steamboat? Bullwhackers
and mule skinners brandished their whips and swore at the endless wagon trains headed to
all parts of the Northwest. You may dodge a bullet or two from frequent gun fights,
or watch your back as you played aces-high poker in one the many establishment along Front
Street. It was a most colorful place! |
|
With the arrival of the Northwest Mounted
Police north of the border in 1874, Fort Benton took on an air of respectability.
The Golden Years of the 1880's brought brick buildings, prosperity, families, law and
order. Large numbers of steamboats continued to dock until the railroad arrived,
when it all ended as rapidly as it had begun. The levee returned to a more peaceful
time and those wild days of the past can only be relived in your
imagination. |
Today you can walk along the levee and historic
district and read the many interpretive signs that help
to bring the wild times alive once more. |
|
|
