Judith Landing Historic District
Few Montana places encompass as much varied history as Judith Landing. For millennia, Native peoples used this wide landing spot as a seasonal campground and burial site. Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark camped nearby in May 1805, naming the Judith River after Clark’s future wife. Fur traders and naturalists also used the landing. Nearby, in 1855, paleontologist Ferdinand Hayden collected the first skeletal dinosaur remains officially documented in North America. Important tribal peace councils brought numerous Indigenous people to Council Island in September 1846 and October 1855. The first council forged peace between the Blackfeet and several western tribes. The second, called Lame Bull’s treaty, established boundaries for a communal hunting ground and paved the way for non-Indian settlement. In 1866, the U.S. Army built Camp Cooke west of the Judith River to protect steamboats. Soon, merchant Thomas C. Power set up a commissary and trading post nearby to supply the camp. After Camp Cooke closed in 1870, Power and his partner, James Wells, bought the camp and renamed it Fort Clagett. Circa 1880, Wells moved Fort Clagett here, just east of the Judith, drove the ranch’s founding cattle up from Texas, established a post office, and built a stone warehouse and store. As ranching flourished in the area, Gilman R. Norris took charge in 1883 and with Power started the Judith Mercantile and Cattle Co., also known as the PN Ranch. Norris’s elegant 1901 ranch house still reflects the high status of the PN and brings attention to this multi-faceted historic landscape.
Judith Landing Store/Warehouse
Judith Landing Historic District
After the U.S. military established Camp Cooke west of the Judith River in 1866, Fort Benton merchant Thomas C. Power built a trading post nearby to supply soldiers and area Indians. When Camp Cooke closed in 1870, Power renamed the post Fort Clagett and hired James Wells as manager. Through the…
View Place Show on Map
Judith Landing Post Office
Judith Landing Historic District
In 1877, a fast-moving flood damaged much of the original Fort Clagett trading post, located about a mile to the west. Consequently, manager James Wells moved the trading post here, out of harm’s way and closer to a safer river crossing. As steamboat traffic declined, Wells shifted his business to…
View Place Show on Map
Judith Landing Norris Ranch House
Judith Landing Historic District
Gilman (Bill) and Pauline Norris had this spacious gambrel-roof house built in 1901 for $6,000. The Craftsman style home with its wraparound porch, stone fireplaces, and second-story balcony was a mansion compared to the Norris’s former three-room residence. A Civil War veteran, Bill had come west…
View Place Show on Map