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Shelby
Location: At the junction of Highway 2
and I-15 in northcentral Montana; 36 miles
south of the Canadian border. Population:
3500. Visitor Information: Shelby Area
Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center,
100 Montana Avenue, PO Box 865 Shelby,
Montana 59474; Phone: (406) 434-7184;
Email:
shelbycoc@3rivers.net; Website:
www.shelbymtchamber.org.
When the Great Northern Railroad was being
built toward Marias Pass in 1891, the crew plunked
down a boxcar and called it a train station. General
manager of the Montana-Central Railroad, Peter
Shelby is believed to have commented that the site
would never amount to much. He was wrong, as
Shelby has grown into a significant distribution trade Havre Beneath The Streets
center for 50 miles in every direction. photo by:
Patty Pickett
By 1913, homesteaders flooded into the area,
Havre
Location: On Northern Montana’s “Hi-Line”
Highway 2, about midway between the North
Dakota and Idaho borders; 103 miles east of
Shelby. Visitor Information: Havre Chamber of
Commerce, 518 1st Street, PO Box 308, Havre,
MT 59501; Phone: (406) 265-4383; Website:
www.havrechamber.com

Havre is a thriving “Hi-Line” town with a
population of over 10,000, making it Montana’s 8th
largest city. Transformed by the railroad, agriculture,
and business from raw prairie and bottomland, Havre
was incorporated in 1893. The town is scenically
situated near the Milk River and Bear Paw Mountains
and maintains 20 municipal parks with a variety of
recreational amenities.
Major attractions include the H. Earl Clack was constructed in 1879 to protect northern settlers
Museum, Havre Beneath the Streets, the Railroad after the Battle of the Little Big Horn and the Battle
Museum, Wakpa Chu’gn Buffalo Jump, Fort of the Bear Paws. It was the largest military post west
Assinniboine, and three local historic districts of the Mississippi and considered one of the most
representing residential, downtown, and railroad strategically important. Tours are available.
areas, with walking tour maps available for all. Located 21 miles east of Havre on Highway 2,
Over 65 million years ago, a large inland sea the Blaine County Museum in the town of Chinook
covered most of Montana, creating a semi-tropical provides an excellent introduction to the events of the
flood plain where large herds of dinosaurs lived, Battle of the Bear Paw Mountains. The Battlefield, 15
migrated, and nested. Many discoveries of worldwide “bordello” indicate that 27 beds once occupied the miles south of Chinook on Highway 240, marked the
significance have been made in Montana. One such narrow room. end of the epic 1,200-mile flight of the Nez Perce,
find from the Havre area, consisting of an egg nest Overlooking the Milk River on the northern from their homeland in Oregon and Idaho toward
casting of extremely rare dinosaur eggs with embryos, edge of Havre, the 2,000-year-old buffalo jump eastern Montana and Canada.
is on display in the H. Earl Clack Museum, as well Wahkpa Chu’gn is the most extensive and best-
as an infant Lambeosaur. Located in Holiday Village preserved buffalo bone deposit in the northern Great Deer Lodge
Mall, museum hours are seasonal and tours are Plains. Extensive material can be seen at actual Location: On I-90; 37 miles west of Butte;
available with advance notice. archaeological excavations, where a 20-foot wall of 83 miles east of Missoula. Population: 3100.
Havre Beneath the Streets and the Railroad Native American artifacts, buffalo bones, and skulls Visitor Information: Powell County Chamber
Museum are fascinating attractions providing visitors has been left in place. Tours are seasonal. of Commerce, 1109 Main Street, Deer Lodge,
a unique glimpse into the rowdy early history of the Situated 6 miles south of Havre, Fort Assinniboine MT 59722; Phone: (406) 846-2094; Email:
cowboy, bootlegging, and railroad town. In 1887,
railroad tycoon James J. Hill started laying hundreds
of miles of track across the empty expanse of North
Dakota and Montana Territory. The Railroad Museum
preserves that vital history with an extensive display
of railroad antiques and paraphernalia. A volatile mix
of railroaders, soldiers, miners, and cowboys coupled
with isolated location and lack of law enforcement led
to the reputation as the rowdiest town in the west.
Havre Beneath the Streets recreates one of the
town’s many bordellos in a space that was once
a “safe house” for the Chinese, who found it wiser
to stay beneath the streets at night than to deal with
the prejudiced nightlife. Reports also claim the
space served as a onetime “flop house” for itinerant
cowboys, hobos, or overly enthusiastic patrons of the
Sporting Eagle Saloon. Numbers on the walls of the
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