Undaunted Stewardship®'s Historic Site Interpretive Displays

At least eight Montana ranches - all of them certified "Undaunted Land Stewards" - will each feature a free, public interpretive display. Most of the displays will be installed before the end of 2004. Focused on site history (especially the Lewis and Clark connections), ranch history and land stewardship, these will be the only large-scale, "National Park-style" interpretive displays on private land locations in America. They are listed here in the order in which the Corps of Discovery first visited them.

Pavlovick Ranch, Judith Landing of the Missouri River - Lewis and Clark Campsite, home to the Blackfeet Treaty of 1855 - The Corps of Discovery awakened to a stampeding buffalo the night they camped here, May 28, 1805 - Lewis wrote that his dog, Seaman, saved their lives. A reported 2,000 tipis and 15,000 Indians assembled here twice in the following 50 years, to negotiate treaties that transformed relations between the Blackfeet, Flathead and Gros Ventres tribes - and between the tribes and the U.S. government. Several frontier-era forts and trading posts also were located here. [To get there: Either float through the Missouri River Breaks National Monument - or take county road #233 South from Big Sandy. The display area is about 25 yards from the river; follow the path that begins directly across the road from Judith Landing General Store.]

Terry Ranch - Pilot Rock - On the Missouri River here, floaters catch their first sight of the White Cliffs area that inspired Meriwether Lewis to write about "scenes of visionary enchantment" - and famed Pilot Rock (which steamboat captains depended on as one of their landmarks along the river) stands right next to the ranch house. The Terry Ranch, still managed by members of the same family that homesteaded here over 100 years ago, also operates a riverfront horse-riding business (see www.pilotrocktrailrides.com) that stops in historic areas and combines trips with a separate river-floating company (see www.paddlestosaddles.com). The interpretive display, five miles upstream from the Bureau of Land Management's Eagle Creek Campground, is accessible only to floaters through the Missouri River Breaks National Monument.

ABN Ranch - Coal Banks & Thompson Homestead - This interpretive display is accessible only to floaters through the Missouri River Breaks National Monument. The ABN Ranch, on the south side of the river downstream from Coal Banks Landing, features an historic homestead, "coal banks" geology, and natural rangelands as well as farming. A small sign alerts floaters to the interpretive display's existence.

Ayrshire Dairy Farm - Upper Portage & White Bear Island Overlook - The Lewis and Clark Expedition spent a momentous month here, June-July 1805 - completing the portage at Great Falls; assembling Lewis's famed, failed iron boat; and preparing to cross the Rocky Mountains. They fought off grizzly bears, hunted bison, and carried supplies naked through brutal hail storms, wrongly expecting that a quick route to the Pacific Ocean lay just a few ridges away. Here they celebrated the nation's 29th birthday on July 4th, and drank the last of their "grog." [To get there: In Great Falls, take 10th Avenue South to 13th Street. Turn south on 13th and travel about four miles to 40th Street. Turn right (west) on 40th; the display area is on the left about 400 yards from 13th Street.]

Sieben Ranch and Hilger Hereford Ranch - Gates of the Mountains - Meriwether Lewis named the Gates of the Rocky Mountains on July 19, 1805. Once grazed by roaming dinosaurs, containing part of the north-south trail system known to have been walked by humans more than 8,000 years ago (the "Old North Trail"), these still-operating ranches played a central role in the origins of agriculture in Montana. [To get there: From Interstate 15, exit at "Gates of the Mountains" about 10 miles north of Helena. The display area is on the right, about 150 yards from I-15 on the road leading from the exit to the boat docks at Holter Lake.]

Beaverhead Gateway Ranch - Beaverhead Rock - "Our goal is to keep these lands as much as they were when Lewis and Clark saw them as possible," says its present-day owner. To Lewis and Clark, finding Beaverhead Rock on August 7, 1805 brought long-awaited relief - because it meant they would soon meet Sacagawea's tribe, the Shoshone, whose horses could make it possible to finish crossing the Rockies before Winter. For 22 years in the late 1800s, virtually everyone traveling between Helena and the state's territorial capitals, Bannack and Virginia City, passed by the Point of Rocks Hotel and Stage Station that operated here. [To get there: The display area is just south of Beaverhead Rock, on the west side of State Highway 141, about 15 miles north of Dillon.]

Hamilton Ranch - Carroll Hill - Down the road from Montana's first Territorial Capital, Bannack, these landscapes still look as they did when Lewis and Clark walked through the area - replete with the same camas plants the explorers ate to survive. It was near here that the Corps of Discovery met up with the Shoshone, Sacagawea's tribe. [To get there: Take State Highway 278 North, from its intersection with Interstate 15 just south of Dillon. The display area is next to the highway on Carroll Hill, at the top of the Big Hole Pass, roughly two miles north of the turnoff to Bannack.]

Mission Ranch - Fort Parker, Original Crow Agency - Captain Clark and his group camped directly on the opposite side of the Yellowstone River during their return trip to St. Louis, July 15, 1806. The ranch later became the site of Fort Parker, where the U.S. government based the first Crow Agency and sought - unsuccessfully - to convert the nomadic Crow tribe to an agricultural lifestyle. The fort was a "Who's Who" stopping-point for explorers and early settlers throughout the frontier era, including those whose travels helped persuade Congress to create nearby Yellowstone National Park in 1872. [To get there: Take the Mission Creek exit off Interstate 90, roughly 10 miles east of Livingston. The display area is about 150 yards south of the Interstate, on a county road that connects to the exit and runs perpendicular to I-90.]

Undaunted Stewardship® is a cooperative and multi-faceted program led by federal, state and private sector agencies, seeking to ensure the long-term maintenance of the environmental quality and economic productivity of privately-owned agricultural landscapes, especially in areas rich in history along the Lewis & Clark Trail in Montana.