Montana

Montana was admitted to the Union as the forty-first state on November 8, 1889. With a total area of 147,046 square miles (380,849 square kilometers), Montana is the fourth-largest state in America and the largest of the eight Rocky Mountain states. Located in the northwestern United States, it is bordered by Wyoming , Idaho , Canada, North Dakota , and South Dakota . Its capital is Helena. Nicknamed the Treasure State, it is also often called Big Sky Country.

Historians believe the first European explorers to visit Montana were French Canadian fur traders and trappers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The state's written history dates back only to 1803. That is the year most of Montana was given to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase .

Montana's economy was built around the fur trade until the discovery of gold in 1858. By the late 1800s, cattle ranchers exploited the vast open ranges of the state. The construction of Montana's railroads between 1880 and 1909 reignited the mining industry, and by 1890, 40 percent of the nation's copper demands were met from mining efforts in the Butte copper pits.

With the railroads bringing wave upon wave of homesteaders, Montana's population doubled between 1900 and 1920. During that same period, the number of farms and ranches increased from 13,000 to 57,000. Life for this agricultural community became extraordinarily difficult during the Great Depression (1929–41), which occurred at the same time as a severe and relentless drought. The New Deal , the economic plan launched by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945; served 1933–45), was popular in Montana, and it helped breathe new life into farming and silver mining.

The state's fossil fuels industry developed quickly throughout the 1970s, an era in which Americans experienced an energy crisis. The industry leveled off after the crisis and fell into decline in the early 1980s. During that time, Butte copper mining came to a halt as mining operations closed.

Montana was home to 944,632 people in 2006. The population was overwhelmingly white (90.6 percent), with another 6 percent being American Indian or Alaska Native and 2.2 percent of Hispanic descent. Twenty-nine percent of the population was between the ages of forty-five and sixty-four.

In addition to mining, lumbering, and agriculture, tourism became increasingly important to Montana's economy in the twenty-first century. Employment in the service industries exceeded that in manufacturing and mining throughout the 1990s. Montana is not a wealthy state. In 2004, its per-person income averaged $27,657, compared to a national average of $33,050. During the years 2002–4, 14.3 percent of residents lived below the federal poverty level, compared to a national average of 12.4 percent.