Brock Osborne, age 10, of Butte, Mont., for his question:
HOW DID MONTANA GET ITS NAME?
Montana is the largest of the Rocky Mountain states and the fourth largest state in the United States. It got its name from the Latin word "montana," meaning "mountainous regions." The Indians called it the "land of the shining mountains."
Bordering Montana on the north are the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. To the east are North Dakota and South Dakota, to the south is Wyoming and to the west is Idaho.
Montana is about 560 miles wide from east to west and about 180 miles from north to south.
Only the western third of the state is mountainous and forested. The rest is made up of foothills and hilly, grass covered plains. The state's highest peak, located in the Beartooth Mountains, is Granite Peak, which reaches up 12,799 feet above sea level.
For centuries Montana was home to large numbers of Indians. Large tribes of Crows and Blackfeet lived on the eastern plains while Flatheads (Salish) and the Kootenai lived in the west.
French fur traders, the Verendryes brothers, came into the region in 1743 but didn't stay. And the famous Lewis and Clark expedition of 1805 and 1806 cut through the territory twice, on the way from St. Louis to the great Northwest and then back again.
A trapper named Manuel Lisa built a trading post at the mouth of the Bighorn River in 1807 and for the next 50 years there were lots of fur trappers in Montana from the Hudson's Bay Company and other organizations.
Jesuit missionaries under the leadership of Father Pierre Jean De Smet constructed the territory's first white settlement in 1841. It was the St. Mary's Mission in the Bitteroot Valley of western Montana.
Because of the cold winters, Montana didn't attract too many settlers until gold was discovered at Bannack in 1862.
In 1864 the United States Congress created the Montana Territory. On Nov. 8, 1889, Montana became the 41st state in the union.
Prior to statehood, there were a number of terrible wars between the settlers and the Indians. The Indians were upset because traders were killing buffalo in large numbers and settlers were taking their land. They started to raid mining camps and attack trains.
The 7th Cavalry under Col. George Custer was sent by the government in 1876 to put down the Cheyenne and the Sioux. On June 25 on the banks of the Little Bighorn River, the Indians put down Colonel Custer and all of his troops. The battle has come to be known as Custer's Last Stand.
Another major battle was fought in 1877 at Big Hole in the southwestern part of the territory. Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Indians surrendered to Gen. Nelson Miles in the Bear Paw Mountains after a hard fight.
After statehood, Montana's frontier era ended. There was a period of quieter development as homesteaders arrived and the plains were settled.