Multicultural dig resumes at Fort Benton in Montana

In a world that sometimes seems on the road to perdition, Larry Cook revels in an era when different cultures lived together fairly peacefully.

A third-generation Fort Benton, Mont., resident, Cook has been key to helping protect the history of the town’s namesake trading post, erected along the Missouri River in 1847. To that end, a gathering of state and federal officials and volunteers took part in an archaeological dig at the trading post site, starting on Wednesday.

“You can tell when they find something, everyone yells and cheers,” Cook said. “It’s a lot of fun.”

The work this time was being concentrated on the Engages’ Quarters, where workers at the fort lived in the second story of a long adobe building that housed shops below. Halfway through Wednesday, the dig had already uncovered a 3 ½-inch wide cannonball, a woman’s trade ring, and numerous rifle flints and trade beads.

“I have not seen a cannonball in many sites that weren’t related to the Civil War,” said Josh Chase, a Bureau of Land Management archaeologist taking part in the work.

In 2020, the old trading post’s kitchen was excavated, he said.

Founder

Cook translates the importance of the trading post into modern terms when he compared it to a pioneering Walmart store with a variety of goods. Indians would trade furs for manufactured products brought upstream on boats. It wasn’t until 1859 that the first steamboats arrived, accelerating the importance of the site as a jumping off point for trade goods and people traveling farther west.

“It was just a post in the middle of Indian Country,” Cook said.

The steamboat era was short-lived, with the last boat leaving from Fort Benton in 1868.

Alexander Culbertson was the man behind the establishment of Fort Benton. He first arrived in the frontier territory as an employee of the American Fur Company in 1829. By 1846 he had established Fort Lewis along the Missouri River, about 18 miles upstream from Fort Benton. According to historical accounts, Fort Lewis was dismantled and the logs floated downstream to build Fort Benton at the request of the Blackfeet Tribe, which desired a better location on the north side of the Missouri River.

Married to a Blackfeet woman around 1840, Culbertson was highly regarded by the tribe.

“I love that era when Natives and trappers shared their cultures and intermarried,” Cook said.

Likewise, Cook and his contemporaries have made an effort to integrate the Blackfeet into the work at Fort Benton, he said.

Fort

Like similar forts along the Missouri River, Fort Benton was built in a quadrangle, the fort was more than 150 feet square and included two block houses on opposite corners that provided lookout posts and defensive firing positions. Thinking adobe might stand up to the Montana weather better, Culbertson ordered the fort rebuilt with adobe in 1848, creating 27-inch-thick walls, a remodeling job that continued for the next 12 years.

As a result of Culbertson’s efforts, Fort Benton is considered the first permanent settlement in Montana. Remains of the old fort were honored as some of the oldest, if not the oldest, buildings in Montana. That anything remained standing at all was thanks to the Daughters of the American Revolution, who in 1908 reportedly received $1,500 from the Montana Legislature to preserve the last remaining structure, the northeast bastion.

Last hurrah

Once the current dig is completed, the local River & Plains Society and Fort Benton Restoration Committee have proposed rebuilding the structure and the fort’s kitchen as part of the trading post’s refurbishment.

“What they have redone has been really well done,” Chase said.

A former teacher, river outfitter and guide, Cook is hoping others will carry on the important work of preserving the town’s history as his contemporaries age out. He’s also continuing to work hard to raise money for restoration now.

That could range from $500,000 to $1 million depending on construction costs, he estimated.

“We’re getting old, so I hope to raise the last bit of money,” Cook said.

French may be contacted at french@billingsgazette.com.