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Big Timber, MT
Big Timber is located in south-central Montana bordered by the Yellowstone and Boulder Rivers, and is the county seat of Sweet Grass County, Montana. The population was 1,650 at the 2020 census.
Captain William Clark led The Corps of Discovery into what is now Sweet Grass County in 1806, but it wasn’t until 1883, and the Northern Pacific Railroad came through, that Big Timber (formerly named Dornix) was born. A railroad station was constructed at Dornix, a small settlement at the confluence of the Boulder and Yellowstone rivers, whose economy revolved around a sawmill. Within a very short time, Dornix moved to higher ground and renamed Big Timber for the large cottonwood trees growing along the rivers. Big Timber was within the Crow Indian reservation lands until 1891 when the Crow Nation ceded their lands west of the Boulder River to the United States Government.
In 1880, two Irishmen, Charles McDonnell, and Edward Veasey drove 3,000 head of sheep from California to Montana, beginning a long history of sheep and cattle ranching in the area. In 1901 the first woolen mill in Montana was built in Big Timber, and at one time Big Timber shipped more wool than any other city in the United States. While farming and ranching are still the backbones of the area, platinum/palladium mining has become a major contributor to the economy.
