Columbus, located ten miles west of here, has a rich and colorful history. In 1874, whiskey trader Horace Countryman built a trading post a few miles west of the future site of Columbus. The Crow Reservation was then on the south side of the Yellowstone River and, at first, his main customers were Crow Indians. Two years later, Countryman's trading post became a stage station called Stillwater. He opened a post office at the station in 1877. Other men saw potential in the trade with the Crows. In 1879, business partners Mithoff and Kaufman opened a trading post opposite the mouth of the Stillwater River. Called Eagle's Nest, the post proved more popular than Countryman's venture, boasting a hotel, blacksmith, harness shop, and a telegraph station along with a few dwellings. The traders distilled a particularly vile whiskey that tasted like insecticide, earning the trading post the nickname of "Sheep Dip.:

By 1881, Countryman had relocated his stage station and post office, still called Stillwater to the present site of Columbus. Eagle's Nest and its infamous whiskey, soon disappeared. After the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1882, Stillwater prospered as an important shipping and trade center in the area. Countryman became a respectable businessman in the community and a hero to some for his 200-mile ride to Helena with news of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. In 1894, the railroad and post authorities changed the name of the settlement from Stillwater to Columbus to avoid confusion with a similarly named community in Minnesota.

In 1899, a group of Montana businessmen created the Montana Sandstone Company to quarry building stone north of Columbus. The stone was used to construct buildings all over Montana, including the State Capitol building in Helena. In 1913, Columbus became the seat of the newly created Stillwater County.

"Our course led us past Countryman's ranch, a couple of miles below the camp, the last occupied house on the Yellowstone. It is a trading establishment, whisky being the principal commodity and the customers being Crow Indians." - Lieutenant James H. Bradley

Ho! For the States!

For a short time in the 1860s, fleets of Mackinaw boats plied the Yellowstone River, carrying passengers and cargo downstream to the "States." For many sojourners, the thought of backtracking along the route they took to Montana to reach home wasn't very appealing. Instead, many people took an easier route: floating down the Yellowstone on vessels resembling Mackinaw boats. Overland the trip could take several months, but on a boat, it took about a month. Entrepreneurs built the boats at the Great Bend of the Yellowstone, near present Livingston, to float their passengers downriver. Mackinaw boats in name only they were up to 50 feet long and 12 feet wide with flat bottoms to navigate over the many gravel bars and rapids on the river. Each boat had a crew of five: four oarsmen and one man at the rudder. Boat tickets averaged about $35 per person, comparable to today's airline fares.

The first boats sailed from the Great Bend near present Livingston in September 1864. The relative ease of the trip attracted more passengers in 1865, including territorial judge Hezekiah Hosmer and his family. His son, Allen, published an account of the journey, A Trip to the States. In it, he described the day-to-day events of the voyage and recounted how the passengers feared an attack by the Northern Cheyenne and Lakota Indians. Hosmer's cruise occurred when hostilities between Indians and travelers on the Bozeman Trail has erupted into war. He wrote "If it were not for the expectation of being fired into by (the Indians) every night, the traveler would enjoy the trip hugely." While Hosmer's trip was relatively uneventful, other voyages in 1866 and 1867 were not so lucky. By 1868, boat traffic on the Yellowstone River had all but ceased because the violence along the Bozeman Trail made this kind of travel too dangerous.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.