Chester

Imagine you are a time traveler and have the opportunity to visit this area 25,000 years ago. You would recognize the Rocky Mountains to the west. The igneous and heavily glaciated Sweetgrass Hills loom on the horizon far to the north. The last of the great continental glaciers had retreated, leaving behind a hummocky grassland with ponds, swamps, and erratic boulders. The grasslands with an abundance of animal life, much of which would be recognizable as still inhabiting the northern Great Plains today. However, there would also be many animals that have long been extinct. Almost all of them would be much larger and adapted to a colder post-glacial climate.

Great herds of horses, pronghorn antelope, elk, camels, and giant bison would be a common site on the plains. The milled around with groups of blond-haired Shasta ground sloths, and shaggy Musk and Shrub oxen. Columbian mammoths with long, curving tusks roamed the plains in small groups. Dire and Gray wolves and short-faced bears followed the herds in search of easy meals. At 10-feet in length and more than 2,000 pounds the bears dwarfed today's Grizzlies in size and ferocity. Perhaps the most famous of all Pleistocene predators were the feared saber-toothed cats. Relatively small and compact, the cats may have ambushed their prey and slashed them with their 7-inch long canine teeth. Perhaps even more deadly, however, was the long-legged American Lion, a killing machine bigger than the Bengal tiger. Climate changes, limited food supplies, and possibly, over-hunting by paleo-Indians caused many species once common to the northern Great Plains to become extinct about 11,000 years ago. The American bison, gray wolf, elk, and pronghorn antelope are descendants of that primeval ecology.

Paleo-Facts:

Shasta ground sloths migrated to North America from South America about one million years ago. The animals weighed between 300 and 400 pounds, were about nine feet long, and walked on their knuckles. Shasta ground sloths went extinct nearly 11,000 years ago.

About 11,000 years ago the first humans entered this game-rich landscape. These early paleo-Indian hunter-gatherers are best known for hunting mammoths and bison using spears tipped with beautifully-flaked Clovis and Folsom points.

Megafauna is a term sometimes use to describe Pleistocene mammals. It refers to animals that were long-lived with slow population growth rates, and few or no natural predators capable of killing adults. Mammoths, dire wolves, shrub oxen, short-faced bears, saber-toothed cats, Shasta ground sloths, and humans are classified as megafauna.

Geo-Activity:

Imagine you are a paleo-Indian hunter during the Pleistocene era, which of the animals mentioned in the text would you like to hunt and which animals would you want to keep away from?

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.

The Great Northern Railway spread its tracks along the windswept Montana Hi-Line in the 1890s and the settlement of Chester emerged, named for the first telegraph operator’s Pennsylvania hometown. The rail line was straightened in 1907 and Chester picked up and moved a quarter mile from its original site to the present location. C. M. Atkins founded the First State Bank of Chester in 1909 and this handsome brick building, by far the most extravagant in town at the time, was completed in 1910. The bank served the prosperous agricultural community during the homestead boom. Like other banks across Montana, First State fell upon hard times as crops failed and homesteaders moved on. The bank closed in 1920, but the building continued to serve the community in a myriad of other ways. Over the years it was a residence, rooming house, bakery, pool hall, barbershop, and hospital, where a former lieutenant governor, Allen Kolstad, was born. Although safety dictated the removal of a second-story turret in the 1950s, Ionic columns, swan’s neck brackets, and graceful curved steps remain to frame the canted entrance. The original oak entry doors, pressed metal ceilings, woodwork, and the bank vault are still in place. Representative of small-town banks that once flourished across Montana, the landmark building is a community centerpiece and central to the town’s history. Students of Chester’s graduating class of 1997 researched and prepared the nomination for listing in the National Register of Historic Places in conjunction with the Montana Heritage Project.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

The Sweet Grass Hills posses special significance to the Blackfeet Indians and to other tribes on the northern Great Plains. According to legend, the creator Napi fashioned the hills in the dim past out of rocks left over from the formation of the Rocky Mountains. Napi liked his creation so much that the hills became a favored resting place for the old trickster. Located in the heart of a fertile bison hunting ground, the hills served as a vantage point for game and as a lookout for enemies trespassing in Blackfeet territory. Because of the isolation and connection with the creation of the earth, they have deep cultural significance to the Blackfeet as a spiritual refuge where teenage boys made vision quests to help guide them into adulthood. Many of the Blackfeet's traditional stories take place in and around the hills. One of those involves the Blackfeet culture hero Kutoyis (Blood-Clot Boy) who sought to rid the world of evil in the early history of the world. It was in the Sweet Grass Hills that Kutoyis defeated Lizard or Frog Man after an epic battle that lasted many days. The Blackfeet paid tribute to his memory by naming the hills "Kutoyisiks" in his honor.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.