Glasgow merchants John and Robert Lewis did not face much competition when they opened a bank in a corner of their general store in 1891. Their bank was the only one within over two hundred miles. Despite an initial lack of experience, the Lewis brothers successfully steered the enterprise through economic shoals that doomed many other Montana banks: the panics of 1893 and 1907 and the agricultural depression of the 1920s. During Glasgow’s boom years, the bank thrived, moving first to a brick building in 1900 and then, amidst the homesteading boom, to this Beaux Arts business block. National banks, prohibited from investing in real estate other than their own buildings, often constructed banks with surplus office space. First National Bank of Glasgow was no exception. Designed by prominent St. Paul architects Charles Buechner and Henry Orth, this 1914 building housed retail stores and the bank on the first floor and business offices and an apartment for Robert Lewis on the second floor. The two-story building displays the symmetrical façade and exuberant ornamentation associated with the Beaux Arts style: entry porches with roofs supported by graceful Corinthian columns, second-floor balconies, elaborated pilasters, and decorative terra-cotta detailing. Built on the community’s busiest street, both for security (to deter bank robbers) and for customer convenience, the building helped mark Glasgow’s coming of age. Its architecture expressed a solidity, stability, and grandeur that symbolized safety and permanence, both for the bank and for the community itself.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

Water is the life blood of Montana. During the state’s early settlement, the rivers provided transportation and trading routes; later they sustained the livestock and crops of ranchers and homesteaders; and they still provide Montana’s base for agriculture, industry, and tourism. The Milk River that parallels Highway 2 from Glasgow to Hinsdale is one of the most important rivers in the north central part of the state.

One of the earliest Milk River users was Augustin Armel (AKA Hamel) who arrived about 1820. He worked at all the major American Fur Co. posts on the Missouri River until the 1850s. In 1855, he opened Hammell’s House, the first trading post on the Milk River, located about 7 miles southwest of here (near Vandalia). Tom Campbell’s House followed, built near the same site in 1870. Neither lasted very long, and no physical remains of them have been found.

Later comers to this region raised mostly cattle, sheep, and wheat. They needed water on more of the land than was blessed with it and today you can see the irrigation system along Highway 2. The Lower Milk River Valley Water Users Association promoted the construction of the Vandalia Dam and Canal in the early 1900s. Area rancher, H. H. Nelson, interested in attracting settlers, became involved in irrigation after establishing Vandalia in 1904. Nelson was director and superintendent for construction of the dam at Vandalia and the canal that runs from there east to Nashua. The dam was completed in 1917. Nelson’s hopes for a sizable settlement at Vandalia never materialized.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.

For thousands of years, northern Montana was covered under massive ice sheets. Glaciologists aren't sure why the ice ages began, but the process of glaciation is known because of the mark it leaves on the landscape. About 190,000 years ago, glaciers pushed their way onto the northern Great Plains of Montana from the north and northeast. This area was near the southern extent of the glacial ice sheet, so the ice depth was thinner than it was further north. As the glacier moved south, it blocked the Missouri River, forcing it to seek an ice-free channel to the south.

The ice sheet lasted until about 130,000 years ago when it melted away. The ice left behind a radically changed landscape, dotted with small ponds and glacial till. Large boulders, called erratics, now litter the plains in this area along with extensive gravel beds. The glacier deposited the material as it moved across the landscape or it was deposited after the ice sheets melted. Some of the erratics came from as far away as northern Manitoba or were torn from rock outcrops west of Lake Winnipeg. The Missouri River never returned to its original channel, instead it is now occupied by the Milk River between Havre and Wolf Point. About 25,000 years ago, the Wisconsin ice sheet pushed south into northeastern Montana, but the highlands to the northwest diverted the glaciers to the east and west, leaving a large ice-free pocket between Glasgow and Hinsdale. The Wisconsin ice sheet retreated from Montana about 11,000 to 8,000 years ago.

In 1919, motorists called US 2 the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway. Promoted as "the most wonderful Highway in America," the road in Montana was a series of interconnected rutted country roads that became gumbo mud when wet. Despite the hazards, the route was a popular one with motorists in the early days of automobile travel.

Geo-Facts:

• The bedrock between Malta and Wolf Point is dark shales and brown sandstone deposited in the shallow water of the Western Interior Seaway during Cretaceous time.

• Glaciologists aren't sure how thick the ice was during the glacial periods in northeastern Montana. The glaciers thickened and thinned with the seasons and during the advance or retreat of the ice sheets.

• During the thousands of years between the Illinoian and Wisconsin ice sheets, mammoths, giant bison and horses lived in this area.

Geo-Activity:

• As you drive through the area, see if you can spot some of the clues that this area was once covered by glaciers. Some suggestions are small ponds, gravel piles, and large boulders that look out of place.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.