Fort Benton

Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Sacagawea

Fort Benton, city, seat (1865) of Chouteau county, north-central Montana, U.S., on the Missouri River. A well-known American Fur Company outpost, it was founded (1846) as Fort Lewis by Major Alexander Culbertson and was renamed in 1850 for Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri. As the head of steamboat river navigation on the Missouri River, it became a boomtown as gold seekers and cattlemen, on their way west, used it as a supply point. With the building of the railroads, its importance as a transit point diminished. Cattle, sheep, and wheat are the economic mainstays of the modern city, and tourism is of increasing importance. Ruins of the old fort, preserved as a national historic landmark, are along the riverfront. The reconstruction of a replica of the fort was underway, with the help of the Blackfeet Nation, at the turn of the 21st century. A large collection of manuscripts and archives relating to the history of Fort Benton and the settlement of the northern Great Plains is housed in Fort Benton’s Schwinden Library and Archives. Inc. 1883. Pop. (2000) 1,594; (2010) 1,464.