Basin

History

Archeologists think it likely that the first people to live in Montana crossed from Asia to North America over the Bering Land Bridge that existed during the last major Ice Age about 12,000 years ago. Because the middle of the continent was covered with sheets of ice, people who migrated south did so on trails along the edges of glaciers melted by seasonal warming. One such trail, called the Great North Trail, is thought to have followed the Rocky Mountain Front into Montana, passing close to Helena, north of Basin, and continuing into the east-central part of the state. Evidence of these early Paleo-Indians or Clovis people has been found at three sites, one of them the McHaffie site near Clancy about north of Basin. The age of the Clancy artifacts is estimated to be 10,000 years. The Clovis people are thought to have disappeared in about 4,000 to 5,000 BCE when the Montana climate became more dry and would not support the animal populations the Clovis needed to survive. About 2,000 years ago, a new prehistoric people known as the Late Hunters appeared in Montana, thriving on a bison (buffalo) population living in open grassy areas on the plains and in river valleys. The earliest tribes are thought to have been the Kootenai, who stayed west of the Continental Divide, and the Flathead (Salish), and Pend d'Oreilles, who ventured east of the mountains into and east of the Three Forks country, southeast of Basin. In the 17th century, the Crow entered Montana from the east and the Shoshone from the south. Pressed by other tribes retreating west from white European settlers, the Blackfeet moved into Montana around 1730. Acquiring horses and firearms, and numbering about 15,000, they formed alliances with other incoming tribes, the Assiniboine and the…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Clark's Nutcracker

  Nucifraga columbiana (A.Wilson, 1811) · Aves
  1,410
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  1,125
• Pine Siskin

  Spinus pinus (A.Wilson, 1810) · Aves
  880
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  848
• Eurasian Collared-Dove

  Streptopelia decaocto (Frivaldszky, 1838) · Aves
  799
• Mountain Bluebird

  Sialia currucoides (Bechstein, 1798) · Aves
  680
• American Goldfinch

  Spinus tristis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  628
• Northern Flicker

  Colaptes auratus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  528

Most recent

• M 2.9 — 2026-06-06
  14 km NNE of Twin Bridges, Montana
• M 3 — 2026-04-27
  16 km ESE of Butte, Montana
• M 2.8 — 2026-04-26
  19 km S of Lincoln, Montana
• M 2.5 — 2026-04-14
  16 km ESE of Harrison, Montana
• M 3.2 — 2025-12-09
  12 km NNW of Avon, Montana
• M 2.7 — 2025-07-26
  18 km W of Whitehall, Montana