Sweetgrass Hills

  The Sweetgrass Hills in the northern part of Liberty County are really mountains and unique in that they are the highest isolated peaks in the United States.  Rising to nearly 7000 feet, these mountains are volcanic in origin and believed to be millions of years old. 

 
Charles M. Russell, the famous Montana cowboy painter, knew these hills well and did quite a lot of painting there.  Russell had a partnership in a ranch located on Kicking Horse Creek in West Butte.  He declared the scenery of the Hills picture perfect since he used them as a backdrop for many of his paintings.

  The history of the hills is colorful and exciting.  Lewis and Clark saw these hills and recorded them as  "the broken hills".  Later trappers and prospectors came to the hills and there was a short gold rush.

  These hills were a Blackfoot Indian Reservation and soldiers were assigned to the area in 1888.  A military camp was located on the south side of East Butte.

  Indians and early explorers used the Hills as a lookout for game and trouble.  Teepee rings may be found in several locations along with piskun or buffalo jumps.  There are many caves of varying sizes in the hills, some of seven or more rooms.

  Gold mining of long ago has left behind the remains of a ghost town on Gold (Middle) Butte.  There were thousands of people there at one time but the days of extensive gold panning are gone.  There have been many reports of fabulous deposits of many minerals such as gold, silver, copper, lead and also coal but none have been verified accurately or extensively enough to warrant development. 

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