51^st Annual Montana History Conference

Video Recordings

Central to History: Exploring Great Falls and Beyond, the 51^st annual Montana History Conference was held in Great Falls, September 26-28 at the Heritage Inn.

If you missed a session because there were too many to choose from, or if you couldn’t make the conference, select a presentation from the links below to view a YouTube video recording. These videos can also be accessed in the 2024 Montana History Conference Playlist on the MTHS YouTube channel. In addition, you can find past conference programs or listen to session recordings here.

Friday, September 27

• Plenary Breakfast
  • Cultural Cascade: The Epicenter of Montana History, Martha Kohl
• Concurrent Sessions (9:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.)
  • They Headed West
    • Go West Young Man: The Life of Paris Gibson, Bill Dakin
    • Martha Edgerton Plassman: Resilient Montana Woman, Benjamin Sanders
  • Indigenous Pathways
    • Shoshone-Bannocks: Central to History, Nolan Brown, Bailey Dann
    • Blackfeet Travelling Medicine Show, Kathy Martin
  • Prairie Skyscrapers
    • Disappearing Artifacts of Central Montana's Agricultural Landscapes, Kate Geer, Jared Schmitz
• Concurrent Sessions (11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.)
  • Creative Catholics
    
    • Page and Werner's College of Great Falls Campus, Patty Dean, Lesley Gilmore
    • A Tale of Two Sisters, Kirby Lambert
  • Captured on Glass and Film
    
    • The More You Do, the More It Comes to You: Lee Steen and the Tree People, Lindsay Tran
    • The Montana Film, Jon Axline
  • Facing the Music
    
    • Garth Brooks and the Evolution of Entertainment at the Montana State Fair, Cody Ewert
• Plenary Luncheon
  • Becoming Little Shell, Chris La Tray
• Concurrent Sessions (2:15 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.)
  • Documenting the West
    
    • For the Record: Telling Fort Benton's Story from 1880 to Today, Bethany Monroe DeBorde
    • Re-visioning the West: Deep Mapping Non-White Montana, Dr. Delia Hagen
  • Livestock and Livelihood
    • Montana Bunchgrass Country-Horse Racing and Raising in North Central Montana, Brenda Wahler
    • Livestock Disease and State Power: The State Veterinarian and the Livestock Sanitary Board from 1884-1917, Dr. Kerri Clement
  • Cooking and Community
    • Roots, Rhubarb, and Raspberry Pie, Molly Kruckenberg, Mary Murphy, Zoe Ann Stoltz, and Jan Zauha
• Concurrent Sessions (3:45 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.)
  • Perspectives on Military Life
    • Entirely Uncomfortable: Frontier Army Life on the Upper Missouri, Austin Haney
    • Fort Assiniboine and the 1896 Cree Deportation Act, Gabriel Furshong
  • Women of Virtue and Vice
    • Trial and Triumph: Cascade County Women at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, Andrea Radke-Moss
    • The Notorious Mollie Thompson in Great Falls, Daniel Wells
  • Making Preservation Pencil Out
    
    • Investing in Montana History Through Historic Preservation Tax Credits, Jenny Buddenborg, Peter Jennings, and Heather Mcmilin

Saturday, September 30

• Breakfast and Keynote
  • Building Malmstrom's Missile Fields in Central Montana, Troy A. Hallsell
• Concurrent Sessions (9:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.)
  • Humans and the Environment
    
    • Overrun with Fire: The Environmental Consequences of Beaver Removal during the Pacific Northwest Fur Trade, Amber Bell
    • Prairie Prophets: Deborah and Frank Popper and the Legacy of the Buffalo Commons, Angus Bisgard Cummings
  • Métis and Chippewa Cree Stories 
    • Métis in Montana, Alisa Herodes, Ken Robison
    • Controversy in Great Falls: Montana's Native Americans and the politics of Conscription from 1940-41, James Compton
• Concurrent Sessions (11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.)
  • Away From Home
    • Off Reservation Boarding Schools in Cascade County, Kristi Scott
    • The Crow Indian Student Experience at Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School: A Bittersweet Legacy, Dr. Janine Pease
  • Great Falls: City of Industry
    
    • Ghosts of an Industrial Behemoth, Richard Ecke
    • Stories of Great Falls Breweries, Megan Sanford