National Montana Day Date in the current year: May 3, 2025

Montana is a landlocked state in the Western United States, bordered by Idaho, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan. It is one of the nine Mountain states, along with Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. In fact, the name Montana is derived from the Spanish word montaña, which means “mountain”.

Montana has no official nickname, but it does have several unofficial ones: Big Sky Country, The Last Best Place, Treasure State (used on license plates), and Land of the Shining Mountains. The Treasure State is Montana’s best-known nickname; it is a reference to the state’s rich mineral reserves. The nickname “Big Sky Country” comes from the 1947 Western novel The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie Jr. The origin of the phrase “The Last Best Place” is disputed. It is believed to have been first used in A Beast the Color of Winter by Douglas Chadwick and popularized by The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology, edited by William Kittredge.

For thousands of years, the territory of present-day Montana was inhabited by various indigenous peoples, including the Crow, Cheyenne, Lakota, Blackfeet, Assiniboine, Gros Ventres, Kootenai, Salish, and Kalispel. When Europeans began colonizing North America, most of what is now Montana was claimed by France, but the French never established settlements or sent expeditions there because the region was too remote.

In 1803, the United States gained control of the territory as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Present-day Montana was then explored by the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The first non-Indigenous settlements in Montana were established in the 1840s: St. Mary’s Mission in 1841 and Fort Benton in 1846.

The territory of present-day Montana was originally part of Nebraska Territory (until 1861), then Dakota Territory (until 1863) and Idaho Territory. Montana Territory was organized from a part of Idaho Territory in 1864 after gold had been discovered in the region. The population of the territory grew rapidly, and a little more than five years after its creation, Montana Territory was admitted to the Union as the 41st state. Montana officially joined the Union on November 8, 1889, with the same boundaries as Montana Territory.

National Montana Day was created in 2017 by National Day Calendar to honor Montana as the 41st state to join the Union. National Day Calendar created the National State Days project to recognize and celebrate the rich diversity of America’s cultural and historical landscape. Each state has its own State Day to celebrate its unique history, heritage, and culture. Celebrations begin with National Delaware Day on July 13, and National Montana Day falls on May 3.