User:Ltvine/Sandbox/WP History

Founding (1805 - 1915) & Toponomy
Research has not documented the first settlement at Wolf Point. The Lewis and Clark expedition first passed through the vicinity on its upriver journey on May 5, 1805, camping southeast of the site of the present day city. Wolf Point is referenced in James H. Chambers' Fort Sarpy Journal as a waypoint in his search for lost horses in April and May 1856, and in Major Edwin A. C. Hatch's diary of the same year.

The origin of the name Wolf Point is uncertain. In A. J. Noyes' 1917 book, In the Land of Chinook, or The Story of Blaine County, the author relays that Wolf Point "received its name from a large number of wolves that had been caught and piled up by Charlie Conklin and two other fellows, but the Indians came and they never got a chance to skin them."

Prior to 1860, transportation on the Missouri River above Fort Union was primarily by keelboat, mackinaw boat, bullboat, or canoe. In 1859, the steamboat Chippewa passed Wolf Point enroute to its eventual landing at Fort McKenzie, 12 mi below Fort Benton. The next year, seasonal steamboat traffic opened to Fort Benton with the landings of the vessels Chippewa and Key West. Wolf Point became a fuel stop for passing wood-fired steamboat traffic on the Missouri.

A settlement referred to as Old Town, oriented toward the river and anchored by a trading post licensed to trade with the Assiniboine people, developed with the creation of the Wolf Creek sub-agency in 1875. . One reference indicates two trappers lived in a cabin on the site of Old Town in 1873. The sub-agency was established in part to convert the Assiniboine band led by Chief Red Stone from a semi-nomadic to an agrarian way of life. The tribe's subsistence was undermined due to declining herds of buffalo, and restrictions on the access to ammunition and guns in trade for hunting especially after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. These factors served to increase their dependence on government rations. As reported by Chief Red Stone to Colonel J. M. G. Whistler, commander at Fort Buford, more than 100 of Red Stone's band starved to death during the winter of 1883-1884 at the Wolf Point sub-agency. Food shortages remained a chronic problem. The sub-agency food storehouse at Wolf Point burned to the ground in the early winter of 1893.

Sherman T. Cogswell came to the sub-agency in 1885 to become master of the government school, later purchased the trading post, and became known as the founding father of the town.

In 1887, the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway (later the Great Northern Railway) laid track through the upper Missouri River valley to Great Falls via Havre, Montana. The railway established a depot to the north of Old Town and built a section house. The current city was platted adjacent to the Great Northern Railway's tracks in 1910. On June 30, 1914 the Fort Peck Indian Reservation was opened for general settlement for non-Native homesteading. The town was incorporated after a vote held on July 15, 1915, and an election for mayor and aldermen was held in September of that same year.

Homesteading and bust (1915 - 1929)
A census taken prior to the incorporation vote in 1915 reported a population count of 340 persons within the proposed corporate limits of Wolf Point. Five years later at the 1920 census, the population had risen to 2,098, an increase of more than six-fold. The opening of the reservation to general homesteading in mid-1914, and the selection of Wolf Point as a division point on the Great Northern Railway in 1917 contributed to this rapid early growth. In 1919, Roosevelt County was created by the state legislature as a partition of Sheridan County. Mondak was selected as the provisional county seat. After an unsuccessful election to choose a county seat by majority vote, a contested election in 1922, and a lengthy court battle, Wolf Point was named the permanent county seat in 1924.

While the early 1910s were marked by reliable, adequate precipitation which enabled large numbers of homesteaders to establish themselves on land claims made under the Enlarged Homestead Act, the end of the 1910s were marked by successive drought years which took their toll on commerce in Wolf Point and other Eastern Montana communities. Bank failures skyrocketed in the early 1920s. In 1917, Wolf Point had four banks. By 1924 only one bank remained in business; the others had either merged or closed their doors. The Great Northern Railway cut back its operational presence in Wolf Point in March 1926. Coupled with the exodus of homesteaders in the wake of the homesteading bubble, Wolf Point's population fell during the decade of the twenties, and would not recover until the 1940s.

The decade of the 1920s saw a rapid increase in automobile use and the expansion of the road and highway network. A permanent bridge replacing the ferry crossing of the Missouri River began construction in 1928. The Wolf Point Bridge was opened to the public on July 9, 1930 before a large crowd.

Great Depression and World War II (1929 - 1945)
Construction of the Roosevelt County Courthouse was completed in 1940, and was financed by a mix of local taxes and federal funds provided through the New Deal Works Progress Administration