View of the Terry Badlands Wilderness Area and the town of Terry
The small town of Terry is nestled between the I-94 and the Yellowstone River and is the county seat of Prairie County. It is located in the heart of agate country, where people come from all over the United States to hunt along the rivers, creeks and nearby hills, to gather the translucent rocks, which are used for jewelry, wind chimes, lamp shades and coffee tables.
The nearby Terry Badlands Wilderness Area provides a dramatic backdrop with many camping and hiking opportunities available along established trails. The Yellowstone River at this point turns into an easy-floating river, which is ideal for the novice or the pro-floater, with abundant scenery and wildlife. Hunting and fishing are enjoyed at their best in Prairie County.
You can hike up the ‘Calypso Trail’ road northwest of Terry to see the famed ‘”Badlands” and visit Prairie County sights rich in Western history. It is a short trip to the famed base camp area of the Custer Expedition and the graves of soldiers who died from wounds received in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, or to where the Far West Steamboat docked at Terry Landing. Thirty-five miles north of Terry is the location of the last battle between General Miles and Sitting Bull.
Visitors can also discover Terry’s history at the Prairie County Museum and Evelyn Cameron Gallery conveniently located in downtown Terry. They currently display large crisp copies of photographs that made her famous. The collection is a stunning portrayal of the everyday lives of the early Eastern Montana homesteaders. The Evelyn Cameron Heritage is planning to open up the old Rialto Theater in Terry in 2010 to display thousands of her original photographs and documents recently discovered at the home of her friend Janet Williams.
The Prairie County Museum is housed in the old State Bank of Terry and is filled with horse and buggy equipment, pioneer household and business antiques. A dentist office, barber shop, butcher shop, one-room school, library, hospital room, laundry, kitchen, dining room and bedroom date back to the turn of the century.
Ode to Terry, Montana from a newcomer
Reprint courtesy of MontanaWithKids.com.
The 10th Annual Ranch Rodeo will be held by the Terry Roping Club at the Prairie County Fairgrounds on July 4, 2010
We moved to Terry, Montana in May of 2009 to be close to family and since then tried to learn more about the beautiful area we now call home. Meanwhile, we are enjoying life in our new town and its quiet country style atmosphere.
Terry is one of those places where people still say hello on the street with the two fingers “Montana Wave” and even hold doors open for one another. Men still tip their hats to the ladies, people are friendly to strangers, the scenery is beautiful, and the real estate is still affordable.
The terrain in this part of eastern part of Montana consists of flat plains broken up with long gullies and hills along the Yellowstone River, which moves steadily eastward through the Terry Badlands (think moonscape). The Terry Badlands naturally transition to those in North and South Dakota.
Makoshika State Park is located in the rugged badlands of eastern Montana in Glendive, which is about 40 miles north east of Terry. The name Makoshika (Ma-ko’-shi-ka) is a variant of a Lakota phrase meaning land of bad spirits or “badlands”. Although the area resembles the badlands of the Dakotas, these badlands expose older rock layers. Makoshika is the largest state park in Montana, covering over 11,400 acres. This beautiful and unique terrain provides for exploration and discovery that you won’t find anywhere else.
Visitors should plan seeing Eastern Montana on a road trip, making stops along the way on Interstate 94. This way, travelers can enjoy the varying views of the beautiful state, as well as enjoy many types of attractions along the way.
Reasonably priced lodging can be still obtained when your trip is planned well in advance. If you are traveling in a RV, camper or planning to camp even for just a few nights, accommodations are extremely affordable at the Small Towne and Oasis RV parks in Terry. The cost of living for Eastern Montana residents is lower than many of the other states, and that lower cost is extended to travelers for lodging, food and souvenirs.
Accommodations are also available at the Diamond Motel and Kempton Hotel in Terry. The Kempton Hotel is a throw back from the pioneer days with its quaint lobby with paintings of cowboys and local landscapes prominently displayed. You can almost imagine having travelers tie up their horses and steeds with buggies to the post in front before checking into the hotel.
Visitors must absolutely try Prairie County home grown vegetables, especially the corn. We also have been overwhelmed by the supply of local zucchini, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. All of them are available on a seasonal basis at the Farmer’s Market held each Friday in front of the community pool on Towne Avenue.
Taking care of the visitors at the Prairie County Museum and the Evelyn Cameron Gallery is a loyal staff of local volunteers. Those are located in the original 1906 and 1916 bank buildings in town. Other buildings on the premises include a steam-heated outhouse (believe it or not), the Northern Pacific Depot and Caboose, an old homestead and the Larsen memorial building dedicated to the memory of Gary Larsen, Sheriff of Prairie County from 1963-1993.
Special care has been taken to preserve the original photographs and diaries of Evelyn Cameron, Pioneer Photographer, taken in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s in the area. They show proud pioneers overcoming the struggles in a harsh land with God and nature holding court over their lives.
Restaurants in Terry include the Badlands Café and Scoop Shoppe, the Dizzy Diner and the Roy Rogers Tavern. The home style cooking at the Badlands Café is the latest addition to the culinary specialties available in Terry. Just ten miles down the I-94 in Fallon is the Lazy JD Bar and Café also serving good food with pleasant company.
Depending on the activities planned, visitors can enjoy Eastern Montana anytime of the year. Ideally spring, summer, and fall are the best times for travel though winters can be frigid.
Powder River and the Terry Badlands
Terry Badlands Wilderness Area - Looking North
On July 30, 1806 Clark and his party camped near the mouth of the War har sah, or Powder River, just to the right of the view in this photograph. The next day, eager to reunite with Lewis and his men, Clark’s contingent covered, by his estimate, sixty-six miles. He remarked on the colors and shapes of the land — “barious Coloured earth,” some of it red, much of it coal black, all of it “washed into Curious formed mounds & hills and…cut much with reveens.” In too much of a hurry to climb up and look around, he saw only the ragged river edge of the dramatic Terry Badlands.
Around midday he passed the mouth of a tributary “40 yards wid Shallow and muddy,” the banks of which can be faintly discerned near the horizon in the picture, and identified it as the stream the Mandan chief Sheheke had called Oak-tar-pon-er. Years later it came to be called O’Fallon Creek, reportedly after Clark’s nephew, Benjamin O’Fallon, who served as a federal Indian agent until the 1820s.
As Clark descended the Yellowstone River he dutifully noted the many natural features he saw. A modern traveler here still can see and appreciate what he described:
Friday July 30th, 1806 at the mouth of the Powder River, Clark noted:
“. . . the water . . . is 100 yds wide, the bead to this river nearly ¼ of a mile this river is Shallow and the water very muddy and of the Colour of the banks a darkish brown. I observe great quantities of red Stone thrown out of this river that [and] from the appearance of the hills at a distance on its lower Side induced me to call this red Stone river.” The Powder River flows into the Yellowstone River about seven miles southwest of Terry, Montana.
Confluence of the Yellowstone and Powder River — which derives its name from the fine, gray sediment along its banks, said to look like gun powder.
The red-colored stones are chunks of clinker from the Fort Union Formation that washed or fell into the river, which tumbled and smoothed them. Clinker forms when lightning, grass fires, or spontaneous combustion ignites coal beds, and the adjacent rock — if siltstone or shale — is baked and fused, forming orange, red and yellow “burned rock.”
The next day, July 31, Clark continued downstream about 7 miles past Powder River to present-day Terry, Montana.
Clark July 31, 1806
“. . . this high Country is washed into Curious formed mounds & hills and is cut much with reveens.
. . . here the river approaches the high mountainous country on the N W. Side. those hills appear to be composed of various Coloured earth and Coal without much rock. I observe Several Conical pounds which appear to have been burnt. this high Country is washed into Curious formed mounds & hills and is cut much with reveens.
The high Country is entirely bar of timber. great quantities of Coal or carbonated wood is to be seen in every Bluff and in the high hills at a distance on each Side.”
The rugged hills on the N.W. Side of the Yellowstone are the Terry badlands carved out of the Fort Union Formation. The darker, patterned, flat area south of the river is flood plain alluvium, formed by modern erosion and flood deposits.
“. . . I observe Several Conical pounds [mounds] which appear to have been burnt.”
These mounds are capped with erosion-resistant clinker — shale and siltstone that were baked when the underlying coal beds burned.
“. . . great quantities of Coal or carbonated wood is to be seen in every Bluff and in the high hills at a distance on each Side”.
Lewis and Clark sometimes called the coal of eastern Montana and western North Dakota “carbonated wood” because it contained the remains of the woody plant material. This low-grade coal is lignite.
Altitudes near Terry range from 2200 to 2500 feet above sea level; the climate is semiarid. About 65-55 million years ago, however, vegetation grew abundantly here in a moist, subtropical climate near sea level.
Sandstone and clinker of the Fort Union Formation tend to resist erosion; they often cap hills and buttes in the area. The finer-grained siltstone and mudstone of this formation erode more easily.
Rivers and seasonal streams cut through the flat-lying rocks, forming the canyons, ravines, gullies and hoodoos typical of a badland landscape.
hello:
was the diamond motel once called the Red Diamond motel, say, in l968. My family and I stayed there after more than a week of “roughing it” in tents. My two older children even today sing the praises of the Red Diamond motel in Terry, Montana, for letting them get their first restful night in several days. All the best.
Carlton Jackson
univ. prof. of history, emeritus
I will find out by forwarding your message to Dale Galland, owner of the Prairie Unique, for his response.
We believe it has been called the Diamond Motel for many years, will contact Fran @the Diamond-her folks owned it for years and her family continued it-the motel had red diamond window cases-still does.
Trying to find any info on Dixson’s or a Bar that my great grandfather owened the Yellowstone bar in Terry Mt
I will forward your email to people in Terry with recollections of the Yellowstone Bar and the Dixson family,
Bob van der Valk
Terry, Montana
(4060 853-4251