The Anglos Are Coming

The Anglos Are Coming. Immigration Brings Change. You stand now in an area that was one of the first to feel the rapid growth of immigration that began about 60 years after Lewis and Clark camped here. Steamboats in the late 1800s chose this area as a key stopping point, because the trees needed for wood fuel grew more densely here than elsewhere. Throughout the latter half of the century, the Missouri River was the main route for shipping and travel into Montana, and the Judith Landing area was the primary crossroads for this part of the state. Where the river had been an isolated pathway for the Corps of Discovery, it was a virtual highway for the Euro-Americans who streamed into the region later. , By the 1860s, fort and military installations were helping to safeguard travelers and settlers along the river. But for Lewis and Clark, in 1805, it was a wild and life-threatening night when they slept at their campsite here. Seaman, the dog Meriwether Lewis had brought along, saved their lives by alerting them to a charging bull bison. They sought to memorialize the experience by naming the creek across the river Bull Creek. Other evidently thought Seaman was more worthy of remembrance for it was later renamed Dog Creek. , "Last night we were all allarmed by a large buffalo Bull, which swam over from the opposite shore... he then allarmed ran up the bank full speed directly toward the fires, and was within 18 inches of the heads of some of the men who lay sleeping before the sentinel could allarm him or make him change his course, still more alarmed, he now took his direction immediately towards our lodge passing between 4 fires and and with in a few inched of the heads of one range of the men as they yet lay sleeping, when he came near the tents, my dog saved us by causing him to change his course..." - Captain Meriwether Lewis, May 29, 1805