Early history For many years,
indigenous people of the United States, including the
Shoshone,
Nez Perce,
Blackfeet,
Flathead,
Crow, and
Sioux traveled through the area, called the "Valley of the Flowers". The
Gallatin Valley in particular, in which Bozeman is located, was primarily within the territory of the Crow people.
19th century William Clark visited the area in July 1806 as he traveled east from
Three Forks along the
Gallatin River. The party camped east of what is now Bozeman, at the mouth of Kelly Canyon. The journal entries from Clark's party briefly describe the future city's location.
John Bozeman In 1863,
John Bozeman, a pioneer and frontiersman from
Pickens County, Georgia, along with a partner named John Jacob, opened the
Bozeman Trail, a new northern trail off the
Oregon Trail leading to the mining town of
Virginia City through the Gallatin Valley and the future location of the city of Bozeman. John Bozeman, with Daniel Rouse and William Beall,
platted the town in August 1864, stating "standing right in the gate of the mountains ready to swallow up all tenderfeet that would reach the territory from the east, with their golden fleeces to be taken care of."
Red Cloud's War closed the Bozeman Trail in 1868, but the town's fertile land still attracted permanent settlers. Bozeman's death has been the source of much controversy. For years, the story was circulated that Bozeman and one of his friends, Tom Cover, were hiking to a neighboring town when Blackfeet attacked and killed Bozeman. Recent speculation has that Cover committed the murder and blamed the Blackfeet for it.
Nelson Story In 1866,
Nelson Story, a successful Virginia City, Montana, gold miner originally from
Ohio, entered the cattle business. Story braved the hostile Bozeman Trail to successfully drive some 1,000 head of
Longhorn cattle into
Paradise Valley just east of Bozeman. Eluding the U.S. Army, which tried to turn Story back to protect the drive from hostile Indigenous Americans, Story's cattle formed one of the earliest significant herds in Montana's cattle industry. Story established a sizable ranch in the Paradise Valley, with holdings in the Gallatin Valley. He later donated land to the state for the establishment of Montana State University.
Fort Ellis Fort Ellis was established in 1867 by Captain R. S. LaMotte and two companies of the 2nd Cavalry, after the murder of John Bozeman near the mouth of Mission Creek on Yellowstone River, and considerable political disturbance in the area led local settlers and miners to feel a need for added protection. The fort, named for
Gettysburg casualty
Colonel Augustus Van Horne Ellis, was decommissioned in 1886, and few remnants are left at the actual site, now occupied by the Fort Ellis Experimental Station of Montana State University. In addition to Fort Ellis, a short-lived fort,
Fort Elizabeth Meagher (also simply known as Fort Meagher), was established in 1867 by volunteer militiamen. This fort was located east of town on Rocky Creek.
Other In 1864, W. W. Alderson described
Gallatin County as "one of the most beautiful and picturesque valleys the eye ever beheld, abounding in springs of clear water." Many tended to agree, and Bozeman quickly garnered the nickname of "The Egypt" of Montana. After incorporation, the first issue of the weekly
Avant Courier newspaper, the precursor of today's
Bozeman Chronicle, was published in Bozeman on September 13, 1871. Bozeman's main cemetery, Sunset Hills Cemetery, was given to the city in 1872, when English lawyer and philanthropist
William Henry Blackmore purchased the land after his wife Mary Blackmore died of pneumonia in Bozeman in July 1872. The first library in Bozeman was formed by the Young Men's Library Association in a room above a drugstore in 1872. It later moved to the mayor's office and was taken over by the city in 1890. The
Northern Pacific Railway reached Bozeman from the east in 1883. By 1900, Bozeman's population had reached 3,500. In 1892, the
United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries established a fish hatchery on Bridger Creek at the entrance to Bridger Canyon. The fourth-oldest fish hatchery in the United States, the facility ceased to be primarily a hatchery in 1966 and became the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's
Bozeman National Fish Hatchery, later a fish technology and health center. The center receives around 5,000 visitors a year, observing biologists working on diet testing, feed manufacturing technology, fish diseases, brood stock development, and improvement of water quality. Bozeman was home to early
minor league baseball. In 1892, Bozeman fielded a team in the
Class B level
Montana State League. In 1909, the
Bozeman Irrigators played as members of the
Class D level
Inter-Mountain League. Both leagues disbanded. Montana State University was established in 1893 as the state's
land-grant college, then named the Agricultural College of the State of Montana. By the 1920s, the institution was known as Montana State College, and in 1965, it became
Montana State University.
20th century Bozeman's first high school, Gallatin Valley High School, was built on West Main Street in 1902. Later known as Willson School, named for notable Bozeman architect
Fred Fielding Willson, son of
Lester S. Willson, the building still stands today and functions as administrative offices for the Bozeman School District. In the early 20th century, over of the Gallatin Valley were planted in edible
peas harvested for both canning and seed. The area was once known as the "Sweet Pea Capital of the Nation", referencing the prolific edible pea crop. To promote the area and celebrate its prosperity, local business owners began a "Sweet Pea Carnival" that included a parade and queen contest. The annual event lasted from 1906 to 1916. Promoters used the inedible but fragrant and colorful
sweet pea flower as an emblem of the celebration. In 1977, the "Sweet Pea" concept was revived as an arts festival rather than a harvest celebration, growing into a three-day event that is one of the largest festivals in Montana. The first federal building and post office was built in 1915. Many years later, while unused, it became a film location, along with downtown Bozeman, in
A River Runs Through It (1992) by
Robert Redford, starring
Brad Pitt. It is now used by
Human Resource Development Council, a community organization. In 1986, the site of the Idaho Pole Co. on Rouse Avenue was designated a
Superfund site and placed on the
National Priorities List. Idaho Pole treated wood products with
creosote and
pentachlorophenol on the site between 1945 and 1997. The
Museum of the Rockies, created in 1957 as the gift from
Butte physician Caroline McGill, is a part of Montana State University and an affiliate institution of the
Smithsonian. It is Montana's premier natural and cultural history museum and houses permanent exhibits on dinosaurs, geology, and Montana history, as well as a planetarium and a living history farm.
Paleontologist Jack Horner was the museum's first curator of paleontology and brought national notice to the museum for his fossil discoveries in the 1980s.
21st century From a rank of sixth in the early 1980s, Bozeman has grown to become the fourth-largest city in Montana. Growth in the Gallatin Valley prompted the Gallatin Airport Authority in 2009 to expand the Gallatin Field Airport with two new gates, an expanded passenger screening area, and a third
baggage carousel. Subsequently, Gallatin Field was renamed
Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport. Bozeman has been one of Montana's fastest-growing cities from 1990 into the new millennium, currently growing at a fluctuating rate around 2–3% annually. In 2009, a natural gas explosion on the 200 block of East Main Street destroyed five buildings housing several businesses, including Boodles Restaurant and the Montana Trails Gallery. The explosion, caused by a separation in an underground gas line, killed a 36-year-old gallery employee, and the resulting fire burned for more than a day. That same year, city officials were criticized for requesting job applicants provide their user names and passwords to social networking sites. In 2021, median home price in Bozeman were reported to be about 75% above the national median, while the median household income was 25% below the national median. ==Geography==