Welcome to Sweet Grass County

Published: 2019
By Marc King

Sweet Grass County is located in south central Montana. Don’t confuse the town of Sweetgrass with the county of Sweet Grass. Sweet Grass County became a county in 1895, formed from parts of Park, Meager, and Yellowstone Counties. It has been at its present size of 1,855 square miles since 1920. The current population is 3,623. Ranching and mining are the primary economic drivers. When Lewis and Clark traveled through this region, they named the area where the Boulder River and Big Timber Creek empty into the Yellowstone River as “Rivers Across.” In the late 1800s, an Irish immigrant named the settlement Dornix, meaning “a rock that fits in the hand and is handy for throwing.” In 1883, the town was moved due to complications with the railroad and was re-named Big Timber for its abundance of cottonwood trees lining the banks of the nearby Boulder and Yellowstone Rivers. In fact, a majestic 125-foot-tall cottonwood is located on the banks of the Yellowstone River right outside the city limits and was close to being the national champion cottonwood. Today, 200-year- Welcome to Sweet Grass County old cottonwood trees still line the banks of the Yellowstone River, meaning they are the same trees as the ones Lewis and Clark passed by two centuries ago. Sweet Grass County is home to the Crazy Mountains. There are several theories on how this range was named. The Indians called them the Mad Mountains for their rugged beauty and haunting winds that blow down the canyons. The Mad Mountains were so called because they could not tell if the weather was going to be fair or stormy, as all signs failed in that region. Geology plays a part in another theory. The lava upthrusts are young in the perspective of geologic time and do not fit in with neighboring rock formations, hence the name “crazy,” or because of being wholly disconnected from any other range and being a sort of “crazy” formation. Another naming theory, and more widely accepted, is about a woman who went mad on the prairie, perhaps due to an attack and the death of her family. She took refuge in the mountains. Indian beliefs suggested crazy people be left alone, and this legend lives on in the movie “Jeremiah Johnson.”