How Montana Got Its Name (It Almost Went to Idaho)

Montana got its name on the second try, after an Ohio congressman named James M. Ashley tried to put it on the territory that became Idaho and lost. A year later, he got it onto the territory next door, and the word itself means “mountainous.” As one pioneer grudgingly admitted, that fit the place “for a wonder.”

“Mountainous,” for a wonder

The U.S. Geological Survey’s 1905 place-name book calls montana “a Latin word meaning ‘mountainous region,’” and says it fits the state “on account of the nature of its topography.” So the name is a plain description of the place.

Not everyone loved it. Granville Stuart was a pioneer who knew the country “as few of its residents” did, according to the 1921 history Montana, Its Story and Biography, and he wrote a history of the new territory in 1865. He said the name “properly belongs to a certain part of Spain” and means “mountainous.” That part fit, he admitted, “for a wonder.” If you’re wondering what he’d have picked instead, it was what he called the Snake Indian name, Toyabe-Shockup, “The Country of the Mountains.”

Round one: the name goes to Idaho

In 1863, Congress was working on a new territory in the northern Rockies. James Ashley, a Republican from the Toledo district, chaired the House Committee on Territories. According to Montana, Its Story and Biography, he proposed the bill for what became Idaho “under the name of Montana.”

The House passed it that way. In the Senate, Senator Wilson of Massachusetts moved to change the name to Idaho, and a senator from Oregon backed him up. History of Idaho (1920), edited by James Hawley, quotes the Oregon senator: “Montana, to my mind, signifies nothing at all. Idaho in English signifies ‘The Gem of the Mountains.’” Idaho won, and the territory was created on March 3, 1863. The federal record for Idaho agrees that Congress “originally intended to name” it Montana. We tell that side in How Idaho Got Its Name.

Round two: Montana Territory

A year later, Congress carved a new territory out of Idaho’s eastern side, where gold camps like Bannack, struck in 1862, had sprung up. The bill creating Montana Territory passed both houses on May 24, 1864, and President Lincoln signed it two days later, on May 26. Montana became a state by presidential proclamation on November 8, 1889.

The 1921 history says Ashley had “the satisfaction of seeing his favorite name applied to the territory” after all. And there’s a postscript you might not expect. In 1869, President Grant made Ashley governor of Montana, the place he’d named. He lasted about 15 months before he was replaced. The name he fought for has outlasted him by a long way.

Sources & further reading

• Tom Stout, ed., Montana, Its Story and Biography, vol. 1 (1921). The mines struck at Bannack City in the summer of 1862, “which proved very rich” (p. 190); Bannack, “then on the eastern borders of Idaho Territory,” in 1863 (p. 278); Granville Stuart’s 1865 comments on the name, with “for a wonder” and Toyabe-Shockup (p. 226); the 1864 bill, passed May 24 and signed by Lincoln two days later (p. 281); Ashley as chairman of the House Committee on Territories, his first try with the Idaho bill “under the name of Montana,” and his “favorite name” (p. 288); “James M. Ashley, who gave Montana its name,” his appointment as governor in 1869 and his replacement in 1870 (p. 314); the proclamation of November 8, 1889 (p. 498); Idaho Territory organized on March 3, 1863, and Montana Territory created on May 26, 1864 (p. 782).
• James H. Hawley, ed., History of Idaho, vol. 1 (1920), pp. 28–29, 145, 150. The House bill calling the territory Montana, Senator Wilson’s amendment, and the Oregon senator’s “Montana, to my mind, signifies nothing at all” (pp. 28–29); in 1864 “all that portion of Idaho east of the Rockies was cut off and erected into the Territory of Montana” (p. 150; see also p. 145).
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905), p. 212. “A Latin word meaning ‘mountainous region,’ and applicable to this State on account of the nature of its topography.”
• GNIS feature 1779783, Idaho (U.S. Geological Survey). Says Idaho was the territory “that Congress originally intended to name Montana.”
• GNIS feature 767982, Montana (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal record notes that Montana was “Admitted as a State in November 1889.”
• U.S. Census Bureau, state codes (2020). Lists Montana’s permanent federal place-name record number (GNIS 767982).