It's the championship!

 

Voting Ends April 5

Two Central Montana powerhouses are squaring off in the Montana Madness championship, each vying to be named Montana’s BEST Best Place: Fort Benton and First Peoples Buffalo Jump.

Fort Benton National Historic Landmark had a relatively easy road through Montana Madness, a tournament created by the Montana Historical Society. Fort Benton dominated the Bearcreek—the site of Montana’s largest coal mining disaster in the Sweet 16—and won handily against Lewis and Clark Caverns in the Elite 8. In the Final Four, it beat the powerhouse Going to the Sun Road by 82 votes.

First Peoples Buffalo Jump started the tournament well, taking out its neighbor, C. M. Russell’s Home and Studio, by almost 300 votes. It dominated Grant Kohrs Ranch in the Elite Eight but barely squeaked out a win over Pictograph Cave in the Final Four. Only nine votes separated the two ancient Indigenous sites.

Now, First Peoples and Fort Benton—both National Historic Landmarks—square off in the championship.

First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park, a communal bison kill site, is one of the oldest and most intact bison jumps in North America. Before acquiring horses in the 1700s, Indigenous peoples living on the northern plains hunted in groups, on foot. They took advantage of the terrain around them—including areas they turned into “buffalo jumps”—to help them harvest the bison on which they depended for survival.

Founded in 1846 as the fur trade transitioned from beaver pelts to buffalo robes, Fort Benton calls itself the Birthplace of Montana. It served as a trading post, military fort, and center for the distribution of Indian annuities. It was also the head of navigation on the Missouri River, where the first steamboat arrived in 1860. Fort Benton remained the region’s unchallenged freighting and transportation hub until transcontinental railroads reached Montana in the early 1880s and ended steamboat travel.

Everyone can participate in choosing the winner of this exciting contest. To cast your ballot, simply visit https://mhs.mt.gov/education/Montana-Madness-2026.

P.S. Did you play Montana Madness (or any variation of March Madness) with your students? How'd it go? Who/what/where's the champion?