Phillips County Museum News for October 9, 2019

The PC Museum archives constantly cough up unusual books and paper items. My find this week was a book on the military and trading posts/forts in Montana. The trading posts in Montana helped to open our area to exploration. Bakers Post sprouted up in 1868 and was located on the south bank of the Milk River. It was of short duration, however, only lasting about one year. It received its name for I.G. Baker a trading entrepreneur. Fort Browning was also located in Phillips County. It was erected by the Northwest Fur Company and may have been named for Orville Browning, Secretary of the Interior. As a trading post. its tenure was short-lived but the army did maintain a presence there for a few years. It was a dispensing point for supplies to the Gros Ventres, Assiniboines, Santee Sioux and River Crows. There are two stories as to why it was abandoned. The first is that it could not withstand the deadly Sioux raids but according to local stories smallpox became an epidemic at the Fort and it was burned. The PC Museum has a drawing of Fort Browning on display. Stop in and take a peek Monday through Saturday 10-5.