Great Falls, Fort Benton

A beautiful day started with us packing up and leaving the park behind. We dashed down to Great Falls via Cut Bank...we had watched the movie,"Cut Bank", before leaving and just had to see the scene of the crime! And the penguin!
In Great Falls, we went through the Charlie Russell Museum, poked around some old haunts in my birthplace city and headed north to Fort Benton and the luxe Grand Union Hotel. It has been restored from a derelict left to rot on the former levee of the once busiest port town in the northwest. The Gagnons spent years and tons of $$$$ putting the old girl back together and it shows. Fort Benton was the last stop up the Missouri River for the great paddle-wheelers and loaded and unloaded 75% of all goods delivered to the northwest territories. the wagon roads radiated in all directions from FB, but it met its demise when the transcontinental railroad came through. Now it's just a sleepy little town that hosts river rats and floaters that play on the Mighty Mo as it drifts through town.