Blaine County Museum

The Blaine County Museum is an historical museum with an emphasis on the homestead era. A gift shop is located in the museum with books and native handicrafts. Originally opening in 1977, the museum is located in ‘Griffin Hall’, an historic building built in 1915. Among the many exhibits are examples of Indian culture, paleontology, an old west church, a ‘tar paper’ homestead shack, a doctor's office, a dentist's office, an old X-ray machine, and a homestead schoolroom. In addition, there is an outstanding multimedia presentation that tells the history of the Nez Perce War of 1877 and the battle of the Bear Paw, the last major Indian battle site.

The Blaine County Museum’s Paleontology Department displays a dozen Judith River Formation exhibits including Hadrosaur, Gorgosaurus and Ankylosaurus fossils from the area. Remains of gigantic marine reptiles Mosasaur and Pleisosaur are featured, along with invertebrates from the area’s ancient ocean (75-500 million years past). In the Look, Touch and Wonder room, guests can handle fossils of sea creatures, plants and dinosaurs that roamed this area millions of years ago.

Native American artifacts and culture make up an important part of the museum’s collection, together with early photographic records of Nez Perce Life.

Military and Nez Perce artifacts from the Bear Paw Battlefield are on exhibit. The battlefield, located just sixteen miles south of Chinook, should be on your itinerary. Interpretive signs and markers line the footpath through the battlefield.

Exploration of northern Montana began with the fur traders of the mid 1700’s and Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery expedition in 1804. Settlement did not begin in earnest until the Great Northern Railroad was completed in 1887. Prior to that time access was by means of the boom of the cattle and sheep ranching era, and their associated range wars. Large scale homesteading began only as recently as 1910. Extensive exhibits tell the story of the Nez Perce Indians, the pioneer days of the cowboy, the hardships of the homestead era, and follow Blaine County through two World Wars.

Click here for more information about the Montana Dinosaur Trail.