The Montana New Deal Heritage Partnership is a statewide, landscape‑scale public history project dedicated to documenting, interpreting, and reconnecting the stories of New Deal programs across Montana’s counties, communities, and working landscapes. Our work brings together archival research, field documentation, local expertise, and collaborative interpretation to reveal how federal investment reshaped the state’s ecology, economy, and civic life during the 1930s and 1940s.

Across Montana, the legacy of the New Deal is written into rivers and reservoirs, courthouses and schools, grazing districts and timberlands, irrigation systems and rural electrification lines. Yet much of this history remains scattered across archives, county offices, family collections, and the land itself. We are building a unified, accessible, and place‑based record — one that honors the people who built these projects, the communities that sustained them, and the landscapes they transformed.

This project is grounded in partnership. We work with county museums and historical societies, Tribal Nations, state and federal agencies, ranching families, local historians, and community experts who hold essential knowledge of their landscapes. Together, we are creating a statewide digital archive and interpretive framework that connects New Deal projects to the places where they were lived, built, and remembered.

Our goal is simple and ambitious: to make Montana’s New Deal history visible, connected, and meaningful — for researchers, educators, communities, and future generations.

 

Who We Are

The Montana New Deal Heritage Partnership is a statewide, landscape‑scale public history initiative dedicated to uncovering, documenting, and interpreting the full scope of New Deal activity across Montana. We approach this work as researchers, fieldworkers, collaborators, and storytellers — committed to connecting archival records, lived experience, and the physical landscapes where these histories unfolded.

Our work begins with a simple belief: Montana’s New Deal story is bigger than any single project, agency, or county. It is a story written across rivers and reservoirs, courthouses and schools, grazing districts and timberlands, homestead claims and abandoned fields, CCC camps and REA power lines. It is a story that touches every corner of the state — from the most remote prairie outposts to the largest urban centers.

We are building a unified, accessible, and place‑based record of this history. That means working county by county, landscape by landscape, to reconstruct the ecological, economic, and institutional transformations that shaped Montana during the 1930s and 1940s. It means listening to local experts, partnering with museums and Tribal Nations, and grounding every narrative in rigorous archival research and on‑the‑ground documentation.

At our core, we are a partnership — between communities, agencies, researchers, and the landscapes themselves. Our mission is to make Montana’s New Deal legacy visible, connected, and meaningful for the people who live here now and for generations to come.

What We’re Building

We are building a statewide, landscape‑scale digital archive and interpretive framework that reconnects Montana’s New Deal history to the places where it was lived, built, and remembered. This project brings together maps, photographs, agency records, field documentation, and local knowledge to create the first comprehensive, county‑by‑county account of how New Deal programs reshaped Montana.

At the heart of this work is a simple idea: every county holds a piece of the story — and only by stitching those pieces together can we see the full picture.

Our archive is designed to do exactly that. It links:

  • New Deal projects to their physical landscapes

  • agency records to local histories

  • photographs to the sites where they were taken

  • county‑level experiences to statewide patterns

  • community memory to archival evidence

The result is a living, evolving resource that grows with each county we document. It is built for researchers, educators, museum professionals, Tribal Nations, land managers, and community members who want to understand how federal investment transformed Montana’s ecology, economy, and civic infrastructure.

We are not just preserving history — we are rebuilding the connective tissue that allows people to see how irrigation systems, courthouses, ranger stations, grazing districts, timber sales, CCC camps, and rural electrification lines fit into a larger story of resilience, adaptation, and public investment.

This project is both a digital archive and a statewide interpretive map — a tool for understanding Montana’s past and a foundation for future research, collaboration, and community storytelling.

 

Why This Work Matters

Montana’s New Deal history is everywhere — in the irrigation ditches that still carry water, the ranger stations that still anchor forest districts, the courthouses and schools that still serve their communities, and the landscapes shaped by conservation labor nearly a century ago. Yet much of this history remains fragmented, undocumented, or hidden in archives, county vaults, family albums, and the land itself.

This project exists because Montana deserves a complete, connected, and place‑based understanding of how the New Deal transformed the state. The 1930s and 1940s were a turning point in Montana’s ecological, economic, and civic life. Federal investment reshaped watersheds, stabilized rangelands, electrified rural communities, built public institutions, and provided work, training, and hope during years of profound hardship.

But the scale of that transformation — and the human stories behind it — has never been fully mapped.

Our work matters because:

  • communities deserve to see their own history reflected in the landscape

  • rural counties hold extraordinary but vulnerable archival material

  • New Deal projects continue to shape land use, infrastructure, and ecology today

  • educators and researchers need a unified, accessible resource

  • local knowledge is at risk of being lost without documentation

  • Montana’s story is incomplete without the voices of the people who built it

By bringing together archival records, fieldwork, oral histories, agency documents, and community expertise, we are reconstructing a statewide narrative that has never existed in one place before. This work preserves not only the physical legacy of the New Deal, but also the lived experiences of the families, workers, and communities who shaped Montana’s landscapes during one of the most consequential eras in American history.

This project matters because the New Deal is not just history — it is the foundation of the Montana we live in today.

 

How We Work

Our work is built on a landscape‑scale approach that combines archival research, field documentation, community partnership, and interpretive synthesis. Every county, every watershed, and every project is approached as part of a larger ecological and historical system — one shaped by federal policy, local labor, and the lived experiences of Montana communities.

We begin with rigorous archival research, drawing from federal, state, county, and local collections: Commissioner Minutes, GLO plats, USFS records, FSA/RA photography, SCS project files, WPA reports, cadastral maps, and community archives. These sources allow us to reconstruct the administrative, ecological, and economic context behind each New Deal project.

From there, we move into field documentation, visiting the landscapes where these histories unfolded. We photograph surviving structures, map project sites, walk irrigation ditches and CCC roads, and document the physical traces of New Deal labor still visible on the land. Fieldwork grounds the archival record in place, revealing details that paper alone cannot capture.

Our work is strengthened through collaboration with local experts — museum directors, Tribal cultural staff, county agents, ranching families, historians, and community members who hold essential knowledge of their landscapes. These partnerships ensure that our interpretations reflect local memory, lived experience, and community priorities.

Finally, we bring these threads together through interpretive synthesis. Each county page we build integrates maps, photographs, agency histories, ecological context, and community narratives into a coherent, accessible story. This synthesis allows visitors to see not only individual projects, but the broader patterns of land use, conservation, infrastructure, and community development that defined the New Deal era in Montana.

Our approach is deliberate, collaborative, and place‑based. We work slowly and carefully, honoring the complexity of the landscapes we study and the communities who shaped them. Every county we complete becomes part of a larger, statewide mosaic — a living archive that grows with each new partnership, each new discovery, and each new story brought forward.

Who We Work With

The Montana New Deal Heritage Partnership is built on collaboration. Our work depends on the knowledge, records, and lived experience held by communities, museums, Tribal Nations, state and federal agencies, and the people who know their landscapes best. This project is statewide in scope, but it is grounded in local expertise — and strengthened by the relationships we build along the way.

At the center of this collaborative model is our County Ambassador Program. Each county is represented by a local expert — often a museum director, historical society staff member, Tribal cultural representative, archivist, or community historian — who serves as the primary guide to that county’s New Deal landscape. Ambassadors help identify project sites, share archival materials, review interpretive drafts, and ensure that each county’s story is told with accuracy, respect, and local insight. Their participation gives every county a voice and a seat at the table.

We also work closely with state and federal agencies whose collections and institutional histories are essential to understanding the New Deal in Montana. These partners include the Montana Historical Society, State Historic Preservation Office, DNRC, FWP, MDOT, the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Land Management, National Archives, and other agencies whose records document the engineering, conservation, and public works projects that reshaped the state. Their archives, maps, photographs, and technical reports provide the backbone of our research.

Beyond institutions, we collaborate with ranching families, Tribal communities, conservation districts, extension agents, educators, and local historians who hold generational knowledge of the land. Their stories, photographs, and field insights reveal dimensions of the New Deal that are not captured in official records.

Together, these partnerships form a statewide network of contributors — each offering a unique perspective, collection, or expertise. The result is a richer, more accurate, and more inclusive understanding of how New Deal programs shaped Montana’s landscapes, communities, and public institutions.

This project is not built from the outside looking in. It is built with the people who live in these places, steward these landscapes, and carry these histories forward.

What You Can Explore

The Montana New Deal Heritage Partnership is designed as a statewide, landscape‑scale archive that visitors can explore from multiple angles — by county, by agency, by decade, by landscape type, or by project theme. Every page opens a new window into the people, places, and programs that shaped Montana during the New Deal era.

On this site, you can explore:

  • County Pages Each county has a dedicated, research‑driven page that brings together maps, photographs, agency histories, field documentation, and local expertise. These pages reveal how New Deal programs reshaped landscapes from the ground up — one watershed, one community, one project at a time.

  • New Deal Agency Histories Learn how the CCC, WPA, SCS, RA, PWA, NYA, BOR, USFS, and REA operated in Montana. Each agency left a distinct imprint on the land, and our interpretive sections show how their missions, methods, and partnerships shaped the state.

  • Landscape‑Scale Interpretive Essays Explore the ecological and geographic transformations that defined the era — from rangeland rehabilitation and watershed engineering to timber management, rural electrification, and public works construction.

  • Historic Maps & Photographic Archives Dive into GLO plats, USGS topographic maps, cadastral records, Sanborn maps, and New Deal photography from FSA, RA, USFS, SCS, and CCC collections. These sources reveal how Montana’s landscapes were mapped, engineered, and documented during the 1930s and 1940s.

  • Field Documentation & Site Reconstructions Follow our ongoing fieldwork as we revisit New Deal project sites across Montana. These sections connect archival records to the physical traces still visible on the land today.

  • Thematic Pathways Trace statewide patterns in irrigation development, timber work, grazing districts, homestead failure, rural electrification, public buildings, conservation labor, and more. These pathways help visitors see how local projects fit into larger regional and national stories.

  • Community Knowledge & Local Histories Read stories, insights, and archival contributions from county ambassadors, museum partners, Tribal cultural staff, ranching families, and local historians who bring depth and authenticity to each county’s narrative.

Whether you are a researcher, educator, student, museum professional, land manager, or community member, this site offers a way to explore Montana’s New Deal history that is grounded in place, rich in detail, and connected across the entire state.

 

How You Can Participate

The Montana New Deal Heritage Partnership is a collaborative, community‑driven project — and there are many ways to be part of it. Every county, every agency, every museum, and every individual holds pieces of Montana’s New Deal story. Your knowledge, your collections, and your lived experience help shape a more complete and meaningful understanding of this history.

You can participate by:

  • Serving as a County Ambassador Ambassadors are the backbone of this project. Each county has a representative who helps identify project sites, share archival materials, review interpretive drafts, and guide the narrative from a local perspective. Ambassadors ensure that each county’s story is told with accuracy, depth, and respect.

  • Contributing Archival Materials Photographs, maps, letters, oral histories, family collections, agency documents, and local records all help fill gaps in the statewide archive. We welcome contributions from museums, Tribal archives, county offices, ranching families, and community members.

  • Sharing Local Knowledge Many New Deal projects live on in memory, place names, family stories, and community traditions. These insights are invaluable — they reveal dimensions of the New Deal that official records often overlook.

  • Partnering Through Agencies & Institutions State and federal agencies — including USFS, BLM, BOR, SCS/NRCS, MDOT, DNRC, FWP, and the Montana Historical Society — play a crucial role by sharing records, maps, photographs, and technical reports. Their institutional histories help illuminate the broader context of New Deal work across Montana.

  • Participating in Field Documentation Community members, museum staff, and local historians often join us in the field to locate project sites, identify structures, and help interpret the physical traces of New Deal labor still visible on the land.

  • Supporting Research & Interpretation Educators, researchers, and students contribute by exploring agency histories, analyzing archival materials, and helping connect local stories to statewide patterns.

  • Inviting Collaboration Whether you represent a museum, a Tribal Nation, a conservation district, a school, or a community organization, we welcome partnerships that help expand and deepen the statewide archive.

This project grows through participation. Every contribution — a photograph, a memory, a map, a site visit, a conversation — helps build a richer, more connected understanding of how the New Deal shaped Montana’s landscapes and communities.

Your voice, your knowledge, and your history matter here. This is a statewide story, and you are part of it.