The earliest inhabitants of the Big Timber area were the various tribes of First Nations Poeple that lived and hunted there. Probably the first white explorer to see the Big Timber area was Verendrye, who passed through in 1743 on his way to Colorado.
Captain William Clark led The Corps of Discovery into what is now Sweet Grass County in 1806. Shortly after the Lewis and Clark expedition the area saw an influx of fur trappers, soon followed by the miners, ever searching for their
Mother Lode. Mining, however, proved not as lucrative as expected and, by the late 1870s and early 1880s the farmers and the ranchers began to arrive. In 1880, two Irishmen, Charles McDonnell and Edward Veasey, drove 3,000 head of sheep from California to Montana, beginning a long history of sheep and cattle ranching in the area. In short order the sheep industry came to dominate and by the year 1891, Big Timber shipped 115 carloads of sheep, 32 cars of cattle, 10 cars of horses and 1,642,332 pounds of wool. The wool shipment that year equalled 1 percent of the entire wool clip of the United States, making Big Timber the single largest wool producer in the country.
It wasn’t until 1883, when the Northern Pacific Railroad came through, that the little settlement of Dornix, now Big Timber (population ~ 1,800) was born. It's located approximately 90 miles west of Billings, Montana. A railroad station was constructed at Dornix, a small settlement at the confluence of the Boulder and Yellowstone rivers, whose economy revolved around a saw mill. Within a very short time, Dornix moved to higher ground and was renamed Big Timber for the large cottonwood trees growing along the rivers. Big Timber was within the Crow Indian reservation lands until 1891 when the Crow Nation ceded their lands west of the Boulder River to the United States Government. When, in 1895, the county of Sweet Grass (population 3,737) was created, Big Timber became the county seat. Today Big Timber remains a ranching and farming community, with platinum/palladium mining still contributing to the local economy.
This is a timeline of the early history of Big Timber:
1883 Big Timber established.
1883 - Post Office established.
1887 - Pioneer newspaper established.
1889 - Montana became a state.
1895 Sweet Grass became a county.
Big Timber became the county seat.
1897 - Court House built.
Big timber area devoted to sheep ranching.
Big Timber became the largest wool shipping center in the world.
The Woolen Mill was built and Shearing Pens established.
1908 - The big Fire - Water Works and Fire Department established.
1913 - Big Timber won the State Basketball Tournament and bells rang out.
In downtown Big Timber today one will find restaurants, boutiques, a brewery, shopping, a fun bar scene, a vintage movie theater, art galleries, unique museums, National Historic Register buildings, seasonal festivals, and various events throughout the year. The surrounding countryside offers fishing, hunting, snowmobiling, and further outdoor opportunities.
Then, of course, in the downtown area there's the Big Timber Town Hall, an unassuming little flat roofed, one storey, metal clad building along East 3rd Avenue. In the front of the building are city offices and storage for a coouple of city vehicles, while a maintenance shop occupies the rear of the building.
Following is the American Guide Series description of the city as it was in 1939.
BIG TIMBER
82.3 m. (4,072 alt., 1,224 pop.), seat of Sweet Grass County, was named for the creek that rises in the Crazy Mountains and flows into the Yellowstone opposite the town. Little remains of the timber, chiefly large cottonwoods, that at the time of settlement grew in the Yellowstone Valley near the old stage station at the mouth of Big Timber Creek. The point was called Rivers Across by Lieutenant Clark, because not only Big Timber Creek but Boulder River flow into the Yellowstone here.
Almost dormant in winter, Big Timber bustles in summer, its wide streets thronged with tourist cars, for it is the center of one of the principal recreational regions in the State. Montana's first dude ranch was started at the base of the Crazy Mountains about 1911.
The abundance of sweet-scented grasses and flowering plants in the valley spurred the development of livestock ranches and made honey production profitable. In the 1890'$ Big Timber was one of the largest wool-shipping centers in the United States. From the vast ranges that extend northward, ox teams brought load after huge load to town. In 1901, Montana's first woolen mill was established here in a stone building that stands on McLeod St.
In early Big Timber, as in other frontier towns, justice was informal but effective. A character remembered only as the Bad Swede, a chronic disturber of the peace, was once sentenced to spend three days in jail. The nearest jail was at Bozeman. As the sheriff had no desire to ride 60 miles with his cantankerous prisoner, he lowered him into a 30-foot prospect hole. Bad Swede, it is said, emerged from this form of "solitary" a changed man.
From Montana — A State Guidebook, Page 196