The 1964 Montana Centennial Train: Montana Goes to the World’s Fair
In 1964 Montana marked a hundred years since Congress created Montana Territory. Statehood would not come until 1889, so this was a territorial centennial, and Montanans found an unusual way to celebrate it: they put the state on a train and sent it east.
The idea
Montana PBS, which produced the documentary Odyssey: The Montana Centennial Train, 1964–1965, credits the idea to organiser Howard Kelsey. He wanted to take Montana to the people by rail, with around 300 Montanans on board acting as ambassadors. The project grew more complicated as it went and even became a political issue in the 1964 election year, but it went ahead and became the focal point of the centennial.
Three journeys
A detailed timeline compiled by the themetrains.com project describes three separate trips:
- A tour of Montana. The train was dedicated in Helena at noon on February 21, 1964, then visited towns across the state, including Missoula, Butte, Bozeman, Billings, Miles City, Glasgow, Havre, Kalispell, Great Falls and Lewistown, through March.
- A round trip to New York. On April 5, 1964 it left Billings for the New York World’s Fair with some 300 Montana boosters and 72 horses aboard. The train was at least 25 cars long, mostly sleeping cars, and stopped for displays and parades in 16 cities along the way, starting with Omaha.
- A stay at the fair. Some of the cars went back to New York to stay on display for the rest of the 1964–1965 fair.
The exhibit cars and horse cars eventually returned to Montana, and the same timeline notes that most of them are still in the state.
Why it is still remembered
Montana PBS describes the train as giving the state media exposure and publicity that lasted for years. Sixty years on it remains a favourite piece of Montana lore: a state of ranchers and miners loading horses and exhibit cars onto a train and riding it all the way to the World’s Fair.
For more on the valley this site covers, read a short history of Ovando.