Cat Creek (also Frantz or Frantzville)[N 1] is an unincorporated community in eastern Petroleum County, Montana, United States.

[7] The Cat Creek area has deer, antelope, coyotes and mountain lions as well as smaller sage hens and jackrabbits proliferating.

In 2002, the Chesapeake Energy Corporation announced a major natural gas discovery at its Cat Creek 1-19 well in the Comanche Lodge Prospect.

[13] In 2012, continued oil exploration in the Heath shale located in a sedimentary basin called the Central Montana Trough, saw a mix of private and public interests drilling 18 wells up to 10,000 feet (3,000 m) levels.

[14] Efforts to determine economical and efficient methods of retrieval have led to both horizontal and vertical drilling, as well as the use of hydraulic fracturing technology, with results from core samples still to be analyzed.

[15] The region around Cat Creek was largely unsettled until the 1860s, although River Crows and Ventre Indian hunters and trappers migrated through the area.

Fort Musselshell trading post was built in Mosby, Montana, Garfield County, on the Missouri River, 13 miles (21 km) to the east.

[17] The area known as Cat Creek Basin was also referred to as the Shay community from 1910–1920, after one of the early homesteaders, who deeded land for a school and cemetery in his name.

[3] In late 1919, the Frantz Corporation began oil exploration on a creek near Winnett, Montana, flowing into the Musselshell River.

[22] John S. "Curley" Meek, one of the first drillers in the Cat Creek area, stated that "there was no place to store the oil, so it was dammed up in a coulee and given away to ranchers and farmers as sheep and cow dip until they began using it in their cars.

[40] After the lucrative oil wells stopped producing in 1975, the community of Cat Creek began to deteriorate as jobs also dried up, with an estimated population of only 494 (2010[41]) residents in Petroleum County.