Eastern Montana

Parts of Eastern Montana are affected by the economic boom in the Bakken formation, the largest oil discovery in U.S.

By the late 19th century, people of European descent set up homesteads in the region, and the Native Americans were mostly confined to Indian reservations as they were throughout Montana and the west.

[3] Fort Peck Dam near Glasgow, Montana was a major project of the Public Works Administration, part of the New Deal.

In contrast, other winters such as 1916–17, 1935–36, 1968–69 and 1978–79 see the westerly flow move further south and in this absence of chinooks, temperatures can stay below 0 °F or −17.8 °C for weeks at a time.

[5] Some parts of eastern Montana, in areas most prone to drying chinooks, have near-desert conditions and scrub rather than grassland.