[3] A cultural, commercial and financial center in the central part of the state, Great Falls is located just east of the Rocky Mountains and is bisected by the Missouri River.

[13] The founding of Great Falls was the brainchild of Paris Gibson, a Maine-born entrepreneur who became acquainted with railroad magnate James J. Hill in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

[21][24] By 1887 the town had 1,200 citizens, and the arrival of Hill's Great Northern Railway in October of that year helped cement the city's future.

[27] In 1894, naturalist Vernon Bailey passed through and described Great Falls as "a very good town, appears prosperous and booming & I should judge contains 15000 inhabitants".

Among structures built in the early years were the sandstone Central High School (completed in 1896), now the Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art; the ornate copper-domed Cascade County Courthouse (1903); and railroad passenger depots of the Great Northern Railway (1909) and the Milwaukee Road (1915), both overlooking the Missouri River.

Hill's close friend and business associate, Paris Gibson, promoted Great Falls as a site for the development of cheap hydroelectricity and heavy industry.

In an interesting twist of fate, the demolition crew failed to accomplish the task on the first try; the two worst cracks in the stack ran from just above ground level to nearly 300 feet (90 m) up.

[31] During World War II, the Northwest Staging Route passed through Great Falls, along which planes were delivered to the USSR according to the Lend-Lease program.

On February 11, 2013, the residents of Great Falls were met with a false Emergency Alert System message during an afternoon broadcast of The Steve Wilkos Show on CBS affiliate television station KRTV, which simply stated that "the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living.

[42] Great Falls has a cold semi-arid climate (Köppen: BSk),[43] with a notable amount of summer precipitation occurring in the form of thunderstorms.

[44] In the absence of such winds, shallow cold snaps are common; there is an average of 20.8 nights with a low of 0 °F (−17.8 °C) or colder and 44 days failing to top freezing.

Summers are hot and dry, with highs reaching 90 °F (32.2 °C) on nineteen days per year, though the diurnal temperature variation is large and easily exceeds 30 °F (16.7 °C).

Small towns and census-designated places in Cascade County near Great Falls include: As of the census[50] of 2010, there were 58,505 people, 25,301 households, and 15,135 families residing in the city.

[56] The same year, the Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company broke ground on a large smelter in the city,[57] drawn to the location by the power provided by the dam.

A North Montana Agricultural Society was formed to bring improvements in the practice of cattle ranching and wheat farming, and to lobby for federal- and state-funded irrigation projects.

[65][66] Wheat production began to soar in Montana during the 1906-1907 growing season,[67] and by 1920 there were 11 railroad spur lines radiating from the city to collect the grain from local farmers.

[65] The city's easy access to inexpensive electrical power made it ideal for grain milling and meat refrigeration, and enabled Great Falls to become a major center for farmers and ranchers.

[71] The city's close proximity to Montana's cattle-rich Judith Basin also led to the development of a large meat packing industry.

Massive swarms of locusts struck the state in 1919, and in 1920 strong, steady winds eroded the topsoil, damaging the productivity of the soil and creating a "dust bowl" effect.

[82] Anaconda cut production in the state by 75 percent and closed its plant in Great Falls,[83] throwing hundreds out of work.

[86] By the time the Great Depression ended in 1940, 11,000 farms (20 percent of the state's total) had been abandoned and 2,000,000 acres (810,000 ha) of farmland had gone out of cultivation.

[94] Much of the city's growth was due to rising federal investment in defense and healthcare,[95] and it was an important regional convention, trade, and medical center.

[96] In 1951, Anaconda consolidated its statewide zinc production in Great Falls, adding substantial numbers of new workers,[97] and in 1955 opened an aluminum smelter in the city.

[132] Growth was strongest in construction and manufacturing,[133] followed by back-office business services (such as Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana's new insurance claims processing center), healthcare (such as the opening of the Great Falls Clinic Hospital), retail sales, social welfare (such as the opening of the Cameron Family Center, which houses 26 homeless families), and tourism.

[135] A 2016 report by the Bureau of Business and Economic Development at the University of Montana predicted the city's economy would be driven by manufacturing, retail sales, and tourism over the next several years.

Working with BNSF Railway, the city's development agency converted 197 acres (80 ha) of disused railroad yard into a full service heavy industrial food and agricultural processing site.

FedEx Ground, Helena Chemical, Montana Specialty Mills, Pacific Steel and Recycling,[136] and Cargill all took space in the park by the end of 2018.

These ICBMs and MAFs are dispersed over the largest missile complex in the Western Hemisphere, an area encompassing some 23,000 sq mi (60,000 km2) (approximately the size of the state of West Virginia).

[138][139][140] Great Falls International Airport is home to multiple military units, including the Montana Air National Guard's 120th Airlift Wing, which is composed of C-130H cargo aircraft and associated support personnel.

Formerly called the White Sox, Dodgers and Giants, baseball players such as Pedro Martínez, José Offerman, and Raúl Mondesí have spent time in Great Falls with the team.