JORDAN COUNTRY—A GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY LOOK∗

∗This work was supported by a Montana State University Faculty Research Creativity Grant. The author also acknowledges the residents of Jordan Country for their interest and assistance.

ABSTRACT

Located on the plains of east-central Montana, and focused on the town of Jordan, Isaiah Bowman's Jordan Country changed considerably in the fifty years following his 1930 study. Gone is the prevailing life of unsettlement and experimentation which characterized that pioneering area. And yet, a revivified Bowman taking his own golden anniversary look would still find largely unchanged a surprising number of the regional characteristics which had attracted him a half-century earlier, especially those relating to transportation, medical care, and schooling. The region has not evolved into the agricultural district Bowman thought possible. The area was then, and remains today, an example of a Great Plains’“yonland.”

Notes

∗This work was supported by a Montana State University Faculty Research Creativity Grant. The author also acknowledges the residents of Jordan Country for their interest and assistance.