Making Heritage Through Montana’s Official State Highway Maps, 1914–2000^*

Abstract

We assess Montana highway maps produced between 1914 and 2000 to identify how the Montana Department of Transportation and its predecessors used maps to frame Montana’s place identity and heritage for promotional purposes in the twentieth century. After 1934, we document how Montana’s official state maps became a key source and shaper of tourist knowledge about the state, its history, and its attractions. Five persistent map themes—territorial identity, mythic West, natural wealth, outdoor recreation, and hospitality—are used to define Montana landscapes and heritage and to shape perceptions of the state. The normative and persuasive powers of Montana highway maps reveal them as premiere examples of a portable and place‐defining affective technology used to promote tourism within the twentieth‐century American West.

Keywords:

• American West
• heritage
• highway maps
• Montana
• Tourism

Notes

  ¹Shortridge defines place‐defining novels as those meeting one or more of the following criteria: 1) popularity amongst a large audience, 2) critical acclaim, and 3) approval amongst people living within the region the novel presents. Montana highway maps meet the first two criteria.

  ²The first marker was installed in 1935 near Helena. The program expanded rapidly. By 1959 approximately one hundred markers dotted Montana’s western mountainous region. Inactivity during the 1960s and 1970s gave way to the program’s full resurrection in 1984. Today there are 251 markers. Historian Jon Axline documents the markers in Montana’s Historical Highway Markers, 4^th ed. (2008).