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Montana Counties

There are 56 counties in Montana. Montana has two consolidated city-counties—Anaconda with Deer Lodge County and Butte with Silver Bow County. The portion of Yellowstone National Park that lies within Montana was not part of any county until 1997, when part of it was nominally added to Gallatin County, and the rest of it to Park County.

Beaverhead County, Montana

Beaverhead County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Dillon
Year Organized: 1864
Square Miles: 5,543

Court House:

2 South Pacific Street
County Courthouse
Dillon, MT 59725-4000

Etymology - Origin of County Name

The Beaverhead Rock in the Jefferson River, which is shaped like a beaver's head

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

Beaverhead County was created 2 February 1865 as an original county. County seat: Dillon

Beaverhead County, in the Southwestern corner of the state, was organized as one of the original territorial counties on February 2, 1865. It was named for the rock which Sacajawea pointed out to Lewis and Clark explaining that her people had called it that because it resembled a beaver's head . It was one of the smallest of the original counties, but is now one of the largest. Beaverhead County maintained its original area throughout all the county dividing and the only change in its borders was made by an annexation of a part of Madison County in 1911. It contains Montana's oldest town, Bannack City, where a post office was established in November 1863. Dillon is the county seat.

From Names on the Faces of Montana
by Roberta Carkeek Cheney
Copyright 1983 Revised 1984
6th printing, January 1996

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 5,572 square miles (14,432 km²), of which, 5,542 square miles (14,355 km²) of it is land and 30 square miles (77 km²) of it (0.53%) is water.

Beaverhead County is the largest county by area in the U.S. state of Montana, located in the southwest corner of Montana and surrounded on three sides by the Continental Divide, is the largest county in Montana. It's land area consists of deep basins separated by towering mountain ranges.

Neighboring Counties:

Ravalli County, Montana - northwest
Deer Lodge County, Montana - north
Silver Bow County, Montana - north
Madison County, Montana - east
Fremont County, Idaho - southeast
Clark County, Idaho - south
Lemhi County, Idaho - west

Cities and Towns:

- Dillon (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Lima	town	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

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