Broadus, MT

Broadus is the only incorporated town in Powder River County and the county seat, with 456 residents in the 2020 census. Highway 212 threads through the town on the route locals and travelers call the Warrior Trail, placing Broadus near the Powder and Little Powder Rivers in southeastern Montana. Farming and ranching remain part of local life, while the road brings through travelers who stop for food, fuel, antiques, western goods, and a look around town. Broadus has the feel of a county center spread across a very open landscape.

The town carries its past in a particularly direct way. The Powder River Historical Museum sits one block north of the traffic light at the town square and gathers a frontier cabin, original county jail, one-room schoolhouse, antique cars, Native American artifacts, and Mac's collection of minerals, arrowheads, and more than 22,000 seashells. Roughly 28 to 34 miles southwest is Reynolds Battlefield, tied to the 1876 Powder River conflict; the surrounding stretch of Highway 212 earned its Warrior Trail name from that history. Add the July 4 celebration, August county fair, street dances, and December Christmas stroll, and Broadus comes across as a county-seat town whose civic calendar and western past share the same few blocks.