Terry, MT

Terry is a Prairie County town on the eastern Montana prairie, where the Yellowstone River, old freight routes, and two transcontinental rail lines shaped a county seat. The place began as Joubert's Landing, a supply point for freighters moving between Bismarck and Miles City. The Northern Pacific reached the settlement in 1881, and the town took the name Terry after Gen. Alfred Howe Terry. A second railroad came with the Milwaukee Road's Pacific Extension, while ranching and livestock shipping kept the local economy tied to the grasslands.

Terry's historical character is unusually well documented. Photographer Evelyn Cameron recorded ranch work, family life, river crossings, and the surrounding badlands, and her photographs now live at the Prairie County Museum and Evelyn Cameron Gallery. The Terry Badlands Wilderness Study Area adds a geological edge just north of the Yellowstone, with banded cliffs, buttes, gullies, fossils, and wildlife. The Kempton Hotel, operating since 1902, is another old local reference point. Terry is a county-seat town where rail history, ranch country, a remarkable camera archive, and the badlands all sit within the same horizon.