Plentywood, a county seat, is the trading center for the people living in the extreme northeastern corner of the state. The people around Plentywood have experienced prosperity, drought, and starvation-and prosperity and drought again. The economy has been boosted in recent years by oil exploration. The town was platted in 1909 and the railroad arrived. This land, once prime hunting grounds for the Assiniboines, free pasture for the big cattle outfits, and after a fighting, grazing land for sheep, succumbed in the early 1900s to the homesteader's plow. (from Cheney's
Names on the Face of Montana, Mountain Press Publishing Company)
In the early days, a cattle outfit driving across the treeless prairie met a couple of riders coming from the other direction. They asked if there was any place around where they found find water and firewood for a campsite. The cattlemen were told to keep going ahead for a mile or two and they would find "plenty wood" as there was a growth of small timber along the bank of a creek at the point where the town now stands. The cattle outfit went on and made their camp where the town is now located. (from Cheney's Names on the Face of Montana, Mountain Press Publishing Company)
At the site of present-day Plentywood, Sitting Bull and his Sioux people surrendered to the US Army after living in Canada for five years. The Outlaw Trail crossed into Canada north of Plentywood. Rustlers moved their stolen cattle and horses along this passage across the border. Butch Cassidy named the trail and established a rest station in the Big Muddy Valley, west of Plentywood. At the turn of the century, the gulches around Plentywood harbored every manner of outlaw. This area was the Old West legend.
After 1910, homesteaders began claiming the territory and things calmed down. Historical accounts are available in promotional pieces in Scobey and Plentywood, and local libraries can assist you. The Sheridan County Museum was completed in 1968 to capture and preserve some of the historical flavor. fashions and fixtures of Sheridan County's early days. And in conjunction with the Sheridan County Agriculture Museum and Civic Center completed in 1983, Sheridan County has provided a wonderful and entertaining look into the past.
This lively, small town features exotic animal farm tours and a hot air balloon rally in June. Thirty-one miles south of Plentywood lies the picturesque Brush Lake. It is a deep, clear lake with white, sandy beaches surrounded by grass fields and linear stands of spring wheat.
