Bynum was named for the Stephen Bynum family, early settlers in the region. (from Cheney's
Names on the Face of Montana, Mountain Press Publishing Company)
One of three small unincorporated towns in Teton County, Bynum has weathered booms and busts in the past 100 years, but stubbornly lives on in the shadows of the Rocky Mountain Front foothills. Located 13 miles north of Choteau on US Highway 89, Bynum of today includes a one-room country school with a growing enrollment, a general store, post office, and a collection of homes. Bynum is also home to Trex Agate Shop and Two Medicine Dinosaur Center, which includes the world's longest dinosaur, a skeletal model display of a Seismosaurus, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Other displays include the first baby dinosaur remains found in North America, recently featured on CNN, and the actual remains of other new dinosaur species.
The nearby Bynum Reservoir provides opportunities for boating, fishing, and camping, and the Blackleaf Wildlife Management Area is located along the Rocky Mountain Front near Bynum. The Blackleaf Road forms the northern boundary of the Wildlife Management Area and ends at the high-walled Blackleaf Canyon that encloses mountain goats and golden eagles. Each winter when the snow deepens in the high country, about 150 elk descend to their winter home on the Blackleaf. The Blackleaf joins the Sun River, Pine Butte, Ear Mountain and the Boone and Crockett Ranch to form a network of snowfree refuges for thousands of elk. To reach the heart of the Blackleaf, take a marked dirt road off the main road (Highway 89) out of Bynum.
