Welcome to Fort Shaw, Montana

• 

  Horses from Square Butte Ranch

  Photo courtesy: Square Butte Ranch

• 

  Scenic View

  Photo courtesy: Square Butte Ranch

As the name suggests, Fort Shaw had its beginning in a military fort built to protect the Mullan Road. General Gibbon led the Seventh Infantry out of Fort Shaw in 1876 to join Terry and Custer. From 1867 to 1890 the fort had a reputation as one of the premier outposts in Montana. It even hosted the first professional stage performance in the state. The fort later became an Indian boarding school which became famous when its girls' basketball team won the exhibition tournament at the 1904 Chicago World's Fair. A memorial erected in their honor is near town on the site of the boarding school. Today, Fort Shaw is a small, primarily agricultural community not far from the Sun River and located on MT Highway 200.