Fast Facts

• Combined area of Garfield, Prairie, McCone, Richland, Petroleum and Fergus counties in eastern Montana: 17,125 square miles
  
  
• Combined population: 26,508
  
  
• Density: 1.6 people per square mile
  
  
• Population change between 1990 and 2000: -7.2 percent
  
  
• Combined land area of New Jersey and Maryland: 17,194 square miles
  
  
• Combined population: 13.7 million
  
  
• Density: 796.8 people per square mile
  
  
• Population change between 1990 and 2000: +9.6 percent
  
  
• Nationwide population change between 1990 and 2000: +13.1 percent
  
  
• Year first steamboat arrived in Fort Benton, Mont.: 1860
  
  
• Year railroad arrived: 1883
  
  
• Year last steamboat came to Fort Benton: 1887
  
  
• Number of animal species new to science described by Lewis and Clark: 122
  
  
• Number among them now listed as endangered, threatened or of special concern: 42
  
  
• Number that have become extinct: 1 (Audubon bighorn sheep)
  
  
• Length of Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail: 3,700 miles
  
  
• Trail miles protected within national parks or wilderness areas: 0
  
  
• Length of Upper Missouri National Wild and Scenic River: 149 miles
  
  
• Length of Fort Peck reservoir: 134 miles

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; River and Plains Society; "Lewis and Clark: Pioneering Naturalists," by Paul Russell Cutright (1969: University of Illinois Press); Sierra Club; National Park Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.