Cascade, Montana

Cascade, Montana, started as a railroad crew camp with a different name. When the Montana Central Railway began laying track south from Great Falls in eighteen eighty-six, a settlement appeared around a post office run by Thomas Gorham and was called Dodge. When the railroad was completed the following year, the town was renamed Cascade, in hopes of winning the county seat of the newly created Cascade County, which had itself been named for the great falls of the Missouri River nearby.

The bid failed. Great Falls kept the county seat. But Cascade survived as a small railroad and ranching town on the Missouri River.

The surrounding country ran sheep, cattle, and horses across the open benchlands above the river. Cascade remains a small agricultural town of a few hundred people, tucked between the Missouri and the Belt Mountains.