Hardin: A Town Born from the Opening of Crow Lands

Hardin, the county seat of Big Horn County, did not exist until the federal government opened Crow Reservation surplus lands to homesteading. In nineteen oh four, the Crow Tribe ceded a large share of its lower Bighorn Valley land to the government, and by nineteen oh six settlers were filing on claims. The town followed soon after and was named for Samuel Hardin, a friend of the developer Charles Morrill.

It was incorporated in nineteen eleven. Big Horn County itself was not organized until nineteen thirteen. The Holly Sugar Corporation built a beet sugar processing plant here in nineteen thirty-seven, locking in the agricultural economy of the valley.

Today Hardin is the main commercial hub for a wide stretch of southeastern Montana and serves as the gateway town nearest to the Little Bighorn Battlefield, a short drive to the south.