Square Butte: The Landmark Russell Kept Painting

Driving toward Great Falls from the south or east, you will see it before you see the city: a flat-topped mesa rising from the plains with the clean geometric precision of something placed there deliberately. Square Butte sits roughly fifty miles east of Great Falls in Chouteau County, and in the open country of the high plains it is visible for many miles in every direction. It is an igneous intrusion, often described as a laccolith, a dome of magma that intruded into overlying sedimentary rock, solidified underground, then was exposed as the softer surrounding material eroded away over millions of years.

Charles Russell painted Square Butte repeatedly. It appears as a background element in several of his works, the signature landform of the Judith Basin country where he spent his cowboy years. The community that shares its name is small and nearly dormant.

The butte itself has been there for tens of millions of years and does not need the recognition.