

In July 1806, William Clark (of the Lewis and Clark Expedition) passed through the Billings area. The present-day Crow Nation is just south of Billings. The Crow Indians have called the Billings area home since about 1700. These excavations have proved the area has been occupied since at least 2600 BC until after 1800 AD. Approximately 30,000 artifacts (including stone tools and weapons) have been excavated from the site. These caves contain over 100 pictographs (rock paintings), the oldest of which is over 2,000 years old. The Pictograph Caves are about five miles south of downtown. Over the last million years the river has carved its way down through this stone to form the canyon walls known as the Billings Rimrocks or the Rims. Over millions of years, this sand was compressed into stone known as Eagle Sandstone. As the sea retreated, it left a deep layer of sand. The sea deposited sediment and sand around the shoreline. Around 80 million years ago, the Billings area was on the shore of the Western Interior Seaway. The downtown core and much of the rest of Billings is in the Yellowstone Valley, a canyon carved out by the Yellowstone River. The Cheyenne name is É'êxováhtóva, 'sawing place' and the Gros Ventre name is ʔóhuutébiθɔnɔ́ɔ́nh, 'where they saw lumber', both also named for the sawmill, or translations of the Crow name. It means 'where they cut wood', and is named as such because of a sawmill built in the area by early white settlers. The Crow people, who are indigenous to the area, call the city Ammalapáshkuua. An earlier name for the area was Clark's Fork Bottom. Billings, a former president of the Northern Pacific Railroad from Woodstock, Vermont. See also: Timeline of Billings, Montana Name The northeast entrance to Yellowstone National Park is a little over 100 miles from Billings. Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, Red Lodge Mountain Resort, the Beartooth Highway, which connects Red Lodge and Yellowstone National Park. Īttractions in and around Billings include ZooMontana, Yellowstone Art Museum, Pompey's Pillar, Pictograph Cave, Chief Plenty Coups State Park. Although the city is growing, its growth rate has diminished markedly with oil price declines in recent years. history, as well as the Heath shale oil discovery just north of Billings, the city's growth rate stayed high during the shale oil boom. With the Bakken oil development in eastern Montana and western North Dakota, the largest oil discovery in U.S. With more hotel accommodations than any area within a five-state region, the city hosts a variety of conventions, concerts, sporting events, and other rallies. Billings has avoided the economic downturn that affected most of the nation from 2008 to 2012 as well as the housing bust. From 2000 to 2010 Lockwood, an eastern suburb, saw growth of 57.8%, the largest growth rate of any community in Montana. Parts of the metro area are seeing hyper growth. The city is experiencing rapid growth and a strong economy it has had and is continuing to have the largest growth of any city in Montana. Billings is also the largest retail destination for much of the same area. With one of the largest trade areas in the United States, Billings is the trade and distribution center for much of Montana east of the Continental Divide, Northern Wyoming, and western portions of North Dakota and South Dakota. īillings was nicknamed the "Magic City" because of its rapid growth from its founding as a railroad town in March 1882. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Metropolitan Area, which had a population of 184,167 in the 2020 census.

state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Billings ( Crow: Ammalapáshkuua, Cheyenne: É'êxováhtóva ) is the largest city in the U.S.
