19th century

William Clark visited the area in July 1806 as he traveled east from Three Forks along the Gallatin River. The party camped 3 miles east of what is now Bozeman, at the mouth of Kelly Canyon. The journal entries from Clark's party briefly describes the future city's location in a place the local natives called the "Valley of the Flowers" [3].

In 1863, John Bozeman, along with a partner named John Jacobs, opened the Bozeman Trail, an offshoot from the Oregon Trail leading to the mining town of Virginia City through the Gallatin Valley and the future location of the city of Bozeman.
John Bozeman, with Daniel Rouse and William Bealle platted the town in 1864 stating "standing right in the gate of the mountains ready to swallow up all tenderfeet that would reach the territory from the east, with their golden fleeces to be taken care of...". The Indian Wars closed the Bozeman Trail in 1868, but the town's fertile land attracted permanent settlers.
In 1866 Nelson Story arrived with 3,000 head of longhorn cattle sneaking past angry Native Americans and the U.S. Army who tried to turn Story back for safety reasons. Those first cattle formed the first herd in Montana's cattle industry.
Fort Ellis was established in 1868 by Captain R. S. LaMotte and two companies of the 2nd Cavalry, after the mysterious death of John Bozeman near Yellowstone and considerable political disturbance in the area led local settlers and miners to feel a need for added protection.

The fort, named for Gettysburg casualty Colonel Augustus Van Horne Ellis, was decommissioned in 1886 and very few remains are left at the actual site, now occupied by the Fort Ellis Experimental Station of Montana State University [4]. In addition to Fort Ellis, a short-lived fort, Fort Elizabeth Meahger (also simply known as Fort Meagher), was established in 1867 by volunteer militiamen.

This fort was located eight miles east of town on Rock Creek.

Northern Pacific Railway tracks finally reached the small town in 1883. By 1900, Bozeman's population reached 3,500.


20th century
In 1906, a Chinese immigrant name Lu-Sing murdered another Chinese immigrant named Tom Sing (no relation). In a fascinating summary defense, witnesses indicate that Lu-Sing acted in self-defense but Lu-Sing was found guilty and hanged outside the Bozeman Jail [5].

The first Federal Building and Post Office was built in 1915 (many years later, while empty, it was used along with downtown Bozeman in filming A River Runs Through It (1992) by Robert Redford and starring Brad Pitt.) It is now used by HRDC, a community organization.

Montana State University in recent years has graduated a number of pioneering scientists and engineers who have stayed in Bozeman and founded technology companies that compete on a national and global level. Local technology companies such as Zoot Enterprises and RightNow Technologies have in turn recruited many Montana State University Graduates to help build an innovative and dedicated workforce. The University's Museum of the Rockies was put on the map by famed paleontologist Jack Horner.

Residents and visitors enjoy easy access to skiing at the Big Sky Ski Resort. Plentiful recreational activities and the free marketing the area received from A River Runs Through It and The Horse Whisperer have combined to bring a steady influx of new residents and visitors.

In the 1930s, for instance, local ordinances prohibited dancing anywhere in town after midnight, and in beer halls at any time. It was illegal to drink beer standing up, so all the bars had plenty of stools.

 References in popular culture
In two episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise, "Carbon Creek" and "Desert Crossing," the city was named as the fictional location of First Contact (as shown in the movie Star Trek: First Contact) between Vulcans and humans, an obvious nod from Bozeman native and Star Trek producer Brannon Braga. The starship USS Bozeman appears in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect", another reference to Braga's hometown.

In the popular television show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Las Vegas Crime Scene Investigator Level 3 Catherine Willows is originally from Bozeman. In the spinoff show CSI: NY, Detective Lindsay Monroe is also a Bozeman native and had been a CSI there for 3 years before her transfer to New York at the request of Mac Taylor. Because of her roots in Bozeman, Lindsay is given the nickname "Montana" by co-worker Detective Danny Messer. In a 2007 episode, Lindsay returns to Bozeman to testify as a witness for the prosecution in a quadruple homicide case in which she is the lone survivor.

Bozeman was also featured in the movie Supervolcano, where it is destroyed by an eruption at Yellowstone.

Bozeman is the hometown of Dale, a character from Heroes, featured in the episode "Unexpected (source, MT.gov)


 

This is a sketch of a buffalo jump in Madison area south of Logan, in sketch, and actual photo of the area in the insert. Sketch shows method Indians used to kill their game in wholesale lots in the era prior to the arrival of the white man in the Gallatin valley. Indians would cut out a portion of a herd and drive them over the point of the cliff. Crippled animals would then be killsed by Indians waiting below with their bows and arrows. The area has for many years produced countless arrowheads and other Indian artifacts from that early day. (source, John & Toni Scully and Cecilia McDonnell)

This picture is fuzzy on purpose. A gruesome sight found in an old Gallatin County’s Heritage publication of 1910. This is what it says:

“Z.T. Triplett (Old Man Tripp) in jail for murder committed Oct. 27, 1873. John St Clair (Steamboat Bill) in jail for murder committed Jan. 30, 1873, hung by Vigilantes Jan. 31,1874, north side of East Main Street, Bozeman, Montana. (just east of the N.P. freight depot.(Wikipedia)

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