“Montana in Color, 1941–1943”
Color photography was still experimental when the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information sent photographers to Montana in the early 1940s. Most of the record is in black and white, but a small group of color transparencies—twenty‑five of them from across the state—offers a different way of seeing the same places and stories. In color, the familiar silhouettes of mountains, corrals, and smokestacks gain new weight: the red of a barn, the blue of distant ridges, the yellow of late grass before snow.
In Meagher County’s Little Belt Mountains, Russell Lee recorded the first snow of the season in August, when green slopes are suddenly dusted white. The sequence feels almost cinematic, as if the weather is changing between frames. On the Gravelly Range in Madison County, bands of sheep and cattle move across a high plateau, while a herder, his horse, and his dog stand out against the sky. These images echo the black‑and‑white ranching scenes elsewhere in the book, but color makes the work feel immediate—the sun on a horse’s coat, the pale dust of a trail.
Further south and west, Beaverhead County appears as both town and range. A street corner in Dillon anchors a prosperous cattle and sheep country, while corrals full of cattle in the Big Hole Basin show the moment when animals are weighed and trailed to the railroad. In Wisdom, John Vachon’s color view of the town complements his black‑and‑white photographs of Saturday afternoons and winter feeding. Together, they show a community that is both remote and deeply connected to national markets and wartime demand.
In Silver Bow County, color turns Butte’s wartime scrap depots into something almost sculptural. Piles of twisted metal, rails, and machinery fill the frame, evidence of a city mobilized to turn its own industrial past into raw material for ships and planes. Nearby, a color view of Butte itself—streets, buildings, and skyline—reminds us that this was not only a mine and smelter landscape but a lived urban place. In Stillwater County, new chromite mills at Mouat and Ben Bow rise under early snow, tying remote valleys to global supply chains for strategic minerals.
Taken together, these color plates do more than decorate the publication. They invite readers to imagine the textures, temperatures, and tones of mid‑century Montana: the cold blue of first snow, the warm dust of a corral, the painted signs of a small town, the rust and red primer of scrap metal. They stand alongside the larger black‑and‑white archive as a parallel record—rarer, but no less documentary—of how Montana looked, and felt, in the years when ranchers, miners, townspeople, and new war industries were all drawn into a shared, statewide story.
Montana in Color, 1941–1943
A rare color record of Montana’s ranches, mining towns, and wartime landscapes from the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information.
About this color collection
These twenty-five color transparencies, made in 1941–1942 by Russell Lee and John Vachon, capture Montana at a turning point: ranch work in the Big Hole and Gravelly Range, first snow in the Little Belt Mountains, chromite mills rising in Stillwater County, and wartime scrap drives in Butte.
Presented here as Montana in Color, they form a statewide visual atlas that complements the larger black-and-white record of the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information.
- Exhibit panels
- First Snow in the Little Belt Mountain
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Sheep and Cattle on the Gravelly Range
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Cattle Country: Beaverhead and the Big Hole
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Butte at War: Scrap, Salvage, and the Copper City
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Chromite and the War Effort in Stillwater County
Color images by county
Color Plates for the Publication
Panel 1: First Snow in the Little Belt Mountains (Meagher County)
The Little Belt Mountains appear here in rare wartime color, caught at the exact moment when summer gives way to snow. Russell Lee’s transparencies record not just scenery but a seasonal threshold: green slopes dusted with white, dark timber edging into cloud, and the sense that ranch work and logging will soon shift into winter mode.
For Meagher County, these images anchor a story about elevation and climate—how the national forest and surrounding ranchlands depended on predictable snowpack, and how people read the sky and the ridgelines as closely as any ledger.
Panel 2: Sheep and Cattle on the Gravelly Range (Madison County)
On the high plateau of the Gravelly Range, Lee’s color film turns sheep bands and cattle herds into moving patterns across the grass. Herder, horse, and dog stand out against a vast horizon, reminding us that this is both a working landscape and a lived one.
These images show Madison County as a summer engine of the regional livestock economy: sheep at the foot of Black Butte, cattle sharing the same range, and the quiet, daily labor that made distant stockyards and wartime markets possible.
Panel 3: Cattle Country—Beaverhead and the Big Hole
Beaverhead County appears in color as both town and range: a street corner in Dillon, corrals full of cattle waiting to be weighed, and the small town of Wisdom at the heart of the Big Hole Basin. Together, these images trace the path from pasture to railhead, from hay meadows to shipping pens.
Color makes the details vivid—the red of a barn, the dust in a corral, the signage in town—and underscores how deeply the local economy was tied to cattle and sheep at a moment when beef and wool were framed as patriotic contributions to the war effort.
Panel 4: Butte at War—Scrap, Salvage, and the Copper City
In Butte, color reveals a different kind of Montana landscape: piles of twisted metal, rails, machinery, and scrap stacked in wartime salvage depots. Russell Lee’s transparencies show the copper city not only as a place of underground work and smelter stacks, but as a hub of recycling and mobilization.
These images connect neighborhood drives and industrial yards to the global war. Every rusted gear and discarded boiler is reimagined as raw material for ships, planes, and weapons. Seen in color, the scrap heaps become strangely monumental—an accidental sculpture of the home front.
Panel 5: Chromite and the War Effort in Stillwater County
At the Mouat and Ben Bow chromite developments in Stillwater County, color film records a new kind of Montana mine: strategic minerals for a global conflict. Mill buildings rise against mountain backdrops, and early snow dusts roofs and tailings, echoing the Little Belt scenes but with smokestacks and conveyors in the frame.
These images show how quickly landscapes could be reconfigured in wartime. Roads, tramways, and mills appear almost overnight, linking remote valleys to national supply chains. Chromite from Stillwater County would travel far beyond Montana, but the color transparencies keep the story rooted in a specific place and season.
Montana in Color: {{County Name}}
Selected color transparencies from the Farm Security Administration–Office of War Information record {{county}} at mid-century, highlighting {{short thematic phrase}}.
Montana in Color: Beaverhead County
Color transparencies from 1942 show Beaverhead County as both town and range: the streets of Dillon, the small ranching hub of Wisdom, and corrals full of cattle being weighed and trailed to the railroad.
Montana in Color: Madison County
On the high plateau of the Gravelly Range, color images capture sheep bands, cattle herds, and the solitary figure of a herder with his horse and dog at the foot of Black Butte.
Montana in Color: Meagher County
A sequence of color transparencies records the first snow of the season in the foothills of the Little Belt Mountains, where forested slopes and open ridges mark the transition from summer to winter.
Montana in Color: Silver Bow County
In Butte, color film turns scrap depots and city streets into vivid records of the wartime home front, where discarded machinery and metal were gathered for the national war effort.
Montana in Color: Stillwater County
Color views of the Mouat and Ben Bow chromite developments show mills rising in the Stillwater country, dusted with early snow and tied directly to the wartime demand for strategic minerals.