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This official map of Montana Territory was published in 1879 by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s General Land Office and compiled by C. Roeser, Principal Draughtsman.

The map offers a detailed overview of Montana’s territorial organization a decade prior to its admission as a state in 1889. Reflecting the federal government’s drive to impose administrative order on western lands, the map records surveyed townships, county boundaries, Indian reservations, military posts, and key settlements as they stood in the late 19th century.  

The counties shown—such as Meagher, Lewis and Clarke, Custer, Gallatin, and Missoula—are defined with red boundary lines, while areas under active survey are overlaid with rectangular township grids in accordance with the Public Land Survey System. These grids denote land prepared for eventual sale or homesteading under federal land policies. The map also identifies natural landmarks, rivers, and mountainous terrain, while Yellowstone National Park is demarcated at the southern edge of the territory, adjacent to Wyoming.

Prominently featured are several large Native American reservations, reflecting the outcome of U.S. treaty negotiations and Executive Orders that redefined Indigenous territorial boundaries. Among these are the Crow Indian Reservation in the southeast, the Flathead Reservation in the northwest, and a vast northern zone designated for the Gros Ventre, Piegan, Blood, Blackfeet, and River Crow. The map records the legal basis for these reservations, including dates of ratified treaties and Executive Orders, underlining the contested and shifting nature of land rights in this period of settler expansion. Other Indigenous lands include the Milk River Agency and the Assiniboine and Sioux reservation near the northeastern border.

Military reservations are also marked, signaling the ongoing U.S. military presence in the region, often associated with enforcing federal Indian policy or protecting migration and settlement routes. Red symbols on the map denote the locations of land offices, surveyor general’s offices, and county seats, pointing to the growing bureaucratic infrastructure imposed by Washington as Montana became increasingly integrated into national systems of governance and land distribution.