Travelers' Rest, a MT250 Grant recipient, is celebrating their 25 year anniversary. This year they will not only be celebrating those last 25 years, but the United States’ last 250!

There will be several events across the next year.

Location: Travelers’ Rest State Park

To see further events click here.

Julia Hancock Chapter, NSDAR was one of the MT250 Grant recipients. With this funding they will take to the streets and to the schools! These women plan to educate the public on the United States’ rich history.

Location: Lewistown, MT and surrounding areas.

This is a year long event!

Please join the Montana 250th Commission for its December 2025 monthly meeting, which will be held virtually on Zoom https://mt-gov.zoom.us/j/86188914588?pwd=e4IhapxMXbd7pi9Sthan85olrvpBhK.1

December 2025’s Book Selection is The Boston Massacre: A Family History, by Serena Zabin.

A dramatic, untold “people’s history” of the storied event that helped trigger the American Revolution.

The story of the Boston Massacre—when on a late winter evening in 1770, British soldiers shot five local men to death—is familiar to generations. But from the very beginning, many accounts have obscured a fascinating truth: the Massacre arose from conflicts that were as personal as they were political.

Professor Serena Zabin draws on original sources and lively stories to follow British troops as they are dispatched from Ireland to Boston in 1768 to subdue the increasingly rebellious colonists. And she reveals a forgotten world hidden in plain sight: the many regimental wives and children who accompanied these armies. We see these families jostling with Bostonians for living space, finding common cause in the search for a lost child, trading barbs, and sharing baptisms. Becoming, in other words, neighbors. When soldiers shot unarmed citizens in the street, it was these intensely human, now broken bonds that fueled what quickly became a bitterly fought American Revolution.

Serena Zabin’s The Boston Massacre delivers an indelible new slant on iconic American Revolutionary history.

The discussion will be led by Dr. Emily Arendt, MT 250 Commission member, and author Serena Zabin will join us for the discussion.

To receive the Zoom link to join, please register at Montana Reads: The Treasure State's Book Club - online discussion - LibCal - Montana Historical Society. Participants are encouraged, but not required, to read the book.

Please join the Montana 250th Commission for its November 2025 monthly meeting, which will be held virtually on Zoom. Details will be posted below when available.

November’s selection will be Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics by famed historian and University of Texas professor H.W. Brands, who will join us live for this discussion. Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to engage directly with one of America’s preeminent historians in an intimate virtual setting!

From bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H.W. Brands, a revelatory history of the shocking emergence of vicious political division at the birth of the United States.

To the framers of the Constitution, political parties were a fatal threat to republican virtues. They had suffered the consequences of partisan politics in Britain before the American Revolution, and they wanted nothing similar for America. Yet parties emerged even before the Constitution was ratified, and they took firmer root in the following decade. In Founding Partisans, master historian H. W. Brands has crafted a fresh and lively narrative of the early years of the republic as the Founding Fathers fought one another with competing visions of what our nation would be.

The first party, the Federalists, formed around Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and their efforts to overthrow the Articles of Confederation and make the federal government more robust. Their opponents organized as the Antifederalists, who feared the corruption and encroachments on liberty that a strong central government would surely bring. The Antifederalists lost but regrouped under the new Constitution as the Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson, whose bruising contest against Federalist John Adams marked the climax of this turbulent chapter of American political history. 

The country’s first years unfolded in a contentious spiral of ugly elections and blatant violations of the Constitution. Still, peaceful transfers of power continued, and the nascent country made its way towards global dominance, against all odds. Founding Partisans is a powerful reminder that fierce partisanship is a problem as old as the republic.

To receive the Zoom link to join, please register at Montana Reads: The Treasure State's Book Club - online discussion - LibCal - Montana Historical Society. Participants are encouraged, but not required, to read the book.

Please join the Montana 250th Commission for its October 2025 monthly meeting, which will be held virtually on Zoom. Details will be posted below when available.

October 2025’s Book Selection is Mansfield and Dirksen: Bipartisan Giants of the Senate, by Marc Johnson.

The discussion will be led by Deena Mansour, MT 250th Commission member and Executive Director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center and the University of Montana.

The U.S. Senate is so sharply polarized along partisan and ideological lines today that it’s easy to believe it was always this way. But in the turbulent 1960s, even as battles over civil rights and the war in Vietnam dominated American politics, bipartisanship often prevailed. One key reason: two remarkable leaders who remain giants of the Senate—Republican leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois and Democratic leader Mike Mansfield of Montana, the longest-serving majority leader in Senate history, so revered for his integrity, fairness, and modesty that the late Washington Post reporter David Broder called him “the greatest American I ever met.” The political and personal relationship of these party leaders, extraordinary by today’s standards, is the lens through which Marc C. Johnson examines the Senate in that tumultuous time.

Working together, with the Democrat often ceding public leadership to his Republican counterpart, Mansfield and Dirksen passed landmark civil rights and voting rights legislation, created Medicare, and helped bring about a foundational nuclear arms limitation treaty. The two leaders could not have been more different in personality and style: Mansfield, a laconic, soft-spoken, almost shy college history professor, and Dirksen, an aspiring actor known for his flamboyance and sense of humor, dubbed the “Wizard of Ooze” by reporters. Drawing on extensive Senate archives, Johnson explores the congressional careers of these iconic leaders, their intimate relationships with Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and their own close professional friendship based on respect, candor, and mutual affection.

A study of politics but also an analysis of different approaches to leadership, this is a portrait of a U.S. Senate that no longer exists—one in which two leaders, while exercising partisan political responsibilities, could still come together to pass groundbreaking legislation—and a reminder of what is possible

Author Marc Johnson will join us for this event.

Register via the link below:

https://mhs-mt.libcal.com/event/15011021

Please join the Montana 250th Commission for its September 2025 monthly meeting, which will be held virtually on Zoom. Details are below.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://mt-gov.zoom.us/j/89956299279?pwd=ZS5dUQBXoybm7kiKAjp9xx4hnFxaah.1

Meeting ID: 899 5629 9279

Password: 066814

Dial by Telephone

+1 646 558 8656

Meeting ID: 899 5629 9279

Password: 066814


AGENDA:

Welcome

Roll Call

Pledge of Allegiance

Chair and Coordinator Reports (15 min.)

· AASLH Conference Readout

o Celebrate Freedom Week

o Creation of Partner Organization Agreement Template

o Designation of Montana Museum Day

· Update on MT 250 Beer Collaboration

New Business (60 min.)

· MT250-MTHS Relations and Budget Update

· Final Details of Regranting Program Application and Updated Timeline

o Task: Circulate information within your networks and encourage projects

· Set 2025 Meeting Dates and Locations

· Designate Programming Committee to lead June 2026 Signature Event efforts

· Discussion of proposed National Civics Bee Budget* (may be postponed until after Old Business)

Old Business (15 min.)

· MT Reads Book Club

· Lee Newspapers Article Series

· Programming updates

o MT Tapestry, Roadway Signs, Citizenship Test, etc.

· Prioritization of Ideas from America250 DC Convening/Partner Outreach Forum

Commission Member Updates

PUBLIC COMMENT

Adjourn

September 2025’s Book Selection is The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11, by Garrett Graff.

The discussion will be led by Chris Averill, MT 250 Commission member.

Garrett Graff, the award-winning journalist and author of Raven Rock shares the first comprehensive oral history of September 11, 2001—a panoramic narrative woven from hundreds of interviews with government officials, first responders, survivors, friends, and family members.

Over the last two-plus decades, much has been written and said about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the profound impact they had on America and the world. But those names, stories, and memories have never before been collected in one place to tell the full, 360-degree story of what happened that day, and in the days after.

In The Only Plane in the Sky, award-winning journalist and author Garrett Graff draws on never-before-published transcripts, recently declassified documents, and original interviews and stories from nearly five hundred government officials, first responders, witnesses, survivors, friends, and family members to paint the most comprehensive, minute-by-minute account of the September 11 attacks yet, all told in the words of those who experienced that dramatic and tragic day. From the firefighters who streamed into the smoke-filled stairwells of the Twin Towers to the fighter pilots scrambled from air bases across the Northeast with orders to shoot down any hijacked commercial aircraft; from the teachers who held their fear at bay while evacuating terrified children from schools mere blocks from the World Trade Center to the stricken family members trapped helplessly on the ground, hearing their loved ones’ final words from aboard a hijacked plane or within a burning building, Graff weaves together the unforgettable testimonies of the men and women who found themselves caught at the center of an unprecedented human drama. The result is a unique, profound, and searing exploration of humanity on a day that changed the course of history, and all of our lives.

Author Garrett Graff will join us live for this special event in honor of the victims of September 11, 2001.

Register via the link below:

https://mhs-mt.libcal.com/event/15010893

The purpose of our August 21st Zoom call is to introduce interested organizations to the Montana 250th Commission, update them on the Commission’s planned programming, including a regranting program, and have the Commission learn more about potential partner organizations and their plans for celebrating America’s 250th. This is intended to be the first of multiple interactions throughout the next year. The virtual session will last from 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. with an opportunity to ask questions; Zoom meeting information below. 

Please RSVP to mt250@mt.gov if you are able to join. And if you represent an association, please share the invite with your individual members. We are aiming for this to be an informative and productive session, so please do attend if you are interested. If you cannot attend, we plan to record the session and can share the video by request following the event.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://mt-gov.zoom.us/j/87274078272?pwd=pEE7XFnRkxAa9HkbE9H8fFGWm0Vbrq.1

Meeting ID: 872 7407 8272

Password: 257127

Dial by Telephone

+1 646 558 8656

Meeting ID: 872 7407 8272

Password: 257127

Find your local number: https://mt-gov.zoom.us/u/kbDroE0hVs

Zoom link and agenda forthcoming

August 2025’s Book Selection is Rush: Revolution, Madness & the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father, by Stephen Fried.

The discussion will be led by Molly Stockdale, MT 250th Commission member and executive director of Travelers' Rest.

By the time he was thirty, Dr. Benjamin Rush had signed the Declaration of Independence, edited Common Sense, toured Europe as Benjamin Franklin’s protégé, become John Adams’s confidant, and was soon to be appointed Washington’s surgeon general. He was only just beginning his role in 1776 in the American experiment. Discover Rush's singular life and towering legacy in this illuminating book by Stephen Fried.

Register via the link below:

Thur., Aug. 14 ~ 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Part II: American Hippocrates, pages 251 - 510

July 2025’s Book Selection is Rush: Revolution, Madness & the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father, by Stephen Fried.

The discussion will be led by Molly Stockdale, MT 250th Commission member and executive director of Travelers' Rest.

By the time he was thirty, Dr. Benjamin Rush had signed the Declaration of Independence, edited Common Sense, toured Europe as Benjamin Franklin’s protégé, become John Adams’s confidant, and was soon to be appointed Washington’s surgeon general. He was only just beginning his role in 1776 in the American experiment. Discover Rush's singular life and towering legacy in this illuminating book by Stephen Fried.

Register via the link below:

Thur., July 10 ~ 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Part I: Turbulent Spirit, pages 1 - 250

*NOTE: Author Stephen Fried will join us live for the July event

25 Ways Your Museum Can Commemorate 250 Years Since the Declaration of Independence

America 250 is a national effort to commemorate the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence. Each state has its own commission working to create programs and generate public interest in this American anniversary. Molly Stockdale, Vice Chair of the Montana250 Commission, offers 25 ways your organization can participate, from displaying a traveling exhibit to hosting a red, white, and brew pint night to honoring veterans in your community. Bring your own ideas to share!