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1957 Map of Sourdough School

Name: 1957 Topographic Map of Sourdough School
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1958
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1958

About this map

Sweet Grass Creek winds through this rural Montana landscape during the mid-1950s, a period when small community schools still anchored the countryside. The geography is defined by a dense network of watercourses, including Sourdough Creek, Cottonwood Creek, and Wildcat Creek, which carve through the terrain as they flow toward the larger Sweet Grass Creek drainage.

Education in this ranching country is represented by the Sourdough School and East Fork School, both situated near the primary creek beds they are named for. The presence of Gibson Road and several unnamed unimproved routes suggests a sparsely populated region primarily reliant on livestock and watershed resources. These details reflect the Missouri River Basin development era, preserving the locations of rural infrastructure before further consolidation changed the character of Montana’s educational districts.