Dupuyer

Dupuyer Creek was called Osaks itukai (Back fat) by the Blackfeet. It refers to a choice cut of buffalo meat the Indians relished. French Canadian fur trappers translated the name to “Depouille,” the French word for hide. Over time, the name was corrupted to Dupuyer. Whiskey traders Joe Kipp and Charlie Thomas settled here to raise cattle in 1874 and sold their holdings to Jimmy Grant in 1877. By the 1880s, the settlement of Dupuyer had become a colorful frontier cattle town and stop on the Fort Shaw-Fort Browning Trail. Dupuyer is the oldest town between Fort Benton and the Rocky Mountains. To the west, following the base of the mountains, lies one of the oldest trails in the United States. It began when early North American natives used it as a primary north-south route. Jim Bridger and the fur trappers knew it as “The Old Travois Trail.” When white traders bootlegged whiskey into Canada in the 1870s and 1880s, it became known as the “Pondera Trail.” The refugees of the Riel Rebellion came to Dupuyer Creek in 1885 and many remained to make this area their home. The Home Ranch on Dupuyer Creek was headquarters for the famous Seven Block Cattle Company of brothers Charles and William Conrad and a frequent stopping place for Montana’s noted western artist, Charlie Russell.