Registration Opens for 53rd Montana History Conference
The Montana Historical Society is bringing its biggest annual gathering east this fall, and registration just opened.
The 53rd Annual Montana History Conference lands in Billings from Thursday, September 24 through Saturday, September 26, with a theme that hedges its bets in the best way: Culture Keepers, Catalysts, and Cowboys. Three days of keynotes, lecture and panel sessions, hands-on workshops, and bus and walking tours, all centered on Billings and Eastern Montana. If you want in, note the dates that matter more than the conference itself: registration closes September 14 (or whenever it hits capacity), and prices climb after August 24. The add-on workshops and tours, which run $15 to $50 each, tend to sell out fast.
Things kick off Thursday evening with a reception at the historic Billings Depot. Expect heavy appetizers, pop-up history exhibits scattered through the space, and live western folk music from John and Joanne Lowell. Friday and Saturday fill out with concurrent lecture sessions, meals, and guided excursions around the region.
Christine Brown, the conference organizer and an interpretive historian with the Historical Society, is quick to push back on any notion that this is a scholars-only affair. It "isn't an academic conference reserved for historians," she says, and "whether you know a little or a lot about Montana history," the invitation stands. The point, she adds, is to dig into the stories of Billings and Eastern Montana together.
The keynote lineup leans into exactly that. Billings Mayor Mike Nelson and former Mayor Bill Cole team up for Preserving the Magic City, historian Paul Hedren takes on Sitting Bull's War, interpreter Mary Jane Bradbury explores the photographic storytelling of frontier photographer Evelyn Cameron, and Aaron Brien presents The Battle at Arrow Creek.
Then there are the tours, which are half the reason people make the drive to Billings in the first place. Six are on the docket this year: the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a Yellowstone River history tour, a Made in Montana agricultural history tour, an Indigenous history tour, a Billings history e-bike ride, and a Hidden Billings open house tour.
Missed a past conference? Sessions from previous years live on the Historical Society's YouTube channel. For the full agenda, hotel details, and registration, head to bit.ly/MTHSHistoryConference, or reach Christine Brown directly at Christine.Brown@mt.gov.
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