On May 26, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Organic Act that officially established Montana as a United States Territory. Lincoln rushed the legislation through Congress during the height of the American Civil War to secure the region’s vast, newly discovered gold deposits for the Union treasury. By creating the territory, Lincoln prevented Confederate sympathizers in the western mining camps from smuggling millions of dollars in gold to finance the rebel army in the South.
Image of Abraham Lincoln in 1864 via Wikimedia Commons, public domain