BlockBefore

Fort Benton, Montana

14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1890 and the latest in 1984. It stands in the Fort Benton census division. It lies in ZIP code area 59442. It lies near The Canyon. The Survey maps it on the Fort Benton quadrangle. 1,449 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 2,621 feet above sea level.

Fort Benton within Chouteau County

On record in Fort Benton

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 10 records

Population over time

2 figures

Fort Benton fell from 1,464 to 1,449 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
20101,464
20201,449-15 (-1%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 14 printed sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

Fires near this place

5 since 2010

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Fort Benton between 2010 and 2019, burning about 438 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined3
Power generation/transmission/distribution1
Smoking1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
10 September 2018Power generation/transmission/distribution200 acresNortheastern Land Officenot named
30 July 2019Missing data/not specified/undetermined15 acresChouteau CountyFDH-MTLG19-99
18 July 2019Missing data/not specified/undetermined100 acresChouteau CountyFDH-MTLG19-70
20 April 2018Missing data/not specified/undetermined3.0 acresNortheastern Land Officenot named
26 March 2010Smoking120 acresNortheastern Land OfficeWILRAY

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Chouteau County

Mines and quarries near this place

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Fort Benton: 3 unknowns, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Naesethe Sand and Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Unnamed Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionUnknown
Unnamed Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionUnknown
Unnamed Gravel PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionUnknown

Every working recorded in Chouteau County

Storms near this place

3 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Fort Benton in 3 storm reports between 1993 and 1995: 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
May 1993Thunderstorm WindFort Benton$50,000Trees and power lines down.
May 1993Thunderstorm WindFort Benton$5,000Trees and power lines down.
June 1995HailFort Benton-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Chouteau County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Kershaw3.8 miles14
Pleasant Valley (historical)9.1 miles13
Tunis9.3 miles13
Loma11.9 miles14
Ophir (historical)12.9 miles14
Patterson (historical)13.1 miles13
Shonkin14.0 miles13
Montague14.8 miles13

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on Fort BentonAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q285655The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1750122. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.