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Great Falls is a city in and the county seat of Cascade County, Montana, United States.〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=2011-06-07 )〕 The 2013 census estimate put the population at 59,351.〔 The population was 58,505 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Great Falls, Montana Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Cascade County and has a population of 82,384.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas )〕 Great Falls was the largest city in Montana from 1950 to 1970, when Billings surpassed it. Great Falls remained the second largest city in Montana until 2000, when it was passed by Missoula. Since then Great Falls has been the third largest city in the state.〔http://2010.census.gov/news/releases/operations/cb11-cn85.html〕 Great Falls takes its name from the series of five waterfalls in close proximity along the upper Missouri River basin that the Lewis and Clark Expedition had to portage around over a ten-mile stretch; the effort required 31 days of arduous labor during the westward leg of their 1805-06 exploration of the Louisiana Purchase and to the Pacific Northwest Coast of the Oregon Country. Each falls sports a hydroelectric dam today, hence Great Falls is nicknamed "the Electric City". Currently there are two undeveloped parts of their portage route; these are included within the Great Falls Portage, a National Historic Landmark. The city is home to the C. M. Russell Museum Complex, the University of Great Falls, Great Falls College Montana State University, Giant Springs, the Roe River (claimed to be the world's shortest river), the Montana School for the Deaf and the Blind, the Great Falls Voyagers minor league baseball (formerly known as the Great Falls White Sox and before that as the Dodgers and Giants respectively) team, and Malmstrom Air Force Base. The local newspaper is the ''Great Falls Tribune''. A Coldwell Banker Home Price Comparison Index listed Great Falls as the most affordable area of 348 markets in the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico. ==History== The first human beings to live in the Great Falls area were Paleo-Indians who migrated into the region between 9,500 BCE and 8,270 BCE.〔〔Davis, L.B., Hill, Christopher L.; and Fisher, Jr., Jack W. "Radiocarbon Dates for Paleoindian Components (Folsom, Scottsbluff) at the MacHaffie Site, West-Central Montana Rockies." ''Current Research in the Pleistocene.'' 19 (2002); Hill, Christopher L. "Middle and Late Wisconsin (Late Pleistocene) Paleoenvironmental Records from the Rocky Mountains: Lithostratigraphy and Geochronology of Blacktail Cave, Montana, U.S.A." ''Current Research in the Pleistocene.'' 18 (2001); Marsters, B.; Spiker, E.; and Rubin, M. "U.S. Geological Survey Radiocarbon Dates X." ''Radiocarbon.'' 11 (1969); Harrington, C.R. ''Annotated Bibliography of Quaternary Vertebrates of Northern North America: With Radiocarbon Dates.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8020-4817-X〕 The earliest inhabitants of North America entered Montana east of the Continental Divide between the mountains and the Laurentide ice sheet.〔Strohmaier, David Jon. ''Drift Smoke: Loss and Renewal in a Land of Fire.'' Las Vegas, Nev.: University of Nevada Press, 2005. ISBN 0-87417-621-2〕 The area remained only sparsely inhabited, however.〔Malone, Michael P.; Roeder, Richard B.; and Lang, William L. ''Montana: A History of Two Centuries.'' 2d rev. ed. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. ISBN 0-295-97129-0〕 Salish Indians would often hunt bison in the region on a seasonal basis, but no permanent settlements existed at or near Great Falls for much of prehistory.〔 Around 1600, Piegan Blackfoot Indians, migrating west, entered the area, pushing the Salish back into the Rocky Mountains and claiming the site now known as Great Falls as their own.〔 The Great Falls location remained the tribal territory of the Blackfeet until long after the United States claimed the region in 1803.〔Federal Writers' Project. ''Montana: A State Guide Book.'' Washington, D.C.: Federal Works Agency, Work Projects Administration, 1939. ISBN 1-60354-025-3〕〔Fleming, Thomas J. ''The Louisiana Purchase.'' Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2003. ISBN 0-471-26738-4〕 Meriwether Lewis was the first white person to visit the area, which he did on June 13, 1805, as part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.〔Ambrose, Stephen. ''Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West.'' New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. ISBN 0-684-82697-6; Gilman, Carolyn. ''Lewis and Clark: Across the Divide.'' Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2003. ISBN 1-58834-099-6; Lavender, David. ''The Way to the Western Sea: Lewis and Clark Across the Continent.'' New York: Harpercollins, 1988. ISBN 0-06-015982-0〕〔Pritchett, Michael. ''The Melancholy Fate of Capt. Lewis.'' Columbia, Mo.: Unbridled Books, 2007. ISBN 1-932961-41-0〕 York, an African American slave owned by William Clark and who had participated in the Expedition, was the first black American to visit the site of the future city.〔Betts, Robert B. ''In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific With Lewis and Clark.'' Boulder, Colo.: Colorado Associated University Press, 1985. ISBN 978-0-87081-714-4; Hancock, Sibyl. ''Famous Firsts of Black Americans.'' Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing Company, 1983. ISBN 0-88289-240-1; Doig, Ivan. ''English Creek.'' New York: Atheneum, 1984. ISBN 0-689-11478-8〕 Following the return passage of Lewis and Clark in 1806,〔Saindon, Robert A. ''Explorations Into the World of Lewis and Clark.'' Vol. 3. Scituate, Mass.: Digital Scanning Inc, 2003. ISBN 1-58218-766-5〕 there is no record of any white person visiting the site of the city of Great Falls until explorer and trapper Jim Bridger reached the area in 1822.〔 Bridger and Major Andrew Henry led a fur-trading expedition to the future city location in April 1823 (and were attacked by Blackfeet Indians while camping at the site).〔O'Neal, Bill. ''Fighting Men of the Indian Wars: A Biographical Encyclopedia of the Mountain Men, Soldiers, Cowboys, and Pioneers Who Took Up Arms During America's Westward Expansion.'' Stillwater, Okla.: Barbed Wire Press, 1991. ISBN 0-935269-07-X〕 British explorer Alexander Ross trapped around Great Falls in 1824.〔Allen, John Logan. ''North American Exploration: A Continent Comprehended.'' Vol. 3. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8032-1043-4〕 In 1838, a mapping expedition sent by the U.S. federal government and guided by Bridger spent four years in the area.〔 Margaret Harkness Woodman became the first white woman to visit the Great Falls area in 1862.〔McManus, Sheila. ''The Line Which Separates: Race, Gender, and the Making of the Alberta-Montana Borderlands.'' Calgary: University of Alberta, 2005. ISBN 0-88864-434-5; Evans, Sterling. ''The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests: Essays on Regional History of the Forty-Ninth Parallel.'' Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. ISBN 0-8032-1826-5〕 The Great Falls of the Missouri River marked the limit of the navigable section of the Missouri River for non-portagable watercraft,〔Tubbs, Stephenie Ambrose and Jenkinson, Clay. ''The Lewis and Clark Companion: An Encyclopedic Guide to the Voyage of Discovery.'' New York: Macmillan, 2003. ISBN 0-8050-6726-4; Miller, James Knox Polk. ''The Road to Virginia City: The Diary of James Knox Polk Miller.'' Stillwater, Okla.: University of Oklahoma, 1960.〕 and the non-navigability of the falls was noted by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2012 ruling against the State of Montana on the question of streambed ownership beneath several dams situated at the site of the falls.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Opinion analysis: Montana dunked on riverbeds )〕 The first steamboat arrived at future site of the city in 1859.〔Cutright, Paul Russell and Brodhead, Michael J. ''Elliott Coues: Naturalist and Frontier Historian.'' Reprint ed. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2001. ISBN 0-252-06987-0〕 Politically, the future site of Great Falls passed through numerous hands in the 19th century. It was part of the unincorporated frontier until May 30, 1854, when Congress established the Nebraska Territory.〔Luebke, Frederick C. ''Nebraska: An Illustrated History.'' 2d ed. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8032-8042-4〕 Indian attacks on white explorers and settlers dropped significantly after Isaac Stevens negotiated the Treaty of Hellgate in 1855, and white settlement in the area began to occur.〔 On March 2, 1861, the site became part of the Dakota Territory.〔Lamar, Howard Roberts. ''Dakota Territory, 1861-1889: A Study of Frontier Politics.'' New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1956; ''History of Southeastern Dakota.'' Sioux City, Iowa: Western Publishing Company, 1881.〕 The Great Falls area was incorporated into the Idaho Territory on March 4, 1863,〔Rees, John E. ''Idaho Chronology, Nomenclature, Bibliography.'' Chicago: W.B. Conkey Co., 1918.〕 and then into the Montana Territory on May 28, 1864.〔 It became part of the state of Montana upon that territory's admission to statehood on November 8, 1889.〔 Great Falls was founded in 1883. Businessman Paris Gibson visited the Great Falls of the Missouri River in 1880, and was deeply impressed by the possibilities for building a major industrial city near the falls with power provided by hydroelectricity.〔Roeder, Richard B. "Paris Gibson and the Building of Great Falls." ''Montana: Magazine of Western History.'' 42:4 (Autumn 1992).〕〔"Great Falls, Montana." In ''Encyclopedia of the Great Plains.'' David J. Wishart, ed. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8032-4787-7〕〔〔Myers, Rex C. and Fritz, Harry W. ''Montana and the West: Essays in Honor of K. Ross Toole.'' Boulder, Colo.: Pruett Publishing Co., 1984. ISBN 0-87108-229-2; Martin, Albro. ''James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest.'' St. Paul, Minn.: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1991. ISBN 0-87351-261-8〕 He returned in 1883 with friend Robert Vaughn and some surveyors and platted a permanent settlement the south side of the river.〔〔〔 The city's first citizen, Silas Beachley, arrived later that year.〔 With investments from railroad owner James J. Hill and Helena businessman Charles Arthur Broadwater, houses, a store, and a flour mill were established in 1884.〔〔〔〔Malone, Michael P. ''James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest.'' Reprint ed. Stillwater, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8061-2860-7〕〔 The Great Falls post office was established on July 10, 1884, and Paris Gibson was named the first postmaster.〔Lutz, Dennis J. ''Montana Post Offices & Postmasters'', p 24, p. 200. (1986) Minot, ND: published by the author & Montana Chapter No. 1, National Association of Postmasters of the United States.〕 A planing mill, lumber yard, bank, school, and newspaper were established in 1885.〔〔 By 1887 the town had 1,200 citizens, and in October of that year the Great Northern Railway arrived in the city.〔〔〔 Great Falls was incorporated on November 28, 1888. Black Eagle Dam was built in 1890, and by 1912 Rainbow Dam and Volta Dam (now Ryan Dam) were all operating.〔〔〔 Great Falls quickly became a thriving industrial and supply center and, by the early 1900s, was en route to becoming one of Montana's largest cities. The rustic studio of famed Western artist Charles Marion Russell was a popular attraction, as were the famed "Great Falls of the Missouri", after which the city was named. A structure billed as the "world's tallest smokestack" was completed in 1908 by the city's largest employer, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company's smelter, measuring tall. The Big Stack immediately became a landmark for the community. The Big Stack's 'sister' stack in Anaconda was suffering from cracking and it was decided to remove the support bands from the upper half of the Big Stack and send them to Anaconda. This action proved to be the Big Stack's ultimate demise since the cracks it suffered from rapidly worsened. Citing public safety concerns due to the stack's continual deterioration of its structural integrity it was slated for demolition on September 18, 1982. In an interesting twist of fate the demolition crew failed to accomplish the task on the first try; the two worst cracks in the stack ran from just above ground level to nearly 300 feet up. As the 600 lbs of explosives were set off (which was to create a wedge in the base so it would fall almost vertically into a large trench for the rubble) the cracks 'completed themselves' all the way to the ground—effectively severing the stack into two-thirds and one-third pieces. Much to the delight of the spectating community, the smaller of the two pieces remained standing, but the failed demolition only solidified the safety issue whereas the community cited the event as the stack's defiance. The demolition team who had planted the charges was recalled and several hours later they returned and finished the demolition, after packing another 400 lbs of explosives into the smaller wedge. During World War II the Northwest Staging Route passed through the city on which planes were delivered to the USSR according to the Lend-Lease program. Great Falls prospered further with the opening of a nearby military base in the 1940s, but as rail transportation and freight slowed in the later part of the century, outlying farming areas lost population, and with the closure of the smelter and cutbacks at Malmstrom Air Force Base in the 1980s, its population growth slowed. The economy of Great Falls has suffered from the decline of heartland industry in recent years much like other cities in the Great Plains and Midwest. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Great Falls, Montana」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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