Malta

Travel Montana

Malta Directory Listings

A view from 1939:

MALTA, (2,254 alt., 1,342 pop), seat of Phillips County, was named for the island in the Mediterranean. Its present drabness and apathy give no hint that from 1870 to 1900 it was the center of a cattle empire that reached from Glasgow to Havre, and from the Missouri River breaks to the Canadian Border. Owners of four famous brands—Phillips, Coburn, Matador, and Phelps—controlled this range and the Bearpaw pool.

A ranch at Brookside, about 30 miles southwest of Malta, was the home of two brothers, Wallace and Walt Coburn. Wallace, a friend of Charles M. Russell, published a book of cowboy poems that Russell illustrated. Walt is a writer of western yarns.

The large boulder in Malta's city park, opposite the Great Northern Ry. station, resembles a sleeping buffalo. Until 1934 it was a prominent landmark of a place 25 miles northeast of here. Generations of Assiniboine revered it; the curious markings on it played a part in their tribal ritual.

Many of Charles M. Russell's pictures were produced in and near this town.

Source: Montana: A State Guide Book; Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Montana; September, 1939.