page_title: Cow Creek (Montana)
section_title: Prehistory
hierarchical_section_title: Cow Creek (Montana) / History / Prehistory
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a view of the upper end of Cow Island, in the Missouri. It lies just below the mouth of Cow Creek. The island is created from sediments washing out from Cow Creek in flood season. This is one of the larger islands in the Missouri. It forms a natural crossing point on the Missouri. During the steamboat era (1860 to the mid 1880's) the Missouri was the path way to the mines in western Montana. Above this point the Missouri had many rapids. In the summer and fall, the river levels dropped, and steamboats could not get up to Ft. Benton, the up river terminus. They had to drop their cargos here. This area became known as Cow Island Landing. The freight was then north and west hauled up Cow Creek, through the Missouri Breaks and out onto the northern Montana plains and on to Ft. Benton. In ancient times Cow Island was a Missouri River crossing point for bison and nomadic Indians. Now the bison and Indians are gone, as are the steamboats. Cow Island lies in a remote and isolated area of the Missouri Breaks in Montana.
context_page_description: Cow Creek is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 35 miles long, in north central Montana in the United States. Cow Creek rises in the southern foothills of the Bear Paw Mountains in western Blaine County and flows east and then south, joining the Missouri approximately 25 air miles northeast of Winifred, Montana—or 22 miles upstream from the Fred Robinson Bridge.
context_section_description: Cow Creek flows from the southern foothills of the Bear Paw Mountains to the Missouri through a unique and remote area known as the Missouri Breaks. The breaks are extensive and steeply eroded badlands.  They are so rough that they are a barrier to travel by animals or man.  They extend along the Missouri River for over 200 miles (320 km).  In this long stretch of river the Missouri Breaks extend back from the river on either side, for many miles. As the Missouri flows through this 200 mile stretch, the breaks limit access to the river from the wide undulating grasslands north and south of the river.
  
  Cow Creek provides one of the few access routes down to the Missouri River through the Missouri Breaks. As Cow Creek flows through the breaks it passes between high canyon like walls, but the stream meanders back and forth over a canyon floor that is relatively level and from 100 to 600 yards (91–549 m) in width.
  The canyon bottom along Cow Creek creates a corridor of travel from the northern Montana plains down to the river through the breaks.  Sediments seasonally washed out from the mouth of Cow Creek into the Missouri River formed Cow Island, just downriver from the creek mouth.  Cow Island divides the Missouri into two channels, which makes crossing the broad Missouri easier at this point. On the south side of the river opposite the Cow Island, a steep but relatively short four mile climb out of the breaks gains the wide plains of Central Montana south of the river.
  This combination of geographic features made Cow Creek and the ford at Cow Island an ancient highway of travel. For thousands of years, Cow Creek and the Cow Island ford was used by migrating buffalo herds and other migrating animals, and by nomadic Native Americans bent on going between the plains north of the Missouri River Breaks and the plains lying south of the Missouri Breaks.
caption: The upstream end of Cow Creek Island, downstream from the mouth of Cow Creek
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