Editing Plentywood, Montana (section)

==History==
In 1881, [[Sitting Bull]] and his band surrendered to US forces roughly at what is now Plentywood.<ref name="tourism">{{cite web |title=Plentywood |url=https://www.visitmt.com/places-to-go/cities-and-towns/plentywood |publisher=Montana Office of Tourism |access-date=23 October 2023}}</ref>

[[Butch Cassidy]] and other rustlers used a trail through Plentywood to move their stolen cattle into Canada.<ref name="missouri">{{cite web |title=Plentywood |url=https://missouririvermt.com/community/plentywood |publisher=Missouri River Country Montana |access-date=23 October 2023}}</ref> The plentiful gulches provided coverage for the outlaws. The [[Homestead Acts#Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909|Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909]] sparked an increase in Montana homesteaders, including in the Plentywood area.<ref>{{cite web |title=Homestead Acts |url=https://dp.la/exhibitions/industries-settled-montana/early-settlement/homestead-act?item=1140 |publisher=Digital Public Library of America |access-date=23 October 2023}}</ref> Claiming this land forced some of the outlaws away.

The first business in Plentywood opened in 1900, and a post office was established two years later. The city incorporated in 1912,<ref name="MT Place Names">{{cite web|title=Montana Place Names Companion|url=http://mtplacenames.org/|work=Montana Place Names From Alzada to Zortman|publisher=Montana Historical Society Research Center|access-date=9 May 2011}}</ref> following the arrival of a [[Great Northern Railway (U.S.)|Great Northern Railway]] [[branch line]] that eventually ran from [[Bainville, Montana|Bainville]] to [[Opheim, Montana|Opheim]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Eisenberg|first=Alan|title=BNSF Railway Track Segment Listings|year=2005|pages=166–167|edition=9|quote=Track Segment 355}}</ref>

Local [[folklore]] suggests that the name of the nearby Plentywood Creek, after which the city was named, comes from a search for firewood. One day, according to the story, a group of cowboys watched in exasperation as the [[chuck wagon]] cook attempted to start a fire with damp [[Cow dung|buffalo chips]]. Finally, in frustration, Dutch Henry said, "If you'll go two miles up this creek, you'll find plenty wood."<ref name="MT Place Names" />

During the 1920s, Plentywood became nationally renowned due to the rise of communists to elected positions in both Plentywood and Sheridan County. As one historian put it, "three decades before Senator Joseph McCarthy tried to inspire hysteria in the hearts of Americans with the specter of creeping Communist control, radicals in Sheridan County had already accomplished what McCarthyites perhaps feared most: they had created a community where 'Reds' occupied every elected office in the county."<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/redcornerrisefal0000mcdo/page/2/mode/2up?view=theater | isbn=978-0-9759196-7-5 | title=The red corner : The rise and fall of communism in northeastern Montana | date=2010 | last1=McDonald | first1=Verlaine Stoner | publisher=Montana Historical Society }}</ref> Though the moment had mostly collapsed by late 1932, it has received renewed interest since the publication of a book on the topic in 2010.