A History of Montana in 101 Places: With Coauthor Kirby Lambert

Country Bookshelf is excited to welcome Kirby Lambert, coauthor of the new book , on May 4 at 6pm.

Books can be purchased at the event or ordered in advance on our website or by calling Country Bookshelf at (406) 587-0166 during regular business hours.

The event at a glance:

• On May 4, please arrive early to secure your seat. Seating is general admission, first come, first served.
• At 6:00pm, the event will begin. The author will take audience questions following the program.
• After the talk, the author will sign books.
• Can't attend in person? Order a signed copy of the book on our website or by calling (406) 587-0166. Signing requests will need to be placed 24 hours before the event.

About A History of Montana in 101 Places

From the ever-busy Logan Pass Visitor Center in Glacier National Park to the rusting remnants of Smith Mine Number 3 on a lonely hillside in Carbon County, A History of Montana in 101 Places: Sites and Stories from the Montana Historical Society is a fascinating anthology of the locations that have made and remade the Last Best Place. The beautifully illustrated, 304-page book from the Montana Historical Society Press is a companion to the popular History of Montana in 101 Objects published in 2021.

Compelling stories by current and former Montana Historical Society historians Christine Brown, Martha Kohl, Kirby Lambert and the late Ellen Baumler, to whom the book is dedicated, are accompanied by stunning photography from Tom Ferris. Some images, like Alberta Bair’s bright yellow kitchen in her lavishly decorated home near Martinsdale, need little visual interpretation, leaving us to enjoy the carefully researched and artfully told stories of the people who created them. Others, like the remote Rosebud Battlefield National Historic Landmark in Big Horn County—known to the Tsétsėhéstȧhese naa Suhtaio (Northern Cheyenne) as “Where the Girl Saved her Brother”—offer few visual clues to the dramatic history they have witnessed and are brought to life instead by their powerful stories.

Each turn of the page is a journey through the major cultural, economic and political developments that shaped the Montana we know today. Battlefields and government buildings appear alongside homes, schools and taverns. Indigenous cultural sites share space with farms and mines, telling the stories of the community groups, tribes, elected officials, workers and everyday folks who lived and labored there.

About the Author

Now retired, Kirby Lambert worked for more than 36 years at the Montana Historical Society where he served in a variety of capacities—as museum registrar, curator of collections, curator of art, and director of outreach and education. Among numerous other duties, he curated nearly three dozen exhibits on a wide variety of topics relating to Montana art and history and, for a number of years, organized the Society's annual Montana History Conference. Kirby has co-authored several publications, most recently The History of Montana in 101 Places: Objects and Essays from the Montana Historical Society, and perhaps most notably, Montana’s Charlie Russell: Art in the Collection of the Montana Historical Society. He is also a regular contributor to Montana The Magazine of Western History. Kirby received the Museums Association of Montana’s Peter Yegen, Jr., Award in 2014 and the Governor’s Humanities Award in 2015.

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