| Montana State Seal |
Montana's first official symbol, its seal, has had a fascinating history. A Montana Territory legislative committee initially designed a seal in 1865. Francis M. Thompson chaired the committee and had what passed for expertise in the seal design business. He had engraved seals for the first mining districts on the ends of ax handles. Even he had to admit his work was not the most artistic, but it was the best at hand.
The special committee felt a seal should include all the essential elements in Montana's economy and future. A plow, shovel and pick would illustrate agricultural and mineral wealth. Surrounding these would be mountains, from which Montana took its name, the sun, and the Great Falls of the Missouri River. Interspersed on the field, delegates specified trees, buffalo, and other wild animals then in abundance. The seal would be two inches high and surrounded by the words THE SEAL OF THE TERRITORY OF MONTANA.
As a territorial motto, committee members favored "Gold and Silver." Someone thought the phrase would be nice in Spanish. The rest agreed. Unfortunately, no one knew Spanish very well and the committee's recommendation to the Legislature suggested "Oro el Plata." Someone caught the error later and made it grammatically correct: "Oro y Plata."
To accompany the report, Thompson drew a crude sketch and submitted both to the Legislature on February 4, 1865. (Thompson's original hand drawn design is preserved in the Montana Historical Society Library.) During formal debate, a few council members suggested "El Dorado," meaning "the place of gold," as a more fitting motto, but the special committee's recommendation prevailed. On February 9, 1865, both houses passed the measure and Governor Sidney Edgerton signed it into law. Montana had its first symbol.
Such a crude sketch as Thompson's would not do for the official seal, of course, but no one in Montana at the time could engrave it properly. Governor Edgerton delegated his nephew, a young lawyer named Wilbur Fisk Sanders, to have a seal made in the "states."
Sanders contacted the necessary parties and in the spring of 1866 delivered the official seal. Because the resolution failed to specify tree and wild animals (Sanders did remember buffalo), the engraver produced a more simplified version, complete with a single buffalo on the opposite bank of the Missouri River.
Over the years alterations in the seal took place. An 1876 edition removed the buffalo and added clouds. In 1887, the Legislature authorized a replacement for the worn seal and the engraver returned an altered plate. The mountains were different, the clouds were gone, trees had sprouted where buffalo once roamed, and the sun had shifted position, setting in the west instead of rising in the east.
Finally in 1893, Governor John E. Rickards pushed for an official "state" seal. The Legislature agreed to stay with the old design, just deleting "Territory" and adding "State" and increasing the overall diameter from two to two and one-half inches.
G.R. Metten, manager of the J. Steimmetz Jewelry Company of Helena engraved the new seal for the state of Montana for $20. He made radical alterations in its design: reversed the flow of the Great Falls and the Missouri River, moved the sun back to its rising position, redesigned the mountains and transplanted the trees.
Special Acknowledgements to: Montana Historical Society, Rex C. Meyers and Norma B. Ashby
Courtesy of State of Montana
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