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Fort Benton is a city in and the county seat of Chouteau County, Montana, United States.〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=2011-06-07 )〕 A portion of the city was designated as a National Historic Landmark District in 1961. Established in 1846, a full generation before the U.S. Civil War, Fort Benton is one of the oldest settlements in the American West; in contrast many other places—including large cities today—were settled in the late 1860s, 1870s, or 1880s. The population was 1,464 at the 2010 census. ==History== Established by European-Americans Auguste Chouteau and Pierre Chouteau, Jr. of St. Louis in 1847 as the last fur trading post on the Upper Missouri River,〔(Chouteau County, Montana Website ), accessed 26 Oct 2009〕〔(The History of "Old Fort Benton" ), Fort Benton Website, accessed 26 Oct 2009〕 the fort became an important economic center. For 30 years, the port attracted steamboats carrying goods, merchants, gold miners and settlers, coming from New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Hannibal, Bismarck, Kansas City, etc.〔 As the terminus for the 642-mile-long Mullan Road, completed by the US Army in 1860, Fort Benton was part of the overland link between trade on the Missouri River and the Columbia River, at Fort Walla Walla, Washington. Twenty thousand migrants used the road in the first year to travel to the Northwest. It became an important route for miners from both directions going into the interior of Idaho,〔("Mining and the Mullan Military Road" ), ''The Mullan Project'', Eastern Washington State University, accessed 26 Oct 2009〕〔(Fort Benton ), Official City website, accessed 26 Oct 2009〕 and north to Canada. Riverboat travel to Fort Benton further provided an important route for miners to the newly discovered gold fields of southern Montana at what became Bannack and Virginia City beginning in 1862, and Helena, beginning in 1865. With the decline of the fur trade, the American Fur Company sold the fort to the US Army in 1865, which named it for Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri. A town had grown up around it that surpassed the military presence. Besides being one of the most important ports on the Missouri-Mississippi river system, Fort Benton was once the "World's Innermost Port".〔 Its importance in trade was superseded by the construction of transcontinental railroads in the late 19th century. In 1867 Fort Benton was the site where Union General Thomas Francis Meagher, then acting governor of Montana Territory, fell overboard from his steamboat and drowned in the river; his body was never recovered. On July 5, 1988 the Fort Benton area was struck by an F3 tornado that injured 2 people.〔http://www.homefacts.com/tornadoes/Montana/Chouteau-County/Fort-Benton.html〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fort Benton, Montana」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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