BILLINGS, a city in southern Montana, U.S.A., on the Yel lowstone river, 3,000ft. above sea-level; the county seat of Yel lowstone county. It is on the Yellowstone trail, the Custer battle field, and the National parks highways, and is served by the Bur lington, the Great Northern, and the Northern Pacific railways. The population was 3,221 in i9oo, 15,ioo in 192o, and was 16,38o in 193o. It is the metropolis of the "midland empire," a productive region of Montana and Wyoming, which already con tains 2,000,000 acres of irrigated land. Sugar beets, wheat, wool and live stock are the leading products in the immediate vicinity, and there is a factory which makes 9o,000,000lb. of beet sugar a year. The city has 7o manufacturing and wholesale establish ments, and is the trading centre of an area as large as the State of Minnesota. Shipments of live stock, flour, sugar, grain, hay, wool, beans, potatoes, butter, and eggs amount to over $io,000,000 annually. Natural gas is used. The Eastern Montana Normal school, Polytechnic institute and the first orthopaedic hospital in the North-west are situated here.
Billings is gateway to the Beartooth division of the Custer na tional forest, one of the picturesque regions in the North-west, in which is Grasshopper glacier, with millions of grasshoppers em bedded in its ice. On the out skirts is the State fish hatchery. There are many vacation resorts in and near the forest, including numerous "dude ranches," which offer tenderfoot visitors the pleas ures of western life without its hardships.