- Location
- Montana
- Current protection
- Custer Gallatin National Forest, checkerboarded with private land
- Status
- No active campaign
- Tier
- Tier 2 · National Monument
- In the book
- Not featured in Undiscovered America
Why should it be a National Park?
The Crazy Mountains stand alone on the Montana plains north of Livingston, an island range whose peaks rise past 11,000 feet with nothing of similar height anywhere around them. Glacial cirques, lakes, and waterfalls crowd a range only a few dozen miles long.
The Crow hold them sacred, and they are still a place of vision quests. Montana's surveyor general argued in 1916 that their standing alone made them a distinct addition to the park system, and he was right.
The history of National Park Campaigns
Sometimes called Absaroka National Park in early proposals, a Crazy Mountains park was pushed in 1916 by Henry Gerharz, Montana's surveyor general, and raised again in 1935. Congress did not pass the legislation. Much of the range remains a checkerboard of public and private land left from the railroad grants, which has made access a fight ever since.
- Distinct National Park attempts
- 2 (1916; 1935)
- Other designation attempts
- 0
Sources
- Lary M. Dilsaver and William Wyckoff, "Failed National Parks in the Last Best Place," Montana: The Magazine of Western History 59:3 (2009)
- Wikipedia, List of proposed National Parks of the United States
- 1916
Montana surveyor general Henry Gerharz proposes a National Park, arguing the lone range would be a distinct addition.
- 1935
The proposal is revived.