Rosebud County, Montana

Early Norwegian Settlement

Andrew Andersen from Nordfjord was the first Norwegian settler in the county. He settled near Decker and had lived there as a hermit for between twenty and thirty years by the time this account was written (ca . 1905). The first Norwegian settlers at Birney were Tom Salvesen, Tobias Salvesen, T. Larsen, and T. Thompson, all from Hitterø near Flekkefjord. They came to Montana in 1890 and engaged in cattle raising.

The settlement area lay near the Custer Battlefield, a place of considerable historical significance.

A number of Cheyenne Indians still lived in or traveled through the region. The source associated some of them with groups that had moved westward after the conflicts in Minnesota during the Civil War era.

Sources:

[Ulvestad, Martin. Nordmændene i Amerika. Utg. History Book Company's Forlag. Minneapolis, Minn. 1907.]