People are flooding to Montana from all across the country- and locals are really mad about it. But to fully understand why, you need a serious history lesson.
Montana is in the midst a period of profound change. A severe housing crisis is pushing long time residents out of the market and a development boom threatens to render the state unrecognizable in the next decade.
But in Montana, none of this is new. Land Grab looks back at the boom and bust cycles of trauma that have punctuated every stage of development in the state, and digs into the cognitive dissonance between the stories we tell ourselves about what Montana is, and the complicated truth that lies underneath.
In our first season, we’ll chronicle the history of the indigenous nations that would become the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes as the Hellgate Treaty of 1855 and forced removal of the Bitterroot Salish in 1891 shrunk their lands from more than 22 million acres to the 2,000 acres of the modern Flathead Reservation and the allotment of 1910 made them a minority within their own lands.
We’ll investigate how the state’s early corporate magnates, led by Andrew B. Hammond and the Missoula Mercantile Company, colluded with federal and state government to engineer the land thefts, and used the immense profits they generated to lay the foundations of almost all of western Montana’s key institutions in the 20th century
Right now, Montana is struggling to define what its future will look like, to define what “progress” means in the state, and who is entitled to it. Through archival tape, oral histories, and contemporary interviews with experts, Land Grab season one shows how the state we inherited came to be; and how ideas about progress, development, and entitlement that still dominate discussion in Montana got cemented in place. We probe deep into the dark side of Montana’s self-mythology and wrestle with the idea of what it means to be “from here”, and the hypocrisies at the heart of it. With an engrossing, meticulously researched narrative and entertaining, innovative production, Land Grab is Montana history like you have never heard before.
Season one airing now!
Find us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
About the hosts
-
John Hooks
John Hooks was born and raised in Helena and graduated from the University of Montana. He’s an audio producer and journalist who has worked previously for the Montana Mint, Missoulian, and KBGA Radio.
-
Matt Neuman
Matt Neuman is a New York expat who moved to Missoula in 2010 and has previously covered higher education and city government for the Missoulian, Montana Kaimin, and other outlets.
Support Land Grab
We are so grateful to everyone who contributed to help us realize our vision for the podcast. It has been extremely heartening to see how many people connected with what we put out, and the fact that it connected enough that people wanted to contribute their own money to help us do it and make more was profoundly gratifying and inspiring.
With all that being said, since Land Grab currently on an indefinite hiatus while John and Matt pursue other professional opportunities, we have shut down donations. It just wouldn’t be right to keep accepting money when we have no guarantee of when new content may be on the way. We still hope to make more Land Grab in some form or another, but until we have something concrete to share, we will just let the season that we made speak for itself. If you want to help Land Grab, and help us make more, all we ask right now is to just keep spreading the word and encouraging people to listen.