-- About Choteau --

Choteau is located on U.S. Highway 89 about 20 miles east of the Rocky Mountains in a region called the Rocky Mountain Front. The largest urban area is Great Falls, 52 miles southeast.

The average annual temperature is 43.5 degrees Fahrenheit, but ranges widely. The average heat in July is 66.4 degrees compared to an average cold of 21.3 degrees in January. The average precipitation is 11.36 inches in this dry, relatively windy area (the average annual wind is a 15 mph southwest breeze). The growing season is just 117 days long.

Choteau, the county seat of Teton County, (population approximately 6,371), has a small, but respectable business community, low crime rates and quality schools. The population of the town is about 1,741 residents, governed by a mayor-city council form of government.

The elementary school has 350 students in grades K-8 while the high school has 162 students in grades 9-12. The community also has a hospital, two nursing homes, a retirement lodge, medical and dental providers, numerous churches, a swimming pool, golf course, movie theater, tennis courts, bowling alley and baseball complex. It is surrounded by outstanding outdoor recreational opportunities on the Lewis and Clark National Forest and in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The community also has several taverns and restaurants and Old Trail Museum, specializing in preservation of dinosaur fossils. Choteau also has a small airport and is on trucking routes and Burlington Northern Railroad. Downtown shopping includes gift stores, clothing boutiques, art galleries, hardware stores and grocery and convenience/gas stations.

For more information on Choteau, contact the Choteau Chamber of Commerce Office at 1-800-823-3866.

-- About the Rocky Mountain Front --

The Front forms the seam between the wild lands and wilderness of the Lewis and Clark National Forest and the foothills and plains domesticated by area ranchers and farmers.

Sparsely populated, the Front is made up of small communities, linked by miles of country roads and highways, that are dedicated to maintaining the special quality of life that makes living here so worthwhile. The Front is a slice out of America's heartland and, in some ways, is a slice out of this country's past. Crime rates are low out here and violent crime is almost non-existent. We don't have gangs in our schools or on our streets, and we still enjoy old-fashioned pleasures like community dances, family picnics and going for a drive in the country.

Our culture and traditions are steeped in the fertile soil and in the wheat and barley and livestock we raise as our top marketable products. Seasons around here include calving, lambing, haying, seeding, harvesting and, in the fall, shipping. When you see cowboys moving their cattle along a roadway, you can bet they live on a ranch in the area and they probably learned to ride shortly after they learned to walk.

We value the wide open spaces, the pristine wildlife habitat, the clean air and bountiful water. We're accustomed to seeing deer in our gardens and hay fields, hearing the yip and howl of coyotes on moonlit nights and watching as hawks and eagles soar over the prairie, seeking rabbits and ground squirrels.

We're proud of our communities and ready with open hospitality for visitors and travelers. Visit us here and you'll begin to realize why life in the country - far from the hustle and bustle of urban America - is such a valuable treasure.

Along the Rocky Mountain Front you can visit wildlife viewing sites that may give you a glimpse of mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk or white tail and mule deer.

You can visit the Old Trail Museum in Choteau and learn about the vast inland sea that covered this area 80 million years ago and imagine the herds of herbivorous dinosaurs that roamed the shores of the sea, nested in colonies here and reared their young.

You can hike along quiet mountain trails, listening to the sounds of the chattering squirrels and the whisper of the wind in aspen trees. Or, you can get out your fishing pole and go after some of the area's rainbow, cut throat and brook trout in area streams or fish the reservoirs and lakes for walleye and pike.

For more information on recreational opportunities here and the communities of the Front, please request a copy of the Choteau Acantha's annual Visitors Guide. The Visitors Guide is free to subscribers and at brochure stands, but for mailed copies the cost is $4.