Tower Rock State Park

Located along the Missouri River just south of Great Falls, Tower Rock was a landmark for native tribes, the Corps of Discovery, fur trappers, traders and many more that followed in their footsteps.

Now a state park, visitors can learn about the geology and history of the site with five interpretive panels located at the trail head. The trail to the base of the saddle is maintained for a quarter-mile, and the 400-foot high igneous rock formation lies along a 140-acre site.

The history of Tower Rock State Park goes back well before the Corps of Discovery, as many native tribes used the rock as a landmark when they were entering and leaving the rich buffalo grounds of today’s north central Montana.

Some excerpts from Captain Meriwether Lewis journal, from July 16th, 1805, include “an Indian road enters the mountain at the same place with the river on the Stard side and continues along it’s border under the steep clifts…At this place there is a large rock of 400 feet high wich stands immediately in the gap which the Missouri makes on it’s passage from the mountains… This rock I called the tower. It may be ascended with some difficulty nearly to it’s summit and from it there is a most pleasing view of the country we are now about to leave. From it I saw that evening immense herds of buffaloe in the plains below.”