Lewis and Clark charted out Montana, opening it up for settlement, but few came to settle there until the Gold Rush of the mid-1800s. The influx of settlers resulted in wars that drove the native Indians out, then railroads were extended to Billings, the state’s largest city, and elsewhere through the state. But while many of the state residents yearned for statehood, it would take a couple decades and strict requirements for Montana to become an official state.

On this day, November 8, in 1889, in a ceremony in Washington D.C., President Benjamin Harrison signed the Enabling Act that promoted Montana from a territory to a state, the 41st one in the union.

Other than a population minimum, any territory wishing to become a state needed to submit to Congress a written constitution, outlining basic laws of the state, the functions of its elected officials, and the rights of its residents. One was prepared in 1866 but was lost on its way to the printers, and a revised one was written in 1884, but was not taken up by a deadlocked Congress. Five years later, the state resubmitted that draft, almost verbatim, and was included into the union.