The C. M. Russell Art Museum Complex was primarily created to showcase the work of “cowboy artist” Charles Russell. Also on display are Russell’s illustrated letters, work materials, and other items that can help visitors understand Russell’s life story and work habits. In addition, the museum features a collection of 19th, 20th, and 21st-century works that focus on the American Old West, as well as the flora, fauna, and landscapes of the American West. In 2009, The Wall Street Journal named the museum “one of America’s leading museums of Western art.” Within the complex are Russell’s work hut and his two-story house, with preserved timber framing. Both structures have been designated National Historic Landmarks.
For most of the year, the “Troll Lady” travels around the city, on which you can go around all the sights.
One of the city’s most prominent structures is the railroad depot, which grew up here during the “golden era” of railroads. Then the railway station was often a kind of analogue of the medieval city gates, and the Great Falls depot is exactly that. It is a building with a rectangular tower more than 40 meters high, which still dominates the urban landscape. As a station, this building is no longer used, but the bright inscription “Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad” still proudly flaunts on the top of the tower.
According to toppharmacyschools, Giant Springs is a large underground spring near the city. The temperature of its water remains almost always constant – +12 ° C. The source is fed by the melting snows of the Little Belt Mountains, which is almost 100 km away. According to scientific data, it takes 26 years for water to travel underground and resurface at this source. The spring is located in Giant Springs State Park, just downstream and southwest of the city, on the east coast of the Missouri. Part of the water is bottled for drinking, part is used in trout cages. Giant Springs National Park is the most visited in Montana.
The Row River flows between Giant Springs and Missouri. It is officially considered the shortest in the world. The length of the Rowe River is only 61 m, while towards the end the river becomes surprisingly deep (at least 2 m). The campaign to enter the river in the Guinness Book of Records as the shortest in the world was started by students of the city’s Lincoln School in 1888 – and succeeded. True, since 2006 the Book of Records no longer defines the “world’s shortest” rivers.
3 things to do in Great Falls:
- View all five waterfalls.
- Listen to the great great-great-grandmother, “Drunken Pat”, on one of the four nights she performs at Sip’n’Deep. At the same time, try not to pay attention to the mermaids flickering before your eyes.
- Go to nature and forget about the city – and about the Great Falls, and about all the others at the same time.
In terms of cultural life in the city, you can have a good time. First, there is a symphony orchestra, founded in 1959, which usually gives a series of concerts throughout the year. Second, Great Falls is home to the absolutely exceptional Sip’n’Deep tiki bar. It opened in 1962, when the Polynesian theme was extremely popular, and has survived to this day almost unchanged. The bar is located inside a local motel and is famous for its mermaid women scurrying underwater right on the premises, in a pool with glass walls, which are also the windows of the bar. Another notable feature of the bar is pianist “piano Pat” Sponheim, who has been playing here since 1963 and has developed her own unique jazz style. In 2003, Sip’n’Deep was named one of the top 10 bars in the world by GQ magazine as “the #1 bar to fly for.” The bar’s star patrons are Nick Nolte and Daryl Hannah, who reprized her movie role as a mermaid by swimming in the bar’s pool with a mermaid tail. Both actors signed on the glass of the pool, but two years later both signatures were lost when the glass cracked.
In total, Sip’n’Dip employs six “mermaids”, whose costumes are designed and made by hand by the bar manager.
The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center is worth a visit for those interested in the history of the development of the Wild West. This center is fighting for the right to be considered the best of other similar institutions between St. Louis and Astoria in Oregon. His exhibitions are very detailed and impressive. From the center you can go to the Missouri River, on the same path that the pioneers took more than 200 years ago.
Several films were filmed in Great Falls, the most famous of which are The Untouchables in 1987 and Striptease in 1996.
Everyone in Montana is said to love to get their throat wet after a day at work, and Great Falls is no exception. If there is no bar within walking distance, then you are probably out of town. The main city street is 10th Avenue South, it stretches for about 13 km, and here the concentration of bars is the highest. There are also plenty of them on Central Avenue.
