Town file
Stanford, Montana
Stanford, Montana (Judith Basin County, Montana) is the town in one episode of Small Town Murder, the comedy true-crime podcast: episode 86, "The Problem Here Is..." (20 September 2018). Stanford, Montana, sits in the middle of Judith Basin County, in the centre of the state, an hour from Great Falls and about two hours and forty-five minutes from Billings.
- Town
- Stanford
- County
- Judith Basin County
- State
- Montana
- Country
- USA
- Episodes
- 86
- Approximate location
- 47.152, -110.219
Episode 86 / 20 September 2018 / 156 min / full
The Problem Here Is...
""This is Stanford, Montana. Stanford, not Stanford, Connecticut, not Stanford the college." It is in central Montana, in Judith Basin County." about 0:06:19
The case: Murder of Leonard These (October 1996). Read the case file.
The figures, as told in 2018
- Population
- 381
- Median age
- 53.3
- Median household income
- $49,008
- Median home value
- $141,200
- Two-bedroom rent
- about $840 a month
- Cost of living
- 88
- Religious
- 61.4%
- Property crime
- ▲ slightly higher than average
- Violent crime
- ▼ slightly lower than average
History, in brief
- Charles Marion Russell, known as C.M. Russell, was an artist of the old West who lived from 1864 to 1926 and painted more than two thousand paintings of cowboys, Indians and landscapes. about 0:13:09
- Russell's mural 'Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians' is in the state capitol building in Helena, Montana. about 0:13:43
- A 1918 Russell painting, 'Piegans', sold for $5.6 million at auction in 2005. about 0:13:49
- In 1880 Calvin and Edward Bauer came with a thousand head of sheep and acquired a hundred thousand acres of land. about 0:17:07
- They named the place Stanfordville after their old home of the same name in Dutchess County, New York. about 0:17:21
- Stanford is now the county seat of Judith Basin County. about 0:17:38
- Yogo sapphires were discovered at Yogo Gulch in 1895, when the area was still in Fergus County and is now in Judith Basin County. about 0:18:15
- Gold was first discovered in the area in 1866, but there was not enough of it to make the mining worthwhile. about 0:19:16
- In 1878 a thousand miners came for the gold and found blue pebbles in the streams. about 0:20:09
- In 1894 the blue pebbles were recognised as sapphires; prospector Jake Hoover was one of the main miners. about 0:20:40
- A cigar box of the sapphires was sent to Tiffany's in New York City, which called them the finest precious gemstones ever found in the United States, and a cheque for $3,750 was sent back, about $110,000 in 2000. about 0:21:40
- The sapphire mine was sold to a British company for $100,000, about $2.9 million now. about 0:22:50
- The Judith Basin County Museum opened in 1967 and holds 2,082 sets of salt and pepper shakers, 50,000 buttons and an Indian artefacts display. about 0:24:14
The reviews read out
"A lifelong resident writing as Oxy Boron says Stanford distorts your worldview, will look the site over and get back to them, and that the site is probably about half right; the review has 82 agree and 82 disagree and no star rating."about 0:33:03
Nearest Small Town Murder towns
- Geraldine, Montana31 miles
- Manhattan, Montana104 miles
- Butte, Montana135 miles
- Ovando, Montana140 miles
- Fort Smith, Montana167 miles
- Powell, Wyoming179 miles
Everything here is as told in the episode, on the date it went out; figures and places may have changed since. Endings are covered: open an episode and use the spoiler switch to read them.