August 25 – December 2026

We are deeply devoted to our dogs. When introducing dog ordinances, county offices saw a significant amount of public feedback. Whether an instituted dog tax is in place, we care enough about our companions to ensure they enjoy a long, happy life. This bond has remained unchanged since the earliest days of domesticating canines.

In this photo exhibition, we see their loyalty and unconditional love depicted across Montana. In our museum collection, photographs including our furry companions have increased. From family portraits to property photographs, these candid shots show our enduring bond and deep affection for our pets.

 

Thank you to our Community Sponsors for their support.

Lilly Kooistra-Manning, Community Pet Hospital

July 28 – December 2026

This exhibition presents a rare collection of vintage 1871 William Henry Jackson alberttypes that are the first depictions of Yellowstone National Park. Jackson was privileged to be appointed the official photographer for Ferdinand Hayden’s epic governmental exploration of the Yellowstone Plateau during the summer of 1871. These images created the first large assemblage of photographic images taken in Yellowstone and were used to produce multiple alberttype copies to be used in the congressional effort to establish Yellowstone as our first national park.

March – Sept 12, 2026

Between 1930 and 1941, Montana experienced one of the worst droughts in modern history. Coupled with America’s Great Depression, Montanans struggled to scratch a living. Throughout the 1930s, the Farm Securities Administration sent photographers, Arthur Rothstein and Marion Post Wolcott to document the realities, grit, and hope the times. Their images create one of the most vivid and lasting collections of New Deal Montana.

 

Exhibit Sponsor: First Montana Title

March – December 2026

From its earliest days, Billings has been a city shaped by transportation, commerce, and community gatherings—and nowhere was this more evident than in its breweries and saloons. Having a Beer in Billings explores the role of beer in the city’s social and economic life. Through artifacts, photographs, and stories, visitors will discover how beer helped bring people together, fueled early business ventures, and left a lasting mark on Billings’ culture. Raise a glass to history, and step into the city’s spirited past.

 

Exhibit Sponsors:

Bill and Anne Cole
Montana Brewing Company
Angry Hank’s Microbrewery

September 22, 2026 – Summer 2027

For thousands of years before Yellowstone became a national park, it was a place where people hunted, fished, gathered plants, quarried obsidian, and used the thermal waters for religious and medicinal purposes. Today 27 indigenous tribes have ties to the area and resources now found within Yellowstone National Park. Explore the historical stories and contemporary connections that still make Yellowstone home.

March – July 18, 2026

Ben Steele was an American soldier in the Philippines at the beginning of World War II. When American forces on the Bataan Peninsula were surrendered in 1942, Steele was one of tens of thousands of American and Filipino troops forced to go on the Bataan Death March. He spent the next three and a half years as a POW in several labor camps, including the infamous Tayabas Road Detail. During his captivity, he survived beriberi, dysentery, pneumonia, blood poisoning, malaria, and the death ships. When the war ended, he was working in a Japanese coal mine less than 80 miles from Hiroshima.

 

Like many survivors, Steele struggled with memories of his captivity. As he came to terms with what he had seen and experienced, he began to draw from memory. Over the next decades, Steele became a critically acclaimed artist of the American West, but the Bataan Death March and the labor camps were never far from his mind. Steele passed away at the age of 98 on September 25, 2016.

 

Exhibit on loan from the Montana Museum of Art & Culture

Exhibit Sponsor: Shirley Steele

March – August 15, 2026

In the late 1800s, Apsáalooke leaders traveled to Washington, D.C., to resist land loss and defend their homelands. Their experiences were recorded in ledger drawings—sketches made with graphite and colored pencil that captured trains, circuses, Capitol buildings, through moments of negotiation. Preserved in the Barstow Collection, these rare works provide an unparalleled Apsáalooke perspective on diplomacy at a time of immense pressure from U.S. policies. This exhibition places the ledger drawings at the center, revealing them as both art and testimony to Apsáalooke resilience, leadership, and sovereignty.

 

Exhibit on loan from MSU Billings Library Special Collections

July – December 2025

Between 1899 -1910, famed Western artist, Joseph Henry Sharp spent his fall and winter months on the Crow Reservation in southeastern Montana. Here, he developed thousands of photographs to use as references for his paintings. Sharp used his camera to lay the groundwork for his painterly compositions, actively posing his subjects and himself to capture magnetic portraits and scenes from everyday life. This collection of 25 images highlight his skill behind the lens.

Exhibition sponsored by Stockman Bank. Exhibition on loan from the Charlie Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana.

Exhibit: March 2025 – July 2025

Billings has a lively Hispanic community with decades of a community-driven fiesta and public celebrations dating back to the 1930s.

The Hispanic community grew in Billings during the 1920s-30s for opportunities from the Great Western Sugar Company. Laborers were recruited from Mexico and the Southwest to work the beet fields. The factory created homes for the laborers to live in order to create a steady labor source year-round. Labors also known as the Betabeleros brought their families to stay in the adobe structures which became known as la colonia. Despite economic and racial struggles, families grew, and traditions continued.

Over 70 years later, the fiesta is still celebrated today. Hispanic and non-Hispanic community members come together to enjoy traditions that have been passed along through generations. Experience stories, objects, and culture in Viva La Fiesta exhibition at the Western Heritage Center.

A man sits in a wheelchair with a command box by his face. He is wearing a red shirt with a brown, Western cut jacket, and medal around his neck.

Exhibit: March 2025—August 2025

Explore the emotions and skills of artists living with disabilities in the Yellowstone River Valley. From well-known talents, like Cliff Potts, to emerging young artists, experience the diversity and color of these wonderful works of art.

 

Special thanks to our Community Advisory Group – Lindsey Nun, Ashlee Scherr, & Mitch Bohn – and to community members – Catherine Dove & Dennis Kern.