General Land Office Montana Plat Map Collection, 1869-1948

The photocopied township plats in this collection represent two selections of grids in the present-day counties of Gallatin, Madison, Broadwater, and Jefferson. The largest group of the plat maps show townships straddling the intersection of the Prime Meridian and baseline, and the second represents a selection of 20 townships located entirely southwest of those intersecting lines. The maps had originally been given numbers which conformed to a state map showing each township numbered from 1 through 2822 for all grids in Montana east of the Prime Meridian, and 2825 through 3753 west of the Prime Meridian. This numbering system is not currently used by the U.S. Interior department online access tool for GLO plat maps and can only be used to identify the desired township by referring to a copy of the state index map. The present arrangement sorts the maps numerically according to township and range number, starting with township 3 north and continuing to township 14 south. The maps in each folder are identified by the original state map numbers followed by the township and range numbers. The number appearing in parentheses separating the sequential state index map and township/range numbers is the number of individual sheets for that particular grid, usually representing the original and subsequent surveys of the township, ranging in dates from 1869 to 1948. Folder 1 also contains a small copy of the state index map.