Loma is located one mile north of Decision Point. In its beginning early inhabitants were trappers and traders. As early as 1865 N.W. Burris and his company had secured a charter to build the city that would be called Ophir. This area was being established as the center of transportation and commerce for this part of Montana. As the incorporators and contractors went to the log site so they could float logs down to Ophir to start construction of this new commerce center a massacre occurred. Written reports blamed the Indians of the area. There had been no witnesses to the massacre but stories from the 1930's say that Fort Benton businessmen were responsible for the massacre. They did not want any competition for trade and commerce of the area since they were located only 11 miles away. After the massacre the project of Ophir was never renewed. This area remained open to traders and trappers until the end of the beaver pelt and buffalo hide trade. Homesteading brought a few people to the area in the early 1900's. By 1910 thirty-three people were listed on the census. The first plot of the town site of Loma was filed March 13, 1915. Next evolved the cattle and sheep industries. Along with farming these are the livelihood of the area today. Loma became home to the Great Northern Railroad in 1911. In the 1950's the last train pulled out of Loma taking the rails and ties with it. Loma is no longer served by rail. Picture source: History of Loma Compiled by Jim Wood

Captain William Clark with his members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition camped on the site of Fort Benton on June 4, 1805. Fort Benton was originally a trading post of the American Fur Company. By this time fur trade was primarily a trade in buffalo robes. It was originally known as Fort Lewis. It wasn't until 1850 that the town received it's present name of Fort Benton. On Christmas day of that year the first adobe building was completed. Alexander Culbertson named the fort Fort Benton in honor of US Senator Thomas Hart Benton from Missouri. In 1860 it was bought out and became a Jesuit Mission. After the Jesuits abandoned it the fort was used by the military until 1881. It had become so dilapidated by then that the garrison was quartered in town. Fort Benton became the head of navigation on the Missouri River with the arrival of the first steamboat from St. Louis in 1859. It became the world's innermost port, 3,485 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Until the railroad arrived in 1887 it was Montana's most important city. Fur traders, gold seekers, and homesteaders prospered in the area of Fort Benton. As a booming town in the early 1860's Fort Benton was a point of entry to the newly discovered placer mines of Western Montana. During the gold rush, fifty steamboats a season docked at the Fort Benton Levee. Here they would load and unload supplies, and load tons of gold bound for St. Louis. Whiskey followed gold, and trails were forged into Canada including the well-known Whoop-up Trail into Alberta, Canada. It had been known as one of the toughest towns in the West from 1860-1887. Gradually law and order replaced the lawlessness and ranchers and farmers occupied the plains. Picture courtesy John G. Lepley