Website:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt,_Montana
https://www.visitmt.com/places-to-go/cities-and-towns/belt

Description:
The City of Belt, Montana is a small, unique community situated in Cascade County approximately 15 miles southeast of Great Falls. Belt is on the National Register of Historic Places, the nation's list of heritage properties worthy of preservation, which includes the Belt Commercial Historic District and the Belt Jail. Belt was home to Montana's first coal mine. It supplied fuel to Fort Benton. The post office opened on February 2, 1885, with Eugene Clingan as postmaster. Belt is named for the mountain range and creek, which themselves take their name from a nearby butte with a prominent dark band. The Blackfeet were the first to note that the area looked like a belt or girdle. In the late 1870's, John K and Mattie Castner built a cabin at the site of Montana's first coal mine. Pennsylvania native John Castner discovered rich coal deposits along Belt Creek in 1870. Within just a few years, he and Fort Benton trader T. C. Power opened a commercial coal mine near here. The partners sold coal for use by the Great Northern Railway, the Boston & Montana Refinery in Great Falls, and for domestic uses in central Montana. Belt originated to serve the mine, attracting men from throughout the United States and Europe to work side-by-side underground. In 1885, Castner and his wife, Mattie, one of Montana’s early African-American businesswomen, established a stage station and hotel at this site on the Lewistown-Great Falls Road. The expansion of the mine by its new owner, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, in 1894 caused a profound change in Belt. Its commercial district relocated to the area adjacent to the stage station on what became known as Castner Street. By the early twentieth century, a jumble of wooden false-front commercial buildings and saloons lined the street, keeping in character with the community’s origin as a mining camp. The expansion of the mine and the surrounding area’s increasing dependence on agriculture in the early 1900s significantly changed the appearance of Belt’s commercial district. The old false-front buildings gave way to the more substantial stone and brick-front buildings that line the street today. Although many lack architectural ornamentation, collectively the buildings gave the appearance of a prosperous and stable community. The commercial district represents the metamorphosis of Belt from a mining camp to a modern city.