Fort Peck Interpretive Center and Museum

The Fort Peck Interpretive Center stands beside the powerhouses at the foot of Fort Peck Dam, about 25 road miles south-east of Glasgow, and tells two stories: the building of one of the largest dams in America, and the fossils that the surrounding badlands have yielded. It opened in 2005 and is run jointly by the US Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the dam, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge around the lake. Admission is free.

Visitors are met by a life-size model of Peck's Rex, a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus rex found about 20 miles south-east of Fort Peck. Other fossil displays include a Struthiomimus and marine reptiles from the Cretaceous sea, and two large freshwater aquariums hold native and game fish of Fort Peck Lake and the Missouri River. Exhibits on the dam and on the prairie wildlife of the refuge fill the rest of the building.

The dam itself is the reason to come this far. Built between 1933 and 1940 as a New Deal Public Works Administration project, it employed 10,546 people at its peak in July 1936. At 21,026 feet long and over 250 feet high, it is the highest of the six main dams on the Missouri and the largest hydraulically filled dam in the United States. On 22 September 1938 part of the upstream face slid into the reservoir, and eight men were killed; six of them were never recovered and remain inside the dam. Margaret Bourke-White's photograph of the spillway under construction was the cover of the first issue of Life magazine on 23 November 1936.

In summer the center runs guided tours of the powerhouse, with 2026 tours at 9:30 and 11:30 am and 1:30 and 3:30 pm at weekends. Every adult must register at least 15 minutes ahead and show a REAL ID-compliant licence or a passport; digital IDs are not accepted.

Autumn 2026: the Fish and Wildlife Service lists the center as open Friday to Monday, 9 am to 4 pm, through 31 October. After that it has opened by appointment in the off-season; call 406-526-3493 at least a day ahead.