unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
and
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
Montana
Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...
, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 43. The town was a station stop on the now-abandoned transcontinental main line of the
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad
The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (CMStP&P), better known as the Milwaukee Road , was a Class I railroad that operated in the Midwest and Northwest of the United States from 1847 until 1986.
The company experienced financi ...
("the Milwaukee Road"), and is a community center for nearby ranches and farms. Martinsdale was the home of the poet
Grace Stone Coates
Grace Stone Coates (1881–1976) wrote short stories, poetry, and news articles. She did most of her writing out of her home in Martinsdale, Montana. Coates published her first poem, "The Intruder", in 1921 and her first series of linked stories, ' ...
, author of ''Black Cherries,'' ''Mead & Mangel-Wurzel,'' and ''Portulacas in the Wheat.'' It was also the home of Charles M. Bair, one of the largest and most successful sheep ranchers in the United States, and the former Bair family home is now a museum.
The Gordon Butte Pumped Storage Project is a planned pumped hydroelectric power plant that will be constructed in Martinsdale.
Martinsdale is on Highway 294, just south of
U.S. Route 12
U.S. Route 12 or U.S. Highway 12 (US 12) is an east–west United States Numbered Highway, running from Aberdeen, Washington, to Detroit, Michigan, for almost . The highway has mostly been superseded by Interstate 90 (I-90 ...
county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
.
History
Originally named "Gauglersville", the town changed to Martinsdale in 1878. The name was after
Martin Maginnis
Martin Maginnis (October 27, 1841 – March 27, 1919) was a nineteenth-century politician, soldier, publisher, editor and miner from Minnesota and the Montana Territory.
Origins and early life
Maginnis was born in 1841 on his family's farm ...
, Montana Territory's delegate to Congress, who assisted the town in getting a post office.