Over a Billion Years of Montana's Geologic History

The granite the panel credits to Thomas Kain did face Helena's grandest building, but not from these hills. Kain, born in Liverpool in 1846, spent his life cutting stone and with his sons Henry and John worked several quarries around Helena. When the legislature added east and west wings to the Capitol, finished by 1912, it required Montana granite for their facing, and the stone chosen came from the Kain quarry at Clancy, south of town, over the family's other quarries and rival bidders. Kain's own office of about 1912 still stands on North Jackson Street.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Montana State Capitol — 12 mi
  A copper-domed capitol won in a copper kings' election, with a Russell painting that put the Salish at the center.
• Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site — 25 mi
  A Métis trader's 1862 house, a cattle king's headquarters, and a grandson who threw nothing away.
• Mann Gulch — 28 mi
  Thirteen markers on a grass slope above the Missouri, where a fire outran a crew of smokejumpers in 1949.

More markers nearby

• The Frenchwoman's Road — 1.7 mi
• The Mullan Road — 5.1 mi
• Unionville — 9.4 mi
• Benton Avenue Cemetery — 12 mi