Locations:Homestead National Historical Park, Women's Rights National Historical Park
Jeannette Rankin helped organize the New York Women's Suffrage Party and worked as a lobbyist for the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In February 1911, she returned to Montana, and became the first woman to argue for women's suffrage in front of the state legislature. Jeannette Rankin became the first woman in US history elected to the House of Representatives in 1916 even though women were not able to vote until the 19th Amendment passed in 1920.
Bright Watts was a Black homesteader who acquired 154.12 acres of land in Cascade County, Montana. Gilbright "Bright" Watts was cited as a kind, hard-working, respectful man. He traveled to Cascade County, Montana to be with his uncle Thomas Watts, who had land southwest of Great Falls, Montana. Bright testified against a desert entry claim that was not improved properly in 1903. This may have spurred him on to claim his own homestead in 1904.
