NASHUA
Nashua, Montana is a small rural community, located approximately 15 miles east of Glasgow on US Highway 2. The population in 2000 was 325 people.
Nashua, which borders the Fort Peck Indian Reservation to the east, is one of the gateways to northeast Montana's greatest recreation areas, Fort Peck Dam and lake, which can be reached by traveling south on Highway 117 for 13 miles. Nashua was one of the colorful, lively boom towns during the construction of the dam in the 1930's.
The name Nashua comes from the Indian language meaning "meeting of the waters." The town is located only a few miles north of the confluence of the Milk River, named by lewis and Clark on May 8, 1805, and the Missouri River, which was carrying the Lewis and Clark Expedition upriver on its way to the west coast. In later years, Chief Sitting Bull camped on Porcupine Creek near Nashua and also along the Missouri and Milk Rivers south of the town while he was en route to Canada, where he fled after the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
The town of nashua was founded by Charles Sargent, a second cousin of Robert E. Lee. Sargent served in the Civil War and came west to FJort Union in 1866 with the military units that built Fort Buford near what is now the Montana-Dakota border. The military was engaged in the Indian campaigns. In 1886, Sargent arrived in the Nashua area where he settled on public land, which, at that time, was referred to as "squatting," and awaited the arrival of the railroad the next year to set up a townsite.
Nashua is the home of the Porcupine, the prickly animal called "pawnee" by the Indians, that serves as the school's mascot. It is believed to be the only school with this animal as the banner for its teams.
Nashua offers a full-service filling station, a cafe that features popular homemade ice cream, a grocery store that also houses a liquor store and movie rental business, a bowling alley, post office and two bars.
All this wide-open space is great for snowmobiling and cross-country skiing. You pick the spot and it's powder perfect. Nashua boasts its own snowmobile club, the "Nashua Sleighers."
