BILLINGS — Jimmy Carter lost Montana and Yellowstone County in 1976, but it wasn't due to lack of trying. The 39th president, who died on Sunday at age 100, made a two-and-a-half hour campaign stop in Billings on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 1976 — a day that started in Phoenix, included dinner in Bismarck and ended in Sioux Falls.
Carter's plane, winkingly nicknamed "Peanut One," landed at the Logan International Airport at 1:30 p.m. His first stop was an easy one, just down the hill from the airport at the Eastern Montana College (now Montana State University Billings) fieldhouse.
Carter spoke outside the building, using the Rimrocks as a sort of natural amphitheater. The future president declared it "the most beautiful place I've ever been asked to speak in." The stop included a pair of speeches, one at Eastern and one at the Northern Hotel in downtown Billings.
That last appearance, which afforded potential voters a more hands-on experience in exchange for a $10 donation, was a fundraiser for Thomas E. Towe, a Billings lawyer who was running for House of Representatives. "I made the effort to try and make sure he came to Montana to support my campaign, and of course, his own," said Towe, who still lives in Billings and practices law at the Towe, Ball, Mackey, Sommerfeld and Gosche firm.
In November, Towe would lose his race to Republican Ron Marlenee. But at the fundraiser, Carter trumpeted Towe as one of the "young, aggressive, competent men" he'd need in Washington. "He was v.
