Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Thursday announced the design, which won out over a field of four designs in a statewide vote.
The design, which was not Schweitzer's personal favorite, will be on actual quarters early next year, said Sarah Elliott, the governor's spokeswoman.
The governor's office received hundreds of ideas from throughout the state, Elliott said. Most dealt with the state's natural beauty in some way, although a few were funny and some a bit profane.
One featured a knobby-tired, three-wheeled all-terrain vehicle charging up a mountain. Another featured a Pork Chop John sandwich - a breaded, fried pork sirloin on a bun invented in Butte by John Burklund in 1924.
Schweitzer said part of the challenge in picking the right design for Montana was finding an image that captured the state's diverse history, topography and cultures. The image had to reflect Montana's spirit, he said, but not be so crowded that the image isn't “coinable,” borrowing a term from the U.S. Mint.
The design is part of the Mint's 10-year, 50-state quarter program. Starting in 1999, the Mint is honoring every state in the nation with each state's own quarter design.
Governors of each state decide how the design for their state is chosen, according to the Mint. The secretary of the U.S. Treasury signs off on all designs.
State quarters are introduced in the same chronological order as the states became part of the Union. Montana, which became a state in 1889, is one of the later quarters at 41st.
In Montana, Schweitzer took ideas from throughout the state. Then they went to a state panel, which included the governor; Arnie Olsen, former head of the Montana Historical Society; and Gary Marks, a Whitefish coin collector, among others. The committee winnowed the ideas to four. Those designs then went to a popular vote.
The other designs included: a scene of a river winding out of the mountains, a massive bull elk standing on the prairie beneath the mountains, and the outline of the state of Montana with the sun rising over the prairie.
About 30,000 votes were cast; the bison skull netted 34 percent of the vote.
Schweitzer said adoption of the skull design wasn't without snags.
On a single night of voting, the state logged more than 20,000 votes for the design from one Bozeman computer. Those votes were tossed out, Schweitzer said, and the parents of the kid who made the votes got a call from the state.
“He had some explaining to do at the kitchen table the next morning,” the governor said.
The second hurdle came when the governor's mom said she really didn't like the bison design - and jokingly threatened to uninvite her son to Christmas dinner if he picked it.
“My mom, she's a person of the prairie,” Schweitzer said, explaining his mother's preference for the “high plains at sunrise” design.
The bison skull is a unique and long-standing symbol of the state, Olsen said. The symbol is on the state's current license plate design and is the symbol of the Montana Historical Society.
Montana cowboy and artist Charlie Russell used the symbol when he signed his paintings - all of which were completed at his log cabin studio in Great Falls.
Schweitzer and others referred to the design as the “Charlie Russell skull,” although Russell's true skull drawing is trademarked by the CM Russell Museum in Great Falls.
Marks said that while it's impossible to know how many Montana quarters will end up in circulation, he estimated that about 500 million will be made at the mint in Denver.
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