Coal Banks Landing takes its name from the dark layer of lignite coal in the hillsides. The landing was used by steamboats during the Indian War of 1876-77 and the construction of Fort Assinniboine on the northwest side of the Bears Paw Mountains. The famed White Cliffs section of the Missouri River, which Captain Meriwether Lewis described as "seens of visionary inchantment" in his journals, begins about 10 miles downstream from here.