Montana’s Only Piece of the Twin Towers Still Rests in Billings

Twenty-five years have passed since September 11, 2001. An entire generation has grown up knowing the day only through photographs, old news footage, and stories passed down by people who lived through it.

I was 21 years old the day the towers fell. I was working for a radio station on the East Coast, not too far from New York State, and I remember every detail of that morning the way you remember the worst days of your life. The phones ringing off the hook. The station going quiet between songs because nobody knew what to say. The vow I made to myself before that day was even over: I would never forget.

Twenty-five years later, I haven't. The horror of that morning still sits with me, and I don't think it ever fully leaves anyone who lived through it, whether you were standing in Manhattan or watching on a TV in Montana thousands of miles away.

That's part of why Montana's 9/11 Memorial at City College means something to me even now that I live in Billings, far from where I was that day.

Where Montana's 9/11 Memorial Sits in Billings

The memorial sits on the City College campus at Montana State University Billings, right outside the Health Science Building at 3803 Central Avenue. It came together through a genuine community effort, starting as an idea from City College faculty members back in 2010, when the university applied for a piece of the actual World Trade Center wreckage.

A 612-pound section of steel I-beam arrived in Billings in May 2011. Ground broke that July, and by the end of the summer, drafting, design, and welding program faculty had worked alongside university facilities staff and community volunteers to build something permanent.

According to Shane Grantham, MSU Billings' Director for Military and Veterans Success, this beam is the only piece of the World Trade Center anywhere in the state, and the annual ceremony here is Montana's only ongoing local 9/11 remembrance.

Montana 9/11 Memorial Design and Layout

The memorial is set on a 40-foot concrete pad, with benches built in for people who want a quiet minute to sit and reflect. At the center, a 12-foot raised platform holds the original steel I-beam. Above it rise two 16-foot steel tube towers, scaled-down replicas of the World Trade Center towers themselves.

Why This Memorial Matters in Montana

I moved a long way from the East Coast since that day in 2001, but distance doesn't change what I promised myself. Every September, when the anniversary rolls around, I think about that morning in the radio station and how none of us knew yet how much the world was about to shift.

Having a memorial in Billings, thousands of miles from Ground Zero, tells me this isn't just an East Coast memory. It's an American one. The four words the university built Montana's 9/11 Memorial around- remember, reflect, educate, and dedicate- aren't just a plaque. They're a way of making sure people who weren't alive in 2001 still understand what that day cost.

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Billings 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony Details

City College holds a remembrance ceremony each year at the memorial starting at 8:30 a.m., and it's open to anyone in the community who wants to attend. You can enter off Shiloh Road.