Montana’s Cowboy Artist & Our Lodge

Initiated in 1908, Charles Marion Russell called his acceptance
into the Order “one of his most cherished moments” and proudly
wore his Elks pin for the rest of his life.

When the new lodge opened in 1912, Russell gifted the fraternity
his masterpiece, “The Exalted Ruler,” a symbolic oil painting of
a bull elk surveying his herd.

In 1995, the Lodge worked with the community to ensure this
masterpiece stayed in Great Falls, transferring it to the C.M.
Russell Museum, where it remains a centerpiece of Western art.