The Montana Historic Quilt Project is part of a nation-wide effort to record and preserve the traditions and legacy of quilting in this country. The Montana project began in 1984 with an oral history project in Hardin that eventually sparked projects across the state. The seven-region Quilters Art Guild of the Northern Rockies became the parent group for the MHQP with the goal of documenting 2,000 quilts by the year 2000. Thousands of quilts were identified, registered, documented and the records stored in the archives of the Montana Historical Society. The quilt registry represents the handiwork of people who called Montana home. Many of the quilts that were identified were shown in a series of ten quilt shows held around the state in 2000-2001. They have also been documented in a calendar, and in a book "Border to Border : Historic Quilts and Quiltmakers of Montana" by Annie Henshaw.