Wild West – June 2019

ROUNDUP

1 0 WILD WEST JUNE 2019

1

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument:

The best time to visit this iconic Montana site

is on the June anniversary weekend, when the

general public can rub shoulders with reenactors,

victory riders and scholars. The excitement is

intense on a field that is itself rather intense.

2

Custer Battlefield Trading Post: Across

from the Little Bighorn battlefield is James

“Putt” Thompson’s post, filled with intriguing

artifacts, books and Indian arts and crafts. It’s

the finest emporium of its sort on the northern

Plains. Putt also makes a mean Indian taco.

3

Rosebud Battlefield State Park: Someone

we know is working hard to better position

this sprawling, untrammeled Montana battlefield

and its equally expansive story into the larger

sphere of Custer and the Great Sioux War.

4

Deer Medicine Rocks: Along Rosebud

Creek, slightly north and west of the Jim-

town Bar, this sandstone formation and the

nearby Sitting Bull Sun Dance campsite loom

large on the Indian side of the war story.

5

Sheridan Butte: This Montana landmark

stands on the north bank of the Yellowstone

River, opposite the mouth of the Powder River.

Few Great Sioux War sites can be deemed

sacred. Here’s one that fits the bill, plain to

behold if impossible to access.

6

Warbonnet Creek Skirmish Site: Ask

a local to find this battlefield in extreme

northwestern Nebraska, a spot so lonely one

can almost hear Bill Cody’s voice on the wind,

crying out, “The first scalp for Custer!”

7

Wind Cave and Theodore Roosevelt Na-

tional Parks: In South and North Dakota,

respectively, the parks exemplify the haunting,

primal landscape lost by the Sioux and North-

ern Cheyennes. No finer native grasslands exist,

as the buffalo and prairie dogs well know.

8

Black Hills Gold Country: Skip the tourist

stuff. Aim for the 1881 Court House Mu-

seum in Custer, the Adams Museum in Dead-

wood and the Journey Museum in Rapid City

for an understanding of the role of gold in

the interplay between Custer and the Sioux.

9

Fort Robinson State Park: Most of this 1870s

Nebraska fort survives, though elements

have been reconstructed. Within its bounds lies

the finest old Army museum in the American West,

as well as the site of Crazy Horse’s killing in 1877.

10

Stagecoach Museum: One should never

pass Lusk, in east-central Wyoming, with-

out paying homage to the original mud wagon, the

last of its kind from the old Cheyenne-Deadwood

stage line, which operated from 1876 to 1887.

—Paul L. Hedren

This marker at Little
Bighorn Battlefield
National Monument
stands where Lt. Col.
George Armstrong
Custer fell. He is buried
at the U.S. Military
Academy Post Ceme-
tery in West Point, N.Y.

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In the crowded battle

scene of Edgar Samuel

Paxson’s Custer’s Last

Stand there is hardly

room for the lieutenant

colonel to fall down.

10 MUST-SEE SITES OF

THE GREAT SIOUX WAR