From Cody, Wyoming we went back to the beautiful Bighorn Mountains to explore Story and Sheridan, Wyoming. We then headed north to the Little Bighorn River in Montana to see the historic battlefield. The drive through these mountains was absolutely stunning!
Sheridan and Story, Wyoming
We enjoyed Sheridan’s downtown area. There were plenty of shops and restaurants with sculptures along the sidewalks. A must, if wanting a meat eaters meal at a reasonable price, is the Rib & Chop House. We enjoyed a delicious appetizer of fried green tomatoes topped with crab meat and drizzled with balsamic vinegar. The petite filet was perfectly cooked.
Story is a quaint and a very small town in the mountains. We visited the Fish Hatchery and learned just about everything about the golden trout they imported from California.
Battle at the Little Bighorn
The Battle of the Little Bighorn was a fight between the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army and the combined tribes of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians along the Little Bighorn River in Montana.
The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 established the Great Sioux Reservation in the western half of South Dakota and parts of Wyoming and Montana. Gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota and floods of miners trespassed into the Great Sioux Reservation. In addition, the timber in the Black Hills was needed for development in the Nebraska Territory. Congress offered the tribes $25,000 for the land and would relocate them to Oklahoma. The tribes didn’t accept the offer and the Great Sioux War of 1876 began.
Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer of the 7th Cavalry was ordered to the Little Bighorn region. On June 25, 1876 Custer encountered a large Indian village on the west bank of the Little Bighorn River. Custer had about 700 men, but the Indian leaders including Crazy Horse, Chief Gall and Sitting Bull vastly outnumbered Custer.
They defeated him and killed over 268 of Custer’s men including Custer.
The dead not only had their weapons and clothes taken, but some had their eyes, tongues, ears, and genitalia mutilated, in addition to being scalped and dismembered. Unfortunately, mutilation and torture has not been unusual in the history of war including similar acts by American soldiers, Indians and others engaged in fighting throughout the world.
The site of the battle was first preserved as a National Cemetery. Later, it was designated as the Custer Battlefield National Monument and later renamed as the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.
