Reed and Bowles

The Reed and Bowles Trading Post outside Lewistown is a little-known gem well worth a visit. The oldest standing building in the area, the post originally stood about a mile and a half southeast of its present location. It was part of a short-lived post called Fort Sherman intended to serve a large Crow reservation, but by 1874 the plans for the reservation had fallen through. Construction of the Carroll Trail, a freighting route between Carroll on the Missouri River and Helena, prompted Alonzo S. Reed and John Bowles—a notorious pair—to purchase the post, dismantle it, and move it to its present site along Spring Creek.

Photo courtesy Montana State Historic Preservation Office

The post served traffic along the trail between 1875 and 1880 and catered to the many tribes passing through. Major Reed—so called from his brief stint as Milk River Indian agent from which he was fired—was the kingpin and Bowles was his assistant. Reed reputedly settled disputes with gunfire and planted his victims in the burial ground across the river. Bowles supposedly even sold the bones of his father-in-law, the Crow leader Long Horse, to an Irish ornithologist. The pair was well known for brutality toward their wives, drunken sprees, and trading liquor with the Indians, a violation of federal law. Reed and Bowles sold a wicked brew of ethanol laced with plug tobacco and red pepper. During the five years the post operated, visitors included American naturalist George Bird Grinnell, trader Pike Landusky, “Liver Eating” Johnson, and the Nez Perces, who stopped there briefly to rest in 1877 during their tragic flight from the U.S. Army.

Plenty Coups

Aleek-chea-ahoosh, or Many Achievements, was a fitting name for the influential Crow chief who was esteemed among his people and honored by both statesmen and presidents. White men called him Plenty Coups for the eighty feathers he wore with earned authority on his coup stick. A veteran warrior and shrewd negotiator, Plenty Coups was also a true, if sometimes critical, patriot and friend to the white man.

Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, PAc 82-26 A2 p. 48

At the age of ten, Plenty Coups had a dream that foretold the demise of the buffalo. His tribe realized the poignant truth of this vision, and unlike others, the Crows resignedly “pointed their guns with the white man’s.” The passing of the buffalo brought irreparable change, and Plenty Coups served as a bridge for his people between the old ways and the new. On the reservation he learned to farm and in 1888 chose a place to build a home of square hewn logs; in keeping with native custom, the door faces east. Completed in 1906, it was the reservation’s only two-story building. Plenty Coups and his wife, Strikes-the-Iron, executed a Deed of Trust providing that forty acres of the farm be “set aside as a park and recreation ground for members of the Crow Tribe of Indians and white people jointly.” The government symbolically accepted this gift at a great ceremony in 1928. Plenty Coups died in 1932 at the age of eighty-four. He was the last chief of the Crow Nation, so venerated that his people never named a successor. The designation of Chief Plenty Coups Memorial State Park in 1965 would have been in accordance with his wishes. The site is now a National Historic Landmark.

Friday Photo: Crow Indian Winter Camp

Happy Friday! We got a dusting of fresh snow for Christmas in Helena. It was almost as picturesque as the scene in this stereograph.


Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, ST 002.101

Henry Bird Calfee, a photographer from Bozeman, snapped this photo of a Crow Indian Camp circa 1874-1881 in the Yellowstone River Valley.

Crow Agency Archaeology

Archeological investigations have recently exposed the foundations of the second Crow agency in the Stillwater Valley near Absarokee. A full-scale excavation, conducted by Aaberg Cultural Resources, came about as preliminary to the Montana Department of Transportation’s planned widening of a three-mile stretch of Highway 78. Testing for archaeological sites is required for projects that disturb the right-of-way. The highway bisected the suspected location of the agency that existed there between 1875 and 1884. The agency is historically important because it encompasses a difficult period in Crow history. Not only were the Crows struggling to transition from hunting to farming during this decade, the tribe also suffered from epidemics of measles and scarlet fever. Preliminary test pits of the area yielded enough artifacts to warrant further investigation. In 2006 Aaberg surveyed the site with a magnetometer. This instrument reveals solid objects underground and translates them to a computer generated map. Comparing his findings with an 1878 map of the agency, Aaberg determined that the rectangular compound exactly lined up with scattered anomalies the magnetometer revealed. This exciting discovery led to the excavations in the summer of 2011. Crews uncovered portions of the foundations of the compound that included the agent’s, clerk’s, and doctor’s offices. A layer of charcoal and ash substantiates the fact that the site was burned upon abandonment. Decorative beads, animal bones, broken bottles, and other artifacts, currently under analysis, will eventually be housed at the curation facility on the Little Big Horn College campus in Crow Agency. Study of these artifacts and the tragic story they tell will help write this chapter of Montana’s past.

Archaeologist Steve Aaberg sites the location of the next unit to be dug, while field crew members
excavate a unit believed to be the agency doctor's office.

Staff members from the State Historic Preservation Office work with the field crew to screen for artifacts.
Both photos from the Montana Historical Society's Facebook page

Friday Photo: Bikes

What are you up to this weekend? Biking, perhaps?


Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, 955-925

Crow School boys and girls show off their bikes at Crow Agency in 1896. Left to right: Unidentified, Unidentified, Russell White Bear, Henry Shin Bone, Annie Wesley, Addie Bear in the Middle, Fanny Butterfly, Kitty Deer Nose. Photographer unknown. Click the photo for a bigger version.

P.S. Remember these intrepid cyclists?

The Place Where the White Horse Went Down

In the summer of 1837, a smallpox epidemic spread from a steamboat as it lay docked at Fort Union. Although the federal government initiated massive inoculations among the tribes of the Midwest in 1832, the effort did not reach this far north, and Montana’s native people had no immunity. The disease struck the young, vigorous, and most able-bodied family members so quickly that before one person could be properly laid to rest, another family member died. In the end, the epidemic claimed at least ten thousand victims. The Crows tell a story about two young warriors who returned from a war expedition to find smallpox decimating their village. One warrior discovered his sweetheart among the dying, and both grieved over the loss of many family members. Realizing that nothing could alter these events, the two young men dressed in their finest clothing. Riding double on a snow white horse and singing their death songs, the two young warriors drove the blindfolded horse over a cliff at what is today the east end of the Yellowstone County Fairgrounds at Billings. Although time has reduced the height of the cliff, the spot where they landed is remembered even today as The Place Where the White Horse Went Down.


A historical marker stands at the site today.
Image from Historical Marker Database



Friday Photo: Elk-tooth Dresses

Happy Friday! Our celebration of Women's History Month ends today, but remember that you can look back any time at the posts labeled "women."

From Montana Views. Original in Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives, ST 001.338

These young Crow women modeled their elk-tooth dresses circa 1906-1908. Elk-tooth dresses may be embellished with hundreds of teeth and are treasured by their owners. The photo was taken by N. A. Forsyth.

P.S. On the topic of fashion history, remember this fancy outfit? Or these bathing costumes?

Trail of Destruction

On this day in 1854, Irish nobleman Sir George Gore arrived in St. Louis to prepare for a hunting trip of astonishing destruction. An Oxford educated scholar and avid hunter, Sir George had thrilled to tales of the American west and organized a three-year hunting trip. His party soon set out from Westport, Missouri, under sanction of the American Fur Trading Company; famed mountain man Jim Bridger was guide. The caravan included 110 horses, 20 yoke of oxen, 50 hunting hounds, and 28 vehicles, 16 of them carrying Sir George’s luggage. When the party camped, a large green and white striped canvas wall tent provided Sir George’s shelter. French carpet, heating stoves, a brass bedstead, a steel bathtub, an oak dining set, and a commode with a fur-lined seat and removable pot promised Sir George all the comforts. For two years he passed the evenings enjoying sumptuous banquets, fine wine, and literary discussions with Bridger. By day Sir George pursued game on his gray thoroughbred named Steel Trap. Aside from trophy heads, he rarely retrieved the meat, instead leaving it to spoil. After he devastated the Yellowstone valley in 1856, Crow estimates of his terrible waste there included 105 bears, more than 2,000 bison, and 1,600 elk and deer. Sir George's reputation preceded him, however. In the Black Hills, en route to St. Louis, his party fell prey to a band of Sioux. Stripped naked and forced to abandon their goods, the arrogant hunter and his party experienced survival for real. During his stay in Montana, Sir George left one lasting legacy. He named the Yellowstone’s local tributary “Glendive” from which the town, some twenty-five years later, took its name.

The Ghost Horse Named Paint

Once there was a bay pinto, born on the prairie to an old mare who had given many foals to her Crow owner. The horse’s name was Paint. In the five years he lived with the Crow, he learned the feel of a man on his back and the ways of the buffalo hunt. One night as they camped along Painted Robe Creek in today’s Golden Valley County, Blackfeet crept into the sleeping camp to steal the horses. Paint felt a man on his back and he began to run. Gunfire shattered the night. Paint felt the man go slack and then Paint ran alone. When the horses stopped running, the Blackfeet saw that one man was missing. Their leader, Bad Wound, looked over the captive horses and noted Paint was good and strong. But then he saw the dried blood on his back. He drew his Henry rifle and fired at Paint. The horse fell to his knees and rolled on his side. Bad Wound wanted to send the dead warrior a good horse to take him on his last journey. But later Bad Wound saw Paint among the herd, dried blood on his head and neck, but otherwise sound. The bullet had gone completely through his neck, and Paint lived. But he was the steed of a dead man, and no one would ride a ghost horse. The following spring, some whites came to the Blackfeet to buy horses. Bad Wound sold Paint to a young boy whose name was Charlie Russell. Paint, whom Russell renamed Monte, was his favorite horse and the two were inseparable until the horse died of extreme old age twenty-five years later.


From Charles M. Russell, Word Painter. Original in the Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives.