Montana Road Trip to Little Bighorn Battlefield

In our travels, we would never miss a nearby national park, and we seldom miss a national monument. So even though it's an hour's drive from our campground in Sheridan, Wyoming, we spent the day at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. We made the road trip by driving north through the green hills of northern Wyoming on I-80.

We crossed into Montana, so we had another state sign this summer.

The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument visitor center includes a fine museum, and we watched the film to refresh our junior high history lesson on this battle. But the best part of our history lesson was a live lecture on the myths of the battle and the situation that brought Custer and his men here that day. The lecture was given by two volunteer rangers who enjoy spending their summers in Montana, and have a passion for history. One was a retired coach, and the other was a college art professor. The art professor had spent 32 summers here at the Little Bighorn Battlefield giving presentations like this. Their passion for the subject matter and their teaching experience kept us entertained and enthralled for their hour-long lecture. Kudos to the summer rangers, who got a rousing ovation at the end of their presentation! So we were well-educated by the time we got to the driving and walking tour of the battlefield. We started at the monument on the top of the hill known as "Custer's Last Stand."

It overlooked the grounds were Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and most of the men in his regiment died on June 25, 1876.

Of the cluster of white tombstone's on that hill, Custer's is easy to spot since it includes a large black seal. The tombstone of his brother was beside his.

The driving tour took us 4.5 miles into the park, with more views of the battles that happened that day in 1876. We could see the muddy Little Bighorn River at the bottom of the hill, where the battle got its name. When Denisa visited this park as a child, it was called the Custer Battlefield National Monument. The name was changed to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in 1991, to be representative of both sides of the conflict.

The national monument has recorded audio descriptions that follow the driving trail. By calling the posted phone number, we could listen to detailed information as we drove or walked the trails. For example, it explained that some of the plain white tombstones simply say, "U.S. Soldier" because the surviving soldiers that returned three days later to bury the 260 corpses could not identify all of them. 

We hadn't gotten any exercise for the day, so we walked several of the trails in the park. We can testify that it's getting warm out here in the plains of Montana.

We can also testify that the milkweed is ready to burst forth in bloom.

The blooms look like summer fireworks, and the leaves are a favorite of monarch butterfly caterpillars.

In conjunction with the name-change of the national monument, new head stones were also placed where the Indian warriors probably died.

A short walk from the "Last Stand" monument, a new Indian memorial has been given a place in the park.

In front of the visitor center and at the foot of battlefield hill, a national cemetery is the final resting place for soldiers from more recent battles.

The cemetery was completely full or reserved. The day we were visiting they had a rare burial ceremony for a person that had long ago reserved a burial plot here.

After a somber day of battle talks and tomb stones, we were hungry for lunch. The Custer Battlefield Trading Post has been around a long time, and didn't choose to make the name change like the national monument.

Oprah Winfrey once featured their Indian Tacos on her list of favorite things, and the trading post has become a bit of a legend. We gave them a big thumbs up, especially when our waitress brought us honey to eat with the fry bread on the edges.

We have blogged about the road-side signs that South Dakota and Wyoming display at the scene of fatal automobile accidents. In our drive into Montana, we saw that they also display simple white crosses for the same reason.

While we are comparing random facts about these two states that we are zig-zagging through this summer, we should mention milk. Milk that was bottled for distribution in both Wyoming and Montana, has two different dates stamped on the carton. Montana requires a "sell by" date that is a week before Wyoming's "best by" date. The things we learn as we travel about this country!

It was a long drive back to Sheridan, Wyoming. But this Montana road trip to Little Bighorn Battlefield allowed us to check another national monument off our list.