YELLOWSTONE COUNTY, MONTANA

Yellowstone County – Your Ancestral Past Trail Series

Out in the Boonies #4

By Dave Dodge

Billings – As It Was in 1956 or Earlier

Original Sign Research by Bill Beasley, Billings Gazette

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Take a trip through the Billings’ valley area and “pretend” that you were there before the numerous settlements took over the land. Pretend that you can envision the scenes and the people of that era, and the turmoil or joy that they faced. Us a current city map to find the locations noted below, park your car and become one with the surroundings. Vanish the buildings, roads, trees and people from your mind, and “see” the events of the time unfold. Wording on the signs is hopefully reported as originally spelled.

Before embarking on the vision trek, runoff copies of the sites history from the links provided, and read them as you visit each location. Please do not rush, but take time to enjoy and become one with nature as it was 70 to 150 years ago. The information links are provided to tickle the imagination, not define all of the truths. That will be left up to each of you who desire more from the past, than what is presented herein. Signs, their wording and their placement will always be a subject of debate. What is okay for one generation is totally unacceptable for a future generation. As civilization takes over, the neighbor to the sign will invariably say: “Not in my backyard!” Thus they have to be torn down and replaced with books. Identifying the sites represented by the earlier signs is a difficult task; since many of the times the signs were incorrectly placed or identified an incorrect event mixed with emotion, fact and memory.

The Kiwanis Club [1] and DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) established pamphlets and posted signs and monuments defining important events that helped establish the history of the area, and promote tourism. Virtually all signs have long since vanished, only their words remain, hidden in obscure publications. As the years passed by, the efforts created by the concerned local citizens seems to have been lost into the “faded memory” of our lives. The colorful language used was replaced by modern words with different meanings. The Chamber of Commerce was founded and later took over the management of the “points of interest.” Later efforts added commercialism and soon the links to the past were entirely erased, signs torn down to make way for expansion, and sites destroyed to accommodate civic growth. Many of the places noted on this tour will only be “in memory.” Enjoy the experience. The order for viewing is left to the visitor. The visitation can take many days for the serious journeyer.

Boot Hill Cemetery

Located at the corner of Exposition Drive and Route 318: near Main Street and Black Otter Trail

Boot Hill Cemetery was deeded to the City of Billings, on 6 December 1926 by ID O’Donnell. O’Donnell had acquired the land 20 years earlier from the Billings Land & Irrigation Company with the intent of maintaining the site as an historical monument. The cemetery runs 170 feet north and south, by 165 feet east and west (.64 acre). There were no tombstones placed on any of the plots, two monuments were later created, and a small pile of rocks added many years ago to denote some graves. When a person was buried, it was local practice to shove a small piece of sandstone from the nearby bluff, into the ground at either the head or foot of the grave. No permanent markers were made. A monument dedicating the site was made possible primarily through the efforts of Mrs. Henry Frith and Mrs. BF Shuart, and dedicated in 1921. Some wooden markers were placed on some gravesites during the dedication ceremony to denote grave positions, and known names from some references, but it is not known if the information was correct.  The dates on these wooden markers are not exactly correct in all instances. Sandra Collins, as part of the YGF transcription project, identified the grave plat layout in 1981. The cemetery stopped actively serving the community approximately five years after Billings was created. There are four rows of gravesites still visible. About 97 individuals were buried in the plat. Most are unidentified, including persons who died from diseases, Indians and military servicemen.

Immell & Jones Ambush – Indian Rock

[Located at the eastern end of the north rims, where 6^th Ave and Highway 10 (Main Street) join each other, it was the landmark called “Indian Rock.”]

The massacre took place during the bonanza days of the fur trade in Montana, and centered near the area where “Indian Rock” was located. The incident was so severe that it attracted the attention of the Prime Minister of Great Britain and a US Senate Committee. At one time the Chamber of Commerce had a sign erected on the Black Otter Trail near Alkali Creek to identify the ambush. Most people are unaware of the event and the affect it had on the two nations.

Immell & Jones link about the event. YGF site.

Chief Black Otter

[Located at the eastern end of the north rims, where 6^th Ave and Highway 10 (Main Street) join each other, it was near the landmark called “Indian Rock.”]

The Chippewa steamboat caught fire on June 22, 1861 [2] , on the Missouri River, about ten miles west of Poplar River, in Montana Territory. [Steamer Big Horn was left stranded a few years later at about the same place.] The passengers and crew got safely ashore and cast the steamer adrift before its cargo of gunpowder caught fire and blew up. [The Chippewa and the Key West were the first two boats to reach Fort Benton, its final destination on the Missouri River, in 1860.] Chief Black Otter was leading a party of Crow Indians in the area when the steamer exploded. [Frank L. Worden, co-founder of Missoula and Hell Gate, was among the surviving passengers [3] .] They went to the scene and began to salvage articles from the damaged boat. A Sioux war party took this opportunity to attack their enemy, the Crows, and during the battle, an arrow broke Chief Black Otter’s thigh. His brother-in-law came to his rescue, and was killed. The other members of the Crow party succeeded in driving off the Sioux, killing a large number of them, but during the battle, Chief Black Otter also was killed. Before he died he asked that he be buried in the heart of Crow Country, at a high point on the Yellowstone River (Elk River; e.g., E-che-ta-cos-asha), at the top of the high point of the rim rocks on the north side of the river. His tribal members took his body by Travois to this point “where his spirit could see west and east up and down the river.” The burial place was not precisely known, but believed to be in a pine tree’s branches, at the peak of the north rims (Kelly Mountain), as was the current custom. The sign was posted near the summit

This Skeleton Cliff burial site is clouded in mystery, and is sometimes confused or used interchangeably with Sacrifice Cliff. The exact locations are still uncertain in many people’s mind. However, there are several references that help describe the locations, but the wording appears to be rather cryptic, and must be carefully examined. Skeleton Cliff is a modern name for Place of Skulls, so named by the Crow Indians (c1833) and is the high point located at the east end of the north rims [4] . It is also called Kelly Mountain. Sacrifice Cliff is on the south side of the Yellowstone River, across from the Skeleton Cliff, and is on the north edge of what is now called ‘4 Dances Natural Area.’ It is almost opposite of Josephine Park. This was a coined name, origin unknown, but probably emanated from the early 1880’s by residents of Coulson and the Crow Indian neighbors, based on a variation of the smallpox epidemic event stating that 40 warriors died from their sacrifice as they jumped from the cliff across the river. The event apparently took place about 1833.

The Sacrifice Cliff sign, placed near Boothill Cemetery, stated: