Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In order to bypass inevitable conflict, most miners traveling through the region to
Montana's gold fields traveled south of the Powder River Basin on the Oregon Trail. In
1864, however, as mining towns were booming overnight in Montana, John Jacobs and
John Bozeman built the first trail through the area, saving prospectors weeks of travel time.
The Bozeman Trail became known as the “Bloody Bozeman” for the numerous mortal con-
flicts. Jacobs and Bozeman dealt with their fair share of Indian encounters during the com-
pletion of the trail, including one in which Jacob's daughter, herself half-Indian, was beaten
for traveling with white men.
The area was essentially a war zone 1865-1868, during the first of three Sioux wars.
Only after the 1874-1876 second Sioux War, which included Crazy Horse's surrender and
the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890, did the Sioux commit to living on the reservation.
During those 25 years numerous battles flared between significant leaders on both sides, in-
cluding Sioux chief Red Cloud, Dull Knife, and Col. H. B. Carrington. The 1876 Dull Knife
Battle robbed the Cheyenne of all their winter supplies, including lodge poles, canvases,
and clothes, and even their winter food storage. Part military tactic, part revenge for the re-
cent death of Custer and his men at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June of that year, the
Army destroyed everything the Cheyenne had gathered for winter, and the surviving Indi-
