The Place Where the White Horse Went Down

By editor

Billings, Yellowstone County, Montana

The Crow people, whose homeland stretches across the high plains and rugged rimrocks above the Yellowstone River, call this place Ammalapashe -- the place where the white horse went down. The name itself is a vessel carrying a sorrowful story, handed down through generations, even as the finer details have blurred with the passage of time. This site, near what is now the eastern edge of the Yellowstone County Exhibition grounds, holds a memory of loss that came not from war but from a cruel visitor -- smallpox.

In the winter of 1837-38, a smallpox epidemic swept through the northern Plains. The disease arrived aboard the American Fur Company steamboat St. Peter, which had docked at Fort Union, near the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. The virus, unknown and deadly, found no immunity among the Indigenous peoples of Montana. The Crow, like other tribes, suffered grievously. Families and entire bands were decimated, their traditional ways disrupted by illness and death.

Among the Crow, there is a well-known story of two young warriors returning from a war expedition to find their village stricken by this invisible enemy. One of the warriors found his sweetheart among the dying, a sight that deepened their grief. Both men were overwhelmed by despair at the destruction the disease had wrought, powerless to change the course of events. In a moment heavy with symbolism and sorrow, the warriors dressed in their finest regalia, mounted a snow-white horse, and rode it blindfolded to the edge of the cliff now called Ammalapashe. Together, they sang their death songs and drove the horse over the precipice, falling with it into the valley below.

This act was witnessed by a group of twelve teenage boys and girls -- six boys and six girls -- who were spared from the disease. They were the last to see the warriors alive, and they buried them at the base of the cliff before leaving the ravaged camp. The loss left a deep scar on the Crow people, one that is remembered even today in the place’s name and in oral tradition.

The terrain around Ammalapashe is characteristic of the Yellowstone River’s rimrocks -- steep sandstone cliffs that rise above the river valley, forming natural barriers and offering vantage points. For the Crow, these lands were part of the heart of their territory, a country they called home for centuries. The river provided water, the plains offered buffalo and game, and the cliffs themselves served as lookout points and places of ceremony.

In 1837, Crow Chief Arapooish described his homeland in words recorded by the traveler and writer Washington Irving. Arapooish’s reflections reveal not only a deep attachment to the land but also a keen understanding of the neighboring territories and their challenges. He said:

"The Crow Country is a good country. The Great Spirit has put it exactly in the right place; while you are in it you fare well; whenever you go out of it, whichever way you travel, you fare worse. If you go to the south, you have to wander over great barren plains; the water is warm and bad, and you meet the fever and ague. To the north it is cold; the winters are long and bitter, with no grass; you cannot keep horses there, but must travel with dogs. What is a country without horses? On the Columbia they are poor and dirty, paddle about in canoes, and eat fish. Their teeth are worn out; they are always taking fish bones out of their mouths. Fish is poor food. To the east, they dwell in villages; they live well, but they drink the muddy water of the Missouri -- that is bad. A Crow's dog would not drink such water. About the forks of the Missouri is a fine country; good water, good grass, plenty of buffalo. In summer, it is almost as good as the Crow Country; but it is not the Crow Country. The Crow Country is in exactly the right place. Everything good is to be found there. There is no country like Crow Country."

These words reveal the Crow’s intimate knowledge of their environment and the lands of neighboring tribes. Their homeland was not simply a place to survive but a place where their ways of life -- hunting, horse culture, and spiritual practice -- could flourish. The smallpox epidemic struck at the heart of this society, undermining its strength and threatening its future.

The story of Ammalapashe stands alongside many other Crow oral histories that record the impact of disease and conflict during the 19th century. It is important to understand that smallpox was not merely a medical event but a social and cultural catastrophe. The loss of elders, warriors, and families reshaped the Crow’s social structures and their relations with other tribes and the expanding United States.

The white horse in the story carries layered significance. Horses had become central to Plains Indian life by the early 1800s, transforming hunting, warfare, and status. A white horse, especially, could symbolize purity, honor, or a spiritual messenger. In the context of the epidemic and the warriors’ final ride, the white horse’s fall represents both personal grief and collective loss.

In 1935, the Montana Department of Transportation began a roadside historical marker program to commemorate important places and events in the state’s history. One of the earliest signs, originally titled "Sacrifice Cliff," stood about half a mile east of the current Ammalapashe site. The text on that marker differed but also sought to memorialize the tragic events associated with the cliff and the white horse.

The present marker, erected in 2024 by Yellowstone County Parks and Bruce W. Larsen, reasserts the Crow’s connection to this place and the story that has survived despite the ravages of time. It serves not only as a geographical point but as a locus of memory, where the Crow’s history is honored in the landscape itself.

The Crow people remain a vibrant presence in Montana. Their reservation lies south of the Bighorn Mountains in southern Montana, but their historical territory extended across vast areas of the northern Plains. Today, they continue to practice their cultural traditions and maintain their language, keeping stories like Ammalapashe alive for new generations.

The place where the white horse went down is a somber chapter in the broad history of the Crow people, reminding us that the challenges they faced were not only from warfare or displacement but from diseases introduced by contact with European Americans. Yet, as Chief Arapooish’s words remind us, the Crow Country endures, its people persevering in the land that was "put... exactly in the right place."

See also

• The Place Where the White Horse Went Down at Billings, Yellowstone County
• Skeleton Cliff at Billings, Yellowstone County
• The Nomadic Experience at Billings, Yellowstone County