Hysham

Fort Pease was established in June of 1875 a few miles below the mouth of the Bighorn by Bozeman businessmen speculating that the fort would serve as the head of steamboat navigation on the Yellowstone.

For much of the winter of 1875-76, the fort, having been built on favored tribal hunting grounds, was under constant harassment by the Lakota. During the winter, with six trappers killed and eight wounded, the situation became so dire that the trappers sent for help from the military at Fort Ellis near Bozeman.

Four companies of the Second Cavalry lead by Major James S. Brisbin arrived at Fort Pease in early March 1876 to relieve the fort. Even though the Lakota had not been seen for a month and the trappers had resumed trapping and hunting, Brisbin had orders to bring the trappers back to Fort Ellis. Two days later, the cavalry and the trappers headed west as ordered, leaving the fort intact assuming the Indians would burn the fort to the ground when found abandoned.

The Montana Column, commanded by Colonel John Gibbon, arrived in the area on April 19, 1876 and found the deserted fort virtually untouched. The American flag was still flying and a dog greeted the troops. The next day, dispatches from General Terry arrived ordering Gibbon to continue his patrol of the north side of the Yellowstone preventing any Indian movement across the river. Colonel Gibbon occupied the fort for two weeks sending out scouting parties up and down the Yellowstone and as far south as Bighorn Canyon before moving downriver to the Rosebud confluence.

In the aftermath of the Little Bighorn defeat. the Montana Column and the decimated Seventh Cavalry regrouped at Fort Pease waiting nearly a month for resupply and reinforcement. By late July 1876, the military had already determined that supplying Fort Pease late in the summer would be difficult due to low water levels. There was discussion about building a fort at the Rosebud confluence but the military finally settled on the cantonment site at the confluence of the Tongue River with construction beginning on Fort Keogh in early 1877.

Erected by Custer Circle Project - 2017 and City of Hysham.

Montana's small towns have traditionally been places where people by supplies and services, socialize, and ship their products to markets on the railroads or highways. Hysham is typical of those many rural communities scattered across this great state. Beginning about 1899, Charlie Hysham ran cattle south of the Yellowstone River and north of the Wyoming border. Much of his operation was on land leased from the Crow Indians. In 1901, the Northern Pacific Railway built a siding so that Hysham could ship his cattle to market in Chicago and elsewhere. Five years later, President Theodore Roosevelt recused the size of the reservation, opening this area to non-Indian settlement. As the number of homesteaders increased in the area, so did the number of buildings around he railroad siding. The settlement obtained a post office in 1907 and, in 1908, homesteaders and schoolteacher Ada Channell platted a portion of her property as a new town, called Hysham, in honor of the cattleman who had lived in the area for nearly a decade.

By 1914, Hysham included a bank, church, two saloons, a restaurant, barbershop, lumber yards, "a crack baseball team," a railroad depot, and other amenities important to the area's residents. The state legislature created Treasure County from a portion of Rosebud County in 1919. Promoters hoped the name of the new county would draw more settlers and businesses to the area. Hysham, the county seat, was also located on the main east-west highway route through southern and western Montana, the Yellowstone Trail (US Highway 10 after 1926). Hysham and Treasure County's fortunes and population have fluctuated over the years, but it remains an important trade center in eastern Montana.

"US 10 now winds through lonely badlands. Under an uncompromising sun the side of the buttes are mottled with brown, buff, and gray. After sundown, as twilight shades into dusk, the masses of guttered rock take on eerie tones of purple and black. Only the bark and scurry of prairie dogs by day, and the dismal howl of coyotes by night, indicate the presence of living things." - Montana: A State Guidebook (1939)

The Centennial Campaign In February 1876, the US Army initiated a three-pronged attack on the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne Indian who, after an ultimatum, refused refused to return to their reservations. One of the columns, commanded by Colonel John Gibbon, marched down the Yellowstone Valley from Forts Shaw and Ellis. Called the Montana Column, it arrived in the area in late April 1876 and found a deserted Fort Pease virtually untouched. Gibbon occupied the fort while patrolling along the north side of the Yellowstone River before moving down the Rosebud Creek confluence in mid-May.

The Montana Column and the decimated Seventh Cavalry occupied the trading post in the aftermath of the Little Bighorn defeat, waiting nearly a month for resupply and reinforcement.

Custer Circle Project

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.

One of the most famous trappers of the Rocky Mountain fur trade era was Jedediah Smith, who came west with St. Louis trader William Ashley in 1822. He spent his first winter in Montana at the mouth of the Musselshell River about 100 miles northwest of here. Over the next decade, Smith trapped and explored the Great Plains and Rockies. He re-discovered the South Pass in Wyoming in 1824 and established overland routes to California and Oregon. The trails Smith and his comrades blazed in the 1820s served thousands of emigrants during the great overland migrations of the 1840s and 1850s.

Smith was no stranger to Montana. After wintering on the Musselshell, he explored the upper Missouri River and became well-acquainted with the Gallatin, Jefferson, and Madison rivers. Smith also worked his way through the Bitterroot, Big Hole, Clark Fork, and upper Flathead valleys. By 1828, he was part-owner of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, which employed many legendary fur traders and trappers like Jim Bridger, Bill Sublette, and Tom Fitzpatrick. Trade opportunities with the Crow Indians eventually drew Smith to this region. In July 1825, Smith and 20 other trappers floated the Bighorn and Yellowstone rivers to Fort Union at the confluence of the Missouri. The expedition reached the fort in mid-August after sustaining an attack to the east of here by the Blackfeet Indians.

Erected by Montana Department of Transportation.