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Custer Country

This Drive Comes From...

National Geographic Driving Guide: The Rockies

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As this tour through south-central Montana skirts the base of lofty peaks and loops out across the grand and lonely sweep of the Great Plains, it takes in the state’s highest mountains, the West’s most famous battlefield, two Indian reservations, a glorious river canyon, some fine Victorian houses, and a cave complex where prehistoric hunters lived thousands of years ago. Along the way, chances of seeing wildlife are excellent—from gregarious prairie dogs to pronghorn, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, and eagles.

The route starts in Livingston, famous for fly-fishing, and passes through Big Timber, known for its black powder rifles and a lovely waterfall south of town. Then it jumps onto back roads at Columbus and follows them to Red Lodge, where the Beartooth Highway starts its fabulous climb into the mountains, and across the prairie foothills to Billings, where you can tour a Victorian banker’s palace. There’s a stop at Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, which curves through the heart of the Crow reservation, and another at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, site of Custer’s demise. Finally, the route doubles back to Livingston on US 12 and US 89, crossing the plains through dusty towns where chicken-fried steak ranks as haute cuisine. CONTINUED

- Livingston
- Big Timber
- Red Lodge
- Chief Plenty Coups State Park
- Billings
- Pompeys Pillar National Historic Landmark
- Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area
- Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument
- Ashland
- Roundup
- Harlowton
- White Sulphur Springs

(Continued From Top)

Livingston
An 1880s railroad town with a lively Victorian business district and neighborhoods to match, Livingston (Chamber of Commerce +1 406 222 0850) stands at the foot of the extraordinary Absaroka Range. The Yellowstone River runs right through town, and Yellowstone National Park lies just 53 miles [85.3 kilometers] south via Paradise Valley.
Stop by Depot Center (200 W. Park St. +1 406 222 2300. Mid-May–mid-Oct.; Adm. fee), a museum of Western art, history, and railroad memorabilia housed in an unusual 1902 Northern Pacific train depot with a grand colonnade facing the tracks. Then cross the street to the town’s famous trout-fishing landmark, Dan Bailey’s Fly Shop (+1 406 222 1673) and watch the flytiers whip together humpies, royal wulffs, woollybuggers, and other bits of tantalizing fluff.

Big Timber
In Big Timber (Chamber of Commerce +1 406 932 5131), you can shop for a black powder rifle at the C. Sharps Arms/Montana Armory (100 Centennial Dr. +1 406 932 4353. Mon.-Fri.), which builds replicas of the Sharps 1874 and ’75 models and sells original Sharps rifles dating from the 1850s. A block away, the Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing Co. (201 Centennial Dr. +1 406 932 4454. Mon.-Fri.) handcrafts virtually all of the parts for its replicas of the 1874 metallic cartridge Sharps rifle. So meticulous are Shiloh’s reproductions that their parts interchange with the originals. If guns don’t grab you, check out antiques at the Victorian Village Museum (110 Frontage Rd. +1 406 932 4378. Daily June-Aug.; call for off-season hours).

Boulder River above Natural Bridge Falls

Photograph © Michael Lewis

South of town, follow Route 298 and the trouty Boulder River through a lush mountain valley that narrows into a spectacular canyon. Fish the stream or stretch your legs at Natural Bridge Falls (27 miles [43.5 kilometers] S of Big Timber), where the river slides over a limestone ramp, slips from sight, and reappears downstream as a 100-foot [30.5-meter] waterfall.

Denizens of Greycliff Praire Dog Town State Park

Photograph © Michael Lewis

At Greycliff Prairie Dog Town State Park (Greycliff exit. +1 406 247 2940. Adm. fee), black-tailed prairie dogs nibble on grass, hail one another with 11 distinctive calls, and keep an eye out for hawks, rattlesnakes, weasels, and coyotes.
From Columbus, just down the road, follow Montana 78 south over grassy hills toward the great hulking mass of the Beartooth Plateau, nearly 8,000 feet [2,438.4 meters] above the prairie. Home to mountain goats, grizzly bears, deer, and elk, these dark, smooth-topped mountains are the highest in Montana. A spectacular high-country road, the Beartooth Highway, a national scenic byway, climbs the broad back of the range, connecting Red Lodge with Yellowstone National Park.

Red Lodge
Red Lodge (Chamber of Commerce +1 406 446 1718) is an 1880s coal-mining town lined with redbrick Victorian storefronts and hotels. Nestled against the foot of the Beartooths at the mouth of a deep glacial canyon, it caters mostly to skiers and visitors to Yellowstone National Park. Drop by the petting zoo and get a close-up view of native wildlife at the Beartooth Nature Center (N end of town. +1 406 446 1133. Mem. Day–Labor Day; Adm. fee). Brush up on local history at the Carbon County Museum (224 N. Broadway Ave. +1 406 446 3667), and then head up the canyon for a side trip on the wonderfully scenic Beartooth Highway.
You needn’t drive the whole 68 miles [109.4 kilometers] to Yellowstone to see amazing country, but you might find it hard to stop and turn around. In roughly 30 miles [48 kilometers], the highway climbs 5,200 feet [1,585 meters], opening up incredible vistas of plunging cliffs and gemlike lakes before topping out well above tree line at 10,947-foot [3,336.7-meter] Beartooth Pass. The road then bowls along for miles over the open rolling terrain of the Beartooth Plateau, where tiny glassy brooks lace endless meadows of alpine wildflowers, and mountain goats amble among the rocky ledges. It’s the sort of country that makes people quit perfectly good jobs and move West to sell T-shirts and jars of huckleberry jam.

Chief Plenty Coups State Park
From Red Lodge head east on Route 308 through Washoe, site of a 1943 mine explosion that killed 74 coal miners, then follow Montana 72 north to Edgar. There, the only gravel road east from town leads through rolling hills to Pryor and Chief Plenty Coups State Park (+1 406 252 1289. May-Sept.; Adm. fee) on the Crow reservation. The park preserves the home of the last traditional head of the Crow, Plenty Coups, who urged his people to seek an accommodation with whites and adopt farming and ranching as a new way of life. His large log house and store still stand. Exhibits at the Visitor Center sketch tribal history and describe life on the reservation today.
As you approach Billings, check out hundreds of antique tractors, steam engines, cars, trucks, covered wagons, and frontier buildings at Oscar’s Dreamland Yesteryear Museum (Off I-90 between Billings and Laurel. +1 406 656 0966. May-Oct.; Adm. fee).

Billings

Saddle from the early 1900s, Yellowstone Art Center, Billings

Photograph © Michael Lewis

Founded as a Northern Pacific Railroad town in 1882, Billings (Visitor Center 815 S. 27th St. +1 406 252 4016) has grown into a regional trade and agricultural center with sprawling industrial parks, commercial strips, and suburban neighborhoods. Start downtown, where a scattering of Victorian facades cheer up humdrum modern office buildings. One of them, a 1901 Romanesque library, houses the Western Heritage Center (2822 Montana Ave. +1 406 256 6809. Tues.-Sat.), where old photos, clothes, crafts, and gadgets depict the cultural history of the Yellowstone Valley. Another building, the old county jail, is now the Yellowstone Art Center (401 N. 27th St. +1 406 256 6804), which focuses on historical and contemporary Western art.
You’ll find more turn-of-the-century buildings along Montana Avenue between 23rd and 26th Streets, but the grandest of Billings’ old Vics—the Moss Mansion (914 Division St. +1 406 256 5100. Adm. fee)—stands about 20 blocks to the west. Completed in 1903, the banker’s three-story red sandstone mansion gathers in a disparate mix of interior designs, as if the Mosses couldn’t decide which of the Old World potentates to emulate. There’s a Moorish entryway, a Tudor dining room, and a touch of Versailles in the parlor. Most furnishings are original.
For a good view of the city and a look at more frontier items, head northwest on Broadway to the Peter Yegen, Jr. Yellowstone County Museum (At Billings-Logan Intl. Airport 1950 Terminal Circle. +1 406 256 6811. Closed Sat.), set in an 1890s log cabin. For more great views, follow Montana 3 east to Black Otter Trail, which curves above town along the 400-foot-high [121.9-meter-high] rimrock, passing Boothill Cemetery.
East of Billings, Pictograph Cave State Park (6 miles [9.7 kilometers] S from Lockwood exit. +1 406 247 2940. Mid-April–mid-Oct.; Adm. fee) preserves a sandstone cave complex where generations of prehistoric hunters sharpened their stone spearpoints, cooked meals, made jewelry, and painted the walls with figures of animals and humans and with religious images. Artifacts date back 4,500 years, but archaeologists think the site could have been inhabited 10,000 years ago.

Pompeys Pillar National Historic Landmark
Consider a short side trip to Pompeys Pillar National Historic Landmark (28 miles [45.1 kilometers] E of Billings on I-94. +1 406 875 2233. Visitor Center Mem. Day–Sept.), which preserves a squat sandstone tower where William Clark, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, carved his name in 1806 among petroglyphs and pictographs left by Native American travelers. Largely unsullied by modern vandals, the rock records a litany of 19th-century names, from fur trappers and missionaries to soldiers, railroad workers, and settlers.
In Hardin stroll through a cluster of restored frontier buildings at the Bighorn County Historical Museum (Old Highway 87. +1 406 665 1671. Daily May-Sept., Mon.-Sat. rest of year). Or, if you’re in town on the third weekend of June, you can watch the Indians whup the Army again at the annual Custer’s Last Stand Reenactment (6 miles [9.7 kilometers] W of Hardin on US 87. +1 406 665 1672), an ambitious living history production that tells the story from the Indians’ perspective.

Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area
Southwest of Hardin, follow the Bighorn River through the prairie heart of the Crow reservation to Yellowtail Dam, which backs up the river to form a 71-mile [114.3-kilometer] reservoir, the focus of Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area (42 miles [67.3 kilometers] S of Hardin on Rte. 313. +1 406 666 2412).
Gripped between high limestone cliffs, the serpentine lake offers good fishing and sight-seeing, especially for those with boats. Below the dam, consistently clear water flows between the short-grass hills, supporting a world-class trout fishery and offering excellent bird-watching. You can get an overview of the canyon’s geology and history at the Yellowtail Visitor Center (+1 406 666 3218. Mem. Day–Sept.) and sign on for a tour of the dam. Nearby, the Ok-A-Beh Marina rents boats to putter around the lake, where you can gape at the cliffs and perhaps see deer, bighorn sheep, bald eagles, and peregrine falcons.

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

Visitors surveying Little Bighorn Battlefield

Photograph © Michael Lewis

Moving out on the windswept prairie hills southeast of Hardin, US 212 leads to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument (+1 406 638 2621. Mem. Day–Labor Day; Adm. fee), the site of the most famous battle between the U.S. Army and Plains Indian tribes. Here, on June 25, 1876, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and more than 225 members of the Seventh U.S. Cavalry died at the hands of their intended victims—Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. The battle was part of a war to control the Black Hills, where gold had been discovered in 1874. Miners swarmed the area in violation of an 1868 treaty that explicitly reserved the Black Hills as Indian land. When the government failed to enforce the treaty, the Indians raided. War followed.
Today, a footpath leads from the Visitor Center to the crest of a bare ridge and a cluster of white headstones where Custer and the last of his battalion fell. Other headstones jut from the grass beyond and chart the course of death toward the Little Bighorn River and the site of the village Custer meant to attack. It’s a powerfully evocative place, interpreted in great detail and with a fine sense of balance between Indian and Anglo perspectives.
The Visitor Center displays weapons and other battle artifacts, as well as a few of Custer’s uniforms and other belongings. Films, talks, and tours begin on the half hour.

Ashland
From the battlefield, continue east on US 212 through the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation to Ashland. There you’ll find the St. Labre Indian School, established during the 1880s and still a center of Cheyenne cultural life. On campus look for the St. Labre’s Cheyenne Indian Museum (In the school’s Visitor Center. +1 406 784 2746. Daily Mem. Day–Labor Day, Mon.-Fri. rest of year), with its terrific examples of beadwork. Browse for crafts next door at the Ten Bears Gallery.
Double back to Lame Deer and head north on Montana 39 to I-94 via Colstrip, where you can tour vast open-pit coal mines (Visitor Center +1 406 748 2990. Tours daily Mem. Day–Labor Day, Mon.-Fri. rest of year).

Roundup

Musselshell River

Photograph © Michael Lewis

Jog east on I-94 several miles to Forsyth, cut across the Yellowstone River on US 12, and head northwest into the broken plains, grassy gullies, and cutbank gulches of central Montana. This is lonely country, empty and largely unrewarding except to those with time on their hands and an inclination to poke around. Still, there’s something to be said for getting off the fast-food corridor and barreling across a landscape where nobody cares whether people from out of state show up with a few extra bucks. Most travelers keep their foot firmly on the gas pedal until they hit Roundup, where there’s a small frontier museum and the promise of shade trees along the Musselshell River.

Harlowton

Electric locomotive, Upper Musselshell Museum, Harlowton

Photograph © Michael Lewis

Or they keep on going to Harlowton, a railroad town with a pleasant turn-of-the-century business district that was rebuilt in stone after a 1907 fire wiped out most of the town. First to reopen was the 1908 Graves Hotel (106 S. Central Ave. +1 406 632 5855), a three-story sandstone with a wraparound porch and views of the Crazy Mountains. The creaky old place still packs ’em in for Sunday breakfast. Nearby, browse railroad memorabilia and frontier artifacts at the Upper Musselshell Museum (11 S. Central Ave. +1 406 632 5519. May-Oct.; Donations).

White Sulphur Springs

Abandoned buildings west of Harlowton

Photograph © Michael Lewis

In the mining and cattle town of White Sulphur Springs, head for The Castle (310 2nd Ave. NE. +1 406 547 3666. Mid-May–mid-Sept.; Adm. fee), an impressive Victorian mansion atop the highest hill in town. Built in 1892 from hand-hewn native sandstone and now furnished in threadbare period style, the 12-room château-fortress acts as repository for the county’s historic relics. An annex displays old wagons, buggies, sleighs, and local cattle brands.
Take a dip at the Spa Hot Springs Motel (202 W. Main St. +1 406 547 3366. Adm. fee), where sulfur springs that gave the town its name flow into two pools.
From White Sulphur Springs return to the Livingston area on US 89, which runs south through the Crazy Mountain Basin—a broad floor of grass and sagebrush that sprawls between the jagged crest of the Crazies and the Big Belt Mountains. Look for coyotes and pronghorn moving across the flats and for hawks and eagles soaring over the brush in search of rodents. As you approach Livingston, the Absaroka Range rises to the south and the Shields River begins to look like a proper trout stream.