A Volcanic Island in the Rocky Mountains

The volcanic field's gateway stands just north of here, above the Hardy exit. Tower Rock, 424 feet high, marked for the Salish, the Ktunaxa and the Blackfeet the passage between the mountains and the bison country of the plains, and the Blackfeet hold it sacred, a place of ceremony and prayer. Meriwether Lewis reached it on July 16, 1805, named it the tower, climbed nearly to the top and saw immense herds of bison below; he also noted an Indian road entering the mountains beside the river. The state made it a park in 2004.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mann Gulch — 19 mi
  Thirteen markers on a grass slope above the Missouri, where a fire outran a crew of smokejumpers in 1949.
• Fort Shaw Indian School — 24 mi
  An Army post turned boarding school, whose Native girls went to the 1904 World's Fair as an exhibit and came home champions.

More markers nearby

• The Missouri River Canyon and Old US Highway 91 — steps away
• Michael John MacKinnon — 4.4 mi
• "Cliffs High and Steep" — 4.4 mi
• The Mann Gulch Fire — 13 mi