Historical Marker
Buffalo Country
Yellowstone County · Montana
The board's joke about embalmed beef points to 1898. After the Spanish-American War, the Army's commanding general, Nelson Miles, told investigators that refrigerated beef shipped to the troops had been embalmed, and that canned roast beef was pulp already squeezed for extract. Commissary General Charles Eagan called him a liar and was court-martialed for it. A court of inquiry reported in May 1899 that the chemical charge was not proved but the canned beef was unfit as a long field ration. Miles had fought the Lakota and Cheyenne along this river in 1876 and 1877.
What the plaque says
Buffalo Country Buffalo meant life to the Plains Indians, and the mountain Indians used to slip down from the hills for their share, too. Some tribes would toll buffalo into a concealed corral and then down them; another system was to stampede a herd over a cliff; but the sporting way was to use bows and arrows and ride them down on a trained buffalo horse. Fat cow was the choice meat. The Indians preserved their meat long before the whites ever had any embalmed beef scandals. They made pemmican by drying and pulverizing the meat, pouring marrow bone grease and oil over it, and packing it away in skin bags. It kept indefinitely, and in food value one pound was worth ten of fresh meat. Tanned robes and raw hide were used for bedding, tepees, clothes, war shields, stretchers, travois, canoes, and bags. Horns and bones made tools and utensils. The buffalo played a prominent part in many of their religious rites, and jealousy of hereditary hunting grounds brought on most of the intertribal wars.
Where it stands
46.08985, -107.66001 · Directions