Camp #44 of the 1873 Yellowstone Expedition

The railroad this survey was for stalled within weeks. On September 18, 1873, Jay Cooke and Company, the bank financing the Northern Pacific, closed its doors and set off the Panic of 1873. The line had reached Bismarck that June and stopped there; the company went bankrupt in 1875, and its rails did not come up this valley until 1882. The historian M. John Lubetkin argues that Custer's embellished press accounts of skirmishes like this one helped frighten Cooke's investors, a weight some reviewers think he overstates.

What the plaque says

Camp #44 of the 1873 Yellowstone Expedition In June, 1873, a Northern Pacific Railroad surveying party escorted by 1,500 soldiers, including the 7th Cavalry under the command of George Armstrong Custer, and 326 civilians, left Dakota Territory for the Yellowstone Valley to survey a route for the second transcontinental railroad. The Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne opposed the railroad and clashed with the soldiers on several occasions throughout July. On August 11th, the expedition camped near here on the north side of the Yellowstone River for a well-earned rest. Five days later, six Lakota warriors, hiding near Pompey's Pillar, began shooting at the soldiers bathing in the river. One man later humorously reported that in the "ensuing scramble for cover, nude bodies scattered in all directions on the north bank. Shirts, pants and boots decorated the area along the north bank for a hundred yards." The soldiers returned fire and eventually drove the Indians away; no one was killed in the skirmish. Perhaps figuring that discretion was the better part of valor, the soldiers thereafter chose to "bear the heat rather than risk another swim in the Yellowstone." it was not reported if Custer was among those caught with his pants down by the Lakota on that hot August day in 1873.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pictograph Cave State Park — 27 mi
  Three sandstone shelters outside Billings whose 1937 dig gave the northern plains its timeline, and whose paintings are fading.

More markers nearby

• Pompey's Pillar — steps away
• Buffalo Country — 14 mi
• Junction of Bighorn and Yellowstone Rivers — 15 mi
• Junction of Bighorn and Yellowstone Rivers — 18 mi