Death of the Bismarck Trail

The 1954 bronze says Indians on Bear Butte watched with envy the passing of their lands to the whites. The lands had passed by act of Congress in February 1877, five months before the date cast here, taken from the Lakota in breach of the 1868 treaty. Two Wagnus brothers and one brother's wife, leaving the gold country, were killed on the Bismarck-Deadwood Trail and their oxen shot. The Camp Sturgis bronze two miles south implies July 1878 instead, a year later.

What the plaque says

"Death of the Bismarck Trail" On this spot, where the eroded ruts of the Bismarck - Deadwood Trail are still plain to see took place on July 17, 1877 the massacre of the Wagnus family by Indians, who from Bear Butte watched with envy the passing of their lands to the whites. Two brothers and the wife of one, were leaving the "land of Gold" homesick and disappointed. Seeking to catch the main outgoing wagon train they were ambushed, slain, scalped and their oxen shot, their effects despoiled. Erected 1954 - Meade County Comm. - State Highway Comm. - S. D. Hist. Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bear Butte — 4.3 mi
  Mato Paha to the Lakota and Noahvose to the Cheyenne, a lone mountain off the plains where both nations still come to fast and pray.
• Mount Moriah Cemetery — 17 mi
  The hillside where Deadwood moved its dead: Wild Bill and Calamity Jane side by side, Seth Bullock looking at his friend's tower, and the Chinese burner of 1908.
• Deadwood Historic District — 17 mi
  A gold-rush town on treaty land, rebuilt in brick after the 1879 fire and rescued a century later by a vote to let casinos pay for its preservation.
• Homestake Open Cut & Sanford Lab Visitor Center — 20 mi
  A 1,250-foot pit on Lead's Main Street, the visible top of a gold mine that went down 8,000 feet in 125 years and is a physics laboratory now.

More markers nearby

• Camp J.G. Sturgis / Scooptown — 2.3 mi
• Thomas E. Odell — 3.9 mi
• Bear Butte — 7.3 mi
• It Started Here — 7.8 mi