Early Western Highway

The bronze's overawe is the polite word for Harney's 1855 campaign. Before marching this route to winter at Fort Pierre, his troops attacked Little Thunder's Sicangu camp on Blue Water Creek in Nebraska on September 3, killing about eighty-six people, nearly half of them women and children, and taking some seventy captive. The fur route it names ran to the Laramie River fort that William Sublette and Robert Campbell built in 1834 as Fort William, renamed Fort John in 1841; the bronze dates both names earlier.

What the plaque says

Early Western Highway Fur trade route from Missouri River, Ft. Tecumseh (Pierre) to Ft. William (1832), John (1834) later Laramie, via Badlands Pass S of Scenic and White and Niobrara Rivers. Harney's Expedition (1855) to overawe the Sioux and 1876-88 Stage & Wagon Route, Ft. Pierre to Deadwood. Erected 1959 by State Historical Society

Where it stands

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• Town of Midland — 23 mi