Historical Marker
Junction of Bighorn and Yellowstone Rivers
Yellowstone County · Montana
The board calls Lisa's post the first building erected in Montana but does not say it is gone without a trace. Despite repeated searches, no remains of Fort Remon have been found. Both rivers have shifted since 1807, and the Bighorn's mouth seems to have moved upstream, probably carrying the site away. What survives is on paper: George Drouillard, a Corps of Discovery veteran in Lisa's party, sketched the fort in the angle between the two rivers in 1808. Within a few years the post was abandoned as Lisa's company built farther down the Missouri.
What the plaque says
Junction of Bighorn and Yellowstone Rivers The mouth of the Bighorn River as it enters the Yellowstone, 13 miles east of here, is one of the most significant areas in Montana history. The Crow Indians knew the Yellowstone as the Elk River. French explorers called it the la Roche Jaune. French trader Francois Larocque named it the Great Horn River, while the Crow called it Lisaxpúatahcheeaashisee, the Large Bighorn Sheep River. Captain William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, on his return trip from their journey to the Pacific Ocean, camped on the east bank of the Bighorn River on July 26, 1806. The following year, in November 1807, an expedition led by Manuel Lisa, a St. Louis fur trader, arrived at the mouth of the Bighorn River. He built a fur trading post which he named Fort Remon in honor of his two-year-old son. This was the first building erected in what is now the State of Montana. From here Lisa sent John Colter to make contact with the Indians to induce them to come to his post and trade their furs for goods. On this journey Colter experienced the wonders of present-day Yellowstone National Park. In 1876 during the Sioux and Cheyenne Indian campaign of that year, General Terry and Colonel Gibbon marched up the Bighorn River to the site of Custer's defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. They arrived two days after the battle. The steamer Far West, plied the waters of both rivers and brought the wounded from the battle back to Fort Abraham Lincoln, Dakota Territory.
Where it stands
46.06329, -107.70895 · Directions