Old Agency on the Teton

The panel says the boundary moved and leaves out who paid for it. The act of Congress of April 15, 1874, and executive orders on either side of it pushed the southern line of Blackfeet country north from the Sun River, opening the land to settlers and stockmen without compensation to the tribe. That left this agency outside the reservation it was built to serve, and in 1876 it moved north to Badger Creek, where the Starvation Winter came seven years later. Settlers had already moved in under an 1865 treaty the Senate never ratified.

What the plaque says

Old Agency on the Teton About 1/4 mile SE of this point, a huge native stone marks the site of "Old Agency" of the former Blackfeet Indian Reservation. The agency was established in 1868-69 and with unusual generosity, the whites in authority permitted Blackfeet chiefs to select the location. They choose the spot known to them as "Four Persons" because of the pleasant memories associated with it. Some of their warriors had overtaken and dispatched four furtive Crees there a few years before. At Old Agency, in 1869, the first government agricultural experiment was conducted. In 1872 the first public school was opened for the benefit of the Blackfeet. Neither project attained notable popularity with the beneficiaries. However, that same year they were impressed by young "Brother Van", a circuit riding Methodist lay preacher, not so much by the sincere fervor of his oratory as by his courage, skill and stamina during a buffalo hunt staged in his honor. The Northwest Fur Company and I. G. Baker and Brother operated licensed Indian trading posts near the agency where they pursued the tolerably lucrative business of bartering tobacco, beads and other essential goods for furs. At his request, Big Lake, a great chief of the Blackfeet, was buried on a high point overlooking Old Agency so that his spirit could look down on his people as they came to trade. Reservation boundaries were moved north to Birch Creek by a Congressional Act of April 15, 1874 and in 1876 Old Agency on the Teton was abandoned.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Shaw Indian School — 31 mi
  An Army post turned boarding school, whose Native girls went to the 1904 World's Fair as an exhibit and came home champions.

More markers nearby

• Blackfeet and Buffalo — 1.4 mi
• Egg Mountain — 9.5 mi
• Augusta and Gilman — 24 mi
• Dupuyer — 27 mi