Red Cloud Agency

The rations here drew a Yale scientist into Indian policy. In November 1874 the paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh came here wanting leave to dig fossils in the badlands to the north. Before he went, Marsh inspected what Red Cloud showed him, took samples of the poor supplies, and promised to carry the chief's reports of missing goods and corrupt agents to Washington. In 1875 he met President Grant, published a 36-page pamphlet of charges that July, and testified before a special commission. Its October report brought resignations and a reorganization. Agent Saville, accused of graft, resigned under pressure.

What the plaque says

Red Cloud Agency Red Cloud Agency was established here in 1873 for Chief Red Cloud and his Oglala band, as well as for other northern plains Indians, totaling nearly 13,000. Their earlier agency had been located on the North Platte near Fort Laramie. The agencies served as issuing points for supplies to the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho, authorized in exchange for land ceded to the U.S. in 1868. Dr. J. J. Saville, nominated by the Episcopal Church, was appointed the first agent. A faction of Agency Indians, joined with visiting hostiles, harassed Saville and his thirty to forty employees, threatened cowboys, and rode through the unfinished stockade shooting out windows. After the establishment of nearby Camp Robinson in March 1874, the agency remained a powder keg. In October 1874, for example, hostiles chopped down the new agency flagpole and threatened to destroy both the agency and the military camp. During the Indian war of 1876, the agency served as the center for non-hostiles. After the treaty ceding the Black Hills to the U.S. was signed here in 1876, and the death of Crazy Horse in 1877, the agency was relocated to the Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota Territory. Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Robinson State Park — 1.5 mi
  The army post beside the Red Cloud Agency where Crazy Horse was bayoneted in 1877 and Morning Star's Northern Cheyenne broke out into the January cold of 1879.
• Toadstool Geologic Park — 15 mi
  A pocket of badlands in the Oglala National Grassland where sandstone caps balance on clay stems, ancient tracks cross the rock, and a trail leads on to a 10,000-year-old bison bone bed.
• Agate Fossil Beds National Monument — 23 mi
  A fossil quarry on the Niobrara that also keeps the gifts Red Cloud and other Lakota and Cheyenne visitors gave the ranching family who were their friends for thirty-five years.

More markers nearby

• German P.O.W. Camp — 0.4 mi
• Fort Robinson and the Railroad — 1.2 mi
• K-9 Training Area — 1.3 mi
• Sea Level Bench Mark — 1.4 mi