Sidney-Black Hills Trail

The plaque puts the Army's change of course in the spring of 1876, but the decision came earlier. The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty had set aside the western half of South Dakota, the Black Hills, Paha Sapa, included, for the exclusive use of the Lakota and their allies. In early November 1875 Philip Sheridan and George Crook met Grant and cabinet members in Washington and agreed that troops would stop evicting trespassers. Agents were then told to bring the free bands in by January 31, 1876, a winter deadline the Standing Rock agent called too short. War followed.

What the plaque says

Sidney-Black Hills Trail Gold was discovered in the Black Hills in August, 1874. By the spring of 1876, the Army had stopped enforcing a treaty which reserved the hills for the Sioux Indians. Miners soon began to pour into the gold regions. From 1875 to 1881, the 267-mile trail north from Sidney carried the bulk of the traffic to the mining towns of Deadwood and Custer. The Union Pacific Railroad brought men and supplies into Sidney. North from Sidney moved stage coaches, freight wagons drawn by oxen or mules, herds of cattle, and riders on horseback. During 1878-1879 alone, over 22 million pounds of freight moved over the Sidney-Black Hills Trail. Gold shipments, worth up to $200,000 each, moved south from the Black Hills to Sidney and the railroad. The trail's only major obstacle was the North Platte River. In the spring of 1876, a 2000-foot wooden toll-bridge, known as Clarke's Bridge, was constructed near the present town of Bridgeport. In October, 1880, the railroad reached Pierre, Dakota Territory, and most of the traffic to the Black Hills was diverted away from Sidney. Sidney Chamber of Commerce Historical Land Mark Council

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Sidney — 1.5 mi
  Three surviving buildings of the post that guarded the Union Pacific at Sidney from 1867 to 1894, where a young army surgeon named Walter Reed found a ward full of ugly cases.

More markers nearby

• Fort Sidney — 1.6 mi
• Nebraska's Earliest Documented Burial — 2.0 mi
• Sidney-Cheyenne County — 4.5 mi
• Cheyenne County — 4.5 mi