The Shore of an Ancient Sea

Luther Kelly, the scout called Yellowstone Kelly, is buried on these rims. He died in California on December 17, 1928, having written that his body would rest better in Montana, where he had spent his early years, than at Arlington. The Billings Commercial Club built the grave on a bluff above the Yellowstone Valley, and on June 26, 1929, the funeral moved through downtown to muffled drums and then up along the rimrocks with full military honors. The bluff is now called Kelly Mountain.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Moss Mansion — 1.4 mi
  A Billings banker's red sandstone house by the architect of the Plaza, kept as it was by the daughter who never left.
• Pictograph Cave State Park — 5.6 mi
  Three sandstone shelters outside Billings whose 1937 dig gave the northern plains its timeline, and whose paintings are fading.

More markers nearby

• The Place Where the White Horse Went Down — 1.8 mi