Wolf Point

The boat the panel blows up had opened this river. In July 1859 the Chippewa crept to Brule Bottom, about fifteen miles short of Fort Benton, the first steamboat to come so high, and in July 1860 she and the Key West became the first to tie up at the Fort Benton levee itself. The next summer, near the mouth of the Poplar, the fire in her hold was found in time to run her ashore and clear her decks. She drifted off and exploded, the first wreck in the upper Missouri's steamboat graveyard.

What the plaque says

Wolf Point The Lewis and Clark Expedition passed by here, westward bound, in May, 1805. Fur trappers and traders followed them a few years later. Steamboats began making it from St. Louis up the Missouri as far as Fort Benton in the early 1860s. Wolf Point was the halfway point between Bismarck and Fort Benton. Wood choppers supplied cord wood for boats stopping to refuel. The American Fur Company packet Chippewa blew up and sank not far from here in 1861. A deck hand tapped a barrel of alcohol by candle light. The fumes, the candle and 25 kegs of black powder did the rest. Fortunately, no lives were lost in the disaster. Wolf Point originated as a sub-agency and trading post for the Fort Peck Reservation in 1879. The place was named when trappers killed several hundred wolves one winter and stacked their frozen carcasses next to the river, where they were observed by men heading upriver on a steamboat. The name Wolf Point stuck and no one there has been bothered by a wolf at the door since then.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Fort Peck Indian Reservation — 21 mi