Big Hole National Battlefield Administrative History

Chapter One:
The Battlefield on the Eve of the Battle

On the eve of the battle the scene along the North Fork of the Big Hole River appeared much the same as it does today. The valley was spacious and open. Willows and occasional cottonwoods and lodgepole pine marked the meandering course of the river, while sagebrush and a sparse growth of prairie grasses covered the benchlands and the valley above the floodplain. Wildflowers were probably still in bloom in August. If wildlife was observable, it probably included much the same variety of animals that were recorded in the area in recent times: Columbia brown squirrel, jackrabbit, porcupine, badger, skunk, weasel, and other small mammals typical of this type of intermountain locale, together with a large number of bird species including swallows, warblers, sparrows, marsh hawks, and ducks. Mule deer and elk were probably reduced in numbers in the Big Hole in 1877 as they were throughout much of their range.[2] Bison, which had once occurred in the Big Hole, were gone from the valley by this time. [3]

From the top of the bench where the National Park Service visitor center now stands, a person's gaze is drawn from the battlefield to the mountains that frame this beautiful valley. Immediately to the north, across the river bottom, one sees the heavily forested foothills of the Sapphire Mountains, which run along the northwestern edge of the Big Hole and define the northern perimeter of the battlefield itself. Looking in the opposite direction, the Beaverhead Mountains jag down the west side of the valley and the Pioneer Mountains run down the east side, both fading into the distance to the south. The Pintlar Mountains form yet another rampart to the northeast. The Beaverhead, Pioneer, and Pintlar ranges are all topped by numerous peaks that rise above timberline. The highest of these shelter snowfields even in late summer. The scene affords an overall feeling of spaciousness, scenic beauty, and – to the modern observer – breathtakingly pristine conditions befitting this historic site.

At nearly 7,000 feet elevation, the valley is prone to long, hard winters of bitter cold and deep snows. The harsh climate discouraged white settlement of the valley prior to 1877, and it has limited the amount of settlement since that time. Although the Big Hole is now a patchwork of private ranch lands dotted with haystacks, these features are relatively inconspicuous around the battlefield. The land remains so sparsely settled that one can easily imagine the way it appeared at the time of the battle. It adds immeasurably to the power of the scene to contemplate how little it has changed since 1877.

The Big Hole Valley showed few traces of human use or occupancy in 1877. Among Indian peoples it had long been used as a summer hunting ground, a traditionally neutral zone frequented by plains tribes to the east and plateau tribes to the south and west. The Nez Perce people regarded the Big Hole as a middle ground between their homeland on the Clearwater River and the buffalo country east of the Rocky Mountains. [4] They called the place "Izhkumzizlakikpah" after the small rodent that was abundant there. [5] Indian use and occupancy were visible mainly in the few wide Indian trails that traversed the valley. [6]

White settlers had not yet moved into the Big Hole in 1877. The Lewis and Clark expedition traversed the valley from north to south in 1805, and mountain men set their trap lines through the Big Hole in the 1820s and 1830s. Non-Indians had little more use for the area until 1862, when a party of prospectors discovered gold on Ruby Creek, a tributary to the Big Hole River. Located near the Continental Divide, the gold strike was approximately ten miles from the future site of the Battle of the Big Hole. The discovery produced a small flurry of activity that included the construction of a sawmill and some sluice boxes. The placer deposits, named the Pioneer Diggings, were abandoned that summer. [7] Cattlemen began grazing their livestock in the valley in 1874. [8]

Most of western Montana's non-Indian residents lived in the mining towns of Butte, Helena, and Virginia City and the trading towns of Deer Lodge and Missoula in 1877. Agriculture in Montana was confined to the vicinity of these towns, a few valleys such as the Bitterroot, and a handful of Indian agencies. Although we do not have a census of Montana Territory for 1877, an estimate of Missoula County's white population by the commanding officer at Fort Missoula in 1879 gives a fair impression. The officer gave the total white population as 1,875, distributed as follows: Missoula, 500; Frenchtown, 180; Stevensville, 150; Corvallis, 100; Skalkaho, 75; rural Bitterroot Valley, 400; Hell Gate and Grass Valley, 300; mining camps, 160; Flathead Lake country, 20; Horse Plains, 10. The Indian population, meanwhile, was mostly removed to the Jocko (Flathead) Reservation – except in summer when many groups returned to their traditional grounds for hunting, fishing, and gathering edible plants. The same officer gave the number of Indians as 1,000 Pend d'Oreilles, 500 Kootenais, and 120 Flatheads on the reservation, plus 350 Flatheads of Chief Charlot's band who had refused to leave their home in the Bitterroot Valley. [9] In addition, 11 lodges of Nez Perce under Eagle-from-the-Light – numbering no more than 50 people – lived with the Flatheads in the Bitterroot Valley. [10]

Montana's main transportation routes also contributed to the Big Hole's isolation. Montana's primary transportation route in 1877 was the Corinne-Virginia City Road, which ran north and south from the nearest railhead at Corinne, Utah, to the goldfields around Bannack and Virginia City. The road forked along the Red Rock-Beaverhead River, with one branch leading to Virginia City and Helena, and the other skirting the southern edge of the Big Hole at Horse Prairie on the way to Bannack and Deer Lodge. In the Deer Lodge Valley the road connected with Montana's second important wagon road, the Mullan Road, which followed the Clark Fork River to Missoula and went on into Idaho. Rough trails led from the upper Bitterroot Valley to the Big Hole via Skalkaho or Big Hole Pass, but these were nearly impassable for wagons.