Bear Butte
Mountain of Plains Indians
This 4,422 foot high volcanic bubble rises 1,200 feet above the plains, a guide for centuries to Indians, fur traders, soldiers, cowboys, and travelers. It was visited or passed by Verendrye, 1743; Lt. G. K. Warren, 1855; Hayden, the scientist and Reynolds, 1859; Custer, 1874; and since by a galaxy of geological scientists.
This was a sacred mountain to the Cheyenne, the first Indians known to white man to live adjacent to it and here Sweet Medicine, their spiritual leader, received four sacred Cheyenne arrows and the code of ethics many centuries ago. Many a prayer has been said on its rugged slopes and many a smoke signal from its lofty summit has told watchful eyes, of travelers on the Bismarck-Deadwood Trail to its north and other sojourners within its vista.
Near here in 1857 a great council of the Indians determined to hold the Black Hills inviolate from the white man and for two decades this policy dictated their defensive actions.
Custer's annihilation at the Little Big Horn in 1876; the establishment of Camp Sturgis, July 1, 1878 on its Northwest slope spelled the passing of the red man and his brother the buffalo. Today Bear Butte stands, an outpost of the Hills, still a shrine to the Cheyenne, who come here to worship and a monument to man made history and to natures weird handiwork.
Marker is on 206th Street (State Highway 34) 0.2 miles west of 131st Street (State Highway 79), on the left when traveling east.
Courtesy hmdb.org
