Side Trip: LaDuke Picnic Area, Montana
August 31, 1877 - Nez Perce and military clash at Henderson ranch
“The Indians came up behind the house, got the horses out of the corral, set fire to the house, and went back to join ten others who had stopped, watching from the hillside. Then the eighteen went back, driving the horses up the river. The white men put us on the Indian trail at once, and we pushed them hard enough to get back nineteen horses.”
– Lieutenant Hugh L. Scott
On August 31, at Bart Henderson’s ranch near the present town of Corwin Springs, Montana, another chapter was unfolding. Lieutenant Doane from Ft. Ellis, near Bozeman, Montana, was headed toward the Park with a large group of Crow scouts and a company of cavalry when they spotted smoke and went to investigate. A Nez Perce scouting party led by Hímiin Maqsmáqs (Yellow Wolf) had just captured a number of horses and set fire to the ranch house. They exchanged gunfire with the men at the ranch but no one was injured. Lieutenant Doane followed the Nez Perce back into the Park and recaptured some of the horses. Oral history from 1877 war descendents reveal that Hímiin Maqsmáqs (Yellow Wolf) had driven the horses out of the Henderson corral and only took those that were fast and fresh; the others he left behind.
