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NPNHA TALKING TRAIL
"History Comes to Life on the Talking Trail..."
Fort Abraham Lincoln offering North Dakota travelers one of the most breath-taking views of the Mighty Missouri River near the confluence of the Heart River!
What would it have been like to be a soldier posted at Fort Lincoln back in 1873? Download the Talking Trail Mobile app to experience the stories of Fort Lincoln State Park!
Do you know the full story behind the Boy General Custer? If not, you need to experience the whole story along the Talking Trail at Fort Lincoln!
Linda Warfel Slaughter, author and wife of Dr. Benjamin Slaughter, Camp Hancock’s army surgeon, experienced and wrote about pioneering on the prairie as the construction of the Northern Pacific Railway established Bismarck as a city.
Beginning in the 1860s, the U.S. Army established infantry posts to protect work crews who were constructing the Northern Pacific Railway, a railroad that stretched from Minnesota to Washington...
Imagine Main Street in your hometown. Picture the storefronts, the passers by, the cars driving up and down the road. It is likely the hub of the city, the center-point from which all activity and opportunity grows.
Welcome to the On-a-Slant Indian Village, once a home to Mandan Indians. In order to understand the Mandan People, one must first understand their origin stories...
William Lass points out in his book titled, Navigating the Missouri, "Before railroad were built in the United States, rivers and lakes offered the easiest and fastest transportation..."
The year was 1862. After a poor harvest season in what is now Southern Minnesota, a band of Dakota Indians grew frustrated after years of accumulated grievances against white settlers...
While General Sully established Fort Rice on July 7th 1864, he had no intention of staying there very long. Not even two weeks later he led his expedition away from the new fort...
In 1868 Fort Rice was expanded to cover an area of 864 feet by 544 feet. It was protected by a ten-foot high log stockade on three sides and by the Missouri River on the east.
Life wasn't easy in these small frontier forts. Isolated by distance and a seasonally ice-bound transportation system. During the fort's first year, eighty-one men died...
Welcome to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. One of the major themes of our museum centers around Thomas Jefferson and the Enlightenment. Jefferson was immensely inquisitive and had...
Among Jefferson’s general instructions for Lewis and Clark, he emphasized intertribal peace and trade contacts. Colonial experience taught them to establish fruitful diplomacy and to cultivate...
There’s an ongoing argument where the Lewis & Clark Expedition really started. Was it in Washington, D.C. with Jefferson? Was it in St. Louis where the crew first got together?
While the exact location of Fort Mandan has never been found, the overlook provides a good view of the landscape similar to how the Corps of Discovery would have experienced it in 1804-1805...
Then-and-now photo montage of the historic homes along Ave B at the intersection of N Washington Street in the Cathedral District Area Historic District. View looking east. Courtesy of Will Hutchings.
Architect George Shanley whimsically included a terra-cotta bas-relief detail above the entrance to the historic Tribune Building that depicts scribes or monks printing books using a hand press.
Completion of the 2.5-mile long Garrison Dam across the Missouri River in 1956 created Lake Sakakawea–a 368,000 acre reservoir. The Snake Creek National Wildlife Refuge was created to mitigate...
More than one hundred centuries ago, men hunted wooly mammoths and mastodon along the edge of a receding glacier. The massive ice sheets gradually reversed the north-flowing direction of the ancient river..
At a time in American history when the West was still wild, North and South Dakota were still the Dakota Territory, and gold was being discovered in the Black Hills, it was the waning days of the stagecoach...
This seemingly plain expanse of grass overlooking the beautiful Missouri has a rich history involving the Mandan people going back generations. Chief Looking’s Village, as this preserved village site is...
Expert farmers, the Mandan people sustained themselves through crops of beans, squash, sunflowers, and most importantly, corn. The corn the Mandan people grew was a variety called Northern Flint that was...
Welcome to Cross Ranch State Park. As you explore the park, you might already be aware that the landscape once lent itself to Native Americans who inhabited the area hundreds of years ago, or that the Lewis and...
The Cross Ranch Nature Preserve is located here along the only free-flowing section of the Missouri River in North Dakota. The river is bordered by some of the most extensive floodplain forests left in...
The Crowley Flint Quarry State Historic Site near Golden Valley in Mercer County preserves a pock-marked landscape where, for thousands of years, indigenous peoples mined for Knife River flint...
Custer Park is Bismarck’s first municipal park. The park was developed by the Bismarck Civic Improvement League established in 1908 by a group of over 40 women committed to making Bismarck the...
In 1910, the Bismarck Civic Improvement League changed the name of Riverview Park to “Custer Park”. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer had commanded of the 7th Cavalry stationed at...
News of Custer’s death and defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876 made global headlines. This was, in part, because Custer’s expedition was well-documented by Mark Kellogg...
Welcome to Double Ditch Village, which was occupied by the Mandan Indians from roughly 1490 to 1785. Plains winters are long and bitterly cold. Rainfall fickle, and summer temperatures fluctuate wildly...
Here, on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River, are the remains of the earthlodges, refuse mounds, and the surrounding fortification ditches of Double Ditch Indian Village. The Village, quiet and secluded now...
For three centuries, Double Ditch Indian Village was inhabited by the Mandan Indians. During that time, there were times of population growth and times of decline. The earliest settlement was established...
In 1783, Pierre Gaultier deVarennes et de La Verendrye, a French-Canadian fur trader, set out from Fort La Reine near today’s Portage la Prairie in Manitoba in search of a people referred to as the...
Photo Credit: Shane Balkowitsch
In the summer of 1873, the Northern Pacific railroad reached the Missouri River at Bismarck just as a financial panic struck and caused economic ...
This Gothic Revival Style commercial block was completed in 1883 and is one of few buildings that survived a devastating fire in 1898. The building was developed across three city lots, by three prominent men...
The International Harvester Company of Chicago built this five-story brick behemoth as its Bismarck branch warehouse in 1911. At the time, the company was the nation’s largest manufacturer of farm implements...
You may notice many curious depressions in the landscape around you here at the Fort Clark State Historic Site. These indentations are the remnants of past events–two bustling nineteenth century
Welcome to Lake Sakakawea State Park! Did you know that the lake was originally named Lake Garrison, after the nearby Garrison community? In 1965 the lake and the related state park were renamed in honor of...
Welcome to Fort Stevenson State Park! The fort first served as a military post that was constructed in 1867 on the north bank of the Missouri River between Douglas and Garrison creeks. It was named after...
General Sibley Park is named after me, Henry Hastings Sibley. I was born in 1811 in Detroit. I began studying law at the age of sixteen. It was no secret that my father, prominent politician and jurist...
I am Chief Little Crow, a leader in the Dakota War of 1862. It was an armed conflict between the United States and us, several bands of eastern Dakota, also known as the Santee Sioux. While the war...
Coming Soon!
The Missouri River holds many stories of years long passed. Stories of trade, transportation, wildlife, Native Americans, and sustenance, among others. The westward expansion of the United States of America...
Elizabeth Fenn in her Pulitzer Prize winning book, Encounters at the Heart of the World, points out just how expansive the reach of the Mandan commerce was, with the 1960 discovery of a little marine...
While the Mandan Indians basically only appear on the broad swath of history after the arrival of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and the winter they spent with them in 1804 and 1805, it’s important...
It is the week of the Green Corn Ceremony in the Knife River Villages - the Mandan and Hidatsa people are preparing to celebrate the arrival of their summer crops. A hunting party has also previously returned with...
Do you think you could live off of the land that you see around you? What types of materials would you need for subsistence and survival? Perhaps you would use the wood from the lush trees to build a...
The Lewis & Clark Riverboat is a replica 19th Century paddle-wheel steamboat and the second passenger vessel to operate heritage cruises from the Port of Bismarck. She was designed to replace the Far West...
Quite possibly one of the greatest Missouri River steamboat captains was Grant Marsh, who lived from 1834-1916. His story, one of historical feats, is legendary on both the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers...
Ten miles east of Bismarck, Apple Creek meanders through the terrain, winding its way to the Missouri River. The banks along the creek seem unassuming, monotonous even. Miles of fields and pastures...
For over 12,000 years, people have depended on the Missouri River, as a place to hunt, gather, or grow food and as a means for transportation and trade. The river, and the surrounding lands, have a storied...
Like other stops on this Talking Trail, the Molander Indian Village isn’t immediately noticeable, unless you know what you are looking for–and where. Gazing out towards the horizon, you might notice the land...
Loved by visitors of all ages, the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum stands proudly on the North Dakota Capitol Grounds. The original building, which was opened in 1981, is operated by the State...
In the mid- to late-19th century, railroads completely transformed the Northern Plains. Perhaps no other historical event was more important to the growth of Dakota Territory than the building of the Northern...
Since 1989, the Fort Lincoln Trolley has been chugging along the Heart River south of Mandan, North Dakota. Operating on the remaining five miles of the former Northern Pacific 127-mile Mandan-Mott...
Pioneer Park is a hub of activity for visitors, especially in the summer months when sand volleyball matches are happening and the playground is filled with children. The walking trail takes you along the Missouri River...
Driving on North Dakota Highway 83 between Washburn and Underwood, you are almost sure to notice a few things. Wildlife is abundant in this area, as well as farmland. But the most recognizable fixture is...
The Missouri River has always been a hub of activity. From wagon trains, steamboats, and the railroad to modern-day fisherman, runners, and cross-country skiers, the banks of the river have stories to tell...
July 4th, 1968 marked the grand opening of the Great Plains Museum. The Old West-style false-fronted facility, owned and operated by the Beck brothers John, Michael, and Jim, housed an impressive collection..
You might imagine that during the late 1800s and early 1900s, important meetings and big decisions in North Dakota politics emanated from here, the governor’s mansion. But according to many North...
The stone structures you see here, and in many parks and historic sites in North Dakota, are a legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps–or “CCC.” The CCC was a volunteer work relief program for unmarried...
For centuries, this section of the river has shaped the nation. Explore the Northern Plains National Heritage Area Talking Trail to uncover interconnected stories of Native Americans, explorers and settlers, and farmers and ranchers on the Northern Plains that contribute to our nation’s diverse heritage. The Northern Plains National Heritage Area encourages residents and visitors to discover the history of the Missouri River by exploring its many points of interest.
