GETAWAY! WALK BACK IN TIME TO 1876

Give yourself a GETAWAY break like no other: Leave work behind  and fly to Billings, Montana for a walk back in time to 1876!  

Relax:  All the arrangements are made for you. The only thing you have to do is book your flight and get here. 

Choose from two comprehensive options:  These tours have been carefully created for you in historical order so they make sense as a chronological story.

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FIND OUT: what led to the most famous battle for freedom on the Plains?

LEARN THE INSIDE STORY: Why did it happen? How did the battle unfold?  

UNDERSTAND: What were the consequences for Native people across this land?

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Custer had never seen the valley of the Little Bighorn before and was reliant upon his Crow scouts and civilian guides to inform him of what might lie ahead.  He intended to keep his command concealed near the Wolf Mountains throughout June 25 so his men could rest and he and his officers could prepare the attack he intended to launch the following morning.

However, intelligence he received early on June 25 convinced him that he must attack immediately or risk the Indians scattering, which was the military’s greatest fear – that the Lakota and Cheyenne would melt into the landscape and the campaign would become a costly and lengthy pursuit, and possible humiliation if they failed to cow the Indians.

The Lakota and Cheyenne encampment was large but not anything like the exaggerated proportion that has been portrayed since that day. Approximately 650 tipis were arranged along the Little Bighorn River, loosely conforming to traditional tribal designations.

In the village there was approximately 850 men and boys who might fight. As Reno advanced most people were going about their everyday business; some of the men were fishing, some were digging wild turnips, Chief Gall was eating his lunch, but the calm was disrupted when Little Bear came thundering into the village: his son had just been killed by scouts and the soldiers were coming.

Immediately the Hunkpapa Lakota of Sitting Bull, the people camped at the south end of the village in Reno’s line of fire, prepared to defend the village. Sitting Bull was a spiritual and civil leader, his days of war had passed, and he did not participate in the fight as a combatant. Instead, he gave his sacred items of war to his nephew, One Bull, and told him to defend the people when it was obvious that the soldiers had not come to talk.