Native Sun News Today: Bighorn battle site in line for new visitor center

The Indian Memorial at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. Photo: Visions Service Adventures

Little Big Horn Battlefield get big grant for new visitors center

Thursday, October 8, 2020

By Clara Caufield

Native Sun News Today Correspondent

For years, the National Park Service’s Little Bighorn Battlefield has utilized the same small visitor’s center; the space so cramped that many artifacts and historical items related to the Battle have been stored in Arizona, exhibit space severely limited in the current facility.

Anniversary observations attended and conducted by the Tribes are currently held outdoors, as the current Visitor’s Center, constructed in 1952 is simply too small. In 2019, 241,000 visitors flocked to the popular historical site, the third most visited in Montana.

All that is set to change by 2024 when the National Park Service (NPS) plans to finish construction of a new Visitor’s Center and a related curation center. The 150th anniversary of the Battle is June 26, 2026, marking the date when a large contingent of warriors, principally Northern Cheyenne, Sioux and Arapaho decisively defeated the 7th Calvary during White western expansion and the accompanying Indian Wars, as the tribes sought to preserve their homelands and traditional way of life.

littlebighornbattlefieldvisitorcenter — An exhibit inside the existing visitor center at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. Photo: Jasperado

On October 1, the National Park Foundation, the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, NPS and Friends of the Little Big Horn Battlefield jointly announced that the Helmsley Trust has awarded a $4.5 million grant to construct a new Visitor’s Center at the Battlefield. This will allow expanded educational and interpretive activities for all visitors said NPS sources in a press release.

Specifically, “the New Visitor Center is a significant step forward to make tribal artifacts and their interpretation more accessible to Tribes and the public and to expand stories and perspectives about that multi-faceted history and legacy of the Battle of the Little Big Horn.”

Former U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Northern Cheyenne, was instrumental in gaining the passage of federal legislation to change the name of the site from the Custer Battlefield to the Battle of the Little Big Horn in concert with the tribes in the 1990s.

“This is very good news,” he said. “I’m glad they can bring back the artifacts and historical material related to the Battle. It is important for America, but most important to our people.”

Dr. Richard Littlebear, President of the Northern Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife College concurred. “This is great news, especially for the educational community.”