Left from the mission on a road lined with towering cottonwoods is ELBOWOODS, 0.5 m. (1,770 alt., 135 pop.), agency headquarters for the reservation. Its name is derived from the elbow bend of the timber belt along the Missouri at that point. The town centers about the square of agency lawn. Most of the population is white. The town was settled in 1891 when the agency was established. In addition to its regular governmental functions, the agency operates a non-profit flour mill and conducts an experimental farm to educate the Indians in modern agricultural methods. Despite this, many Indians lease their farming lands to white people. What is now the Government School was built in 1876 as the Congregational mission, the first on the reservation.
Just SW. of the town are the Indian Fairgrounds where three-day celebrations, with rodeos and tribal dances, are held each year (July or Aug.).
ND 8 at 55 m. passes SCATTER VILLAGE, a little group of filling stations and garages that grew up around the approach to the highway bridge across the Missouri.
At 56.5 m. is the junction (R) with a dirt reservation road, on which the route continues.
Left on ND 8 to FOUR BEARS BRIDGE, 1 m., the bridge with 19 names. When it was built, the Mandans wished it named for their chief Four Bears, subject of many paintings by the artist Catlin who visited this section more than a century ago. The Hidatsa wished it named for their chief Four Bears, who died a few years before the bridge was built. Because of these tribal jealousies it was decided to name the southern end of the bridge for the Mandan chief, and the northern end for the Hidatsa chief. At each end of the span is a plaque bearing the names of chiefs of both tribes given as associate titles to the bridge: for the Mandans there are Charging Eagle, Red Buffalo Cow, Flying Eagle, Black Eagle, and Waterchief; for the Hidatsa, Poor Wolf, Porcupine, Crow Paunch, Big Brave, Crow-Flies-High, Big Hawk, and Old Dog. This arrangement proved unsatisfactory to the Arikara, and a partial compromise was effected by adding the names of five of their chiefs, Bear Chief, Son-of-the-Star, White Shield, Peter Beauchamp, Sr., and Bobtail Bull, as associates.
The dirt reservation road proceeds NW. along the river lowlands, enters a reservation timber reserve at 60.5 m., and skirts the eastern wooded shore of the Missouri before rising again to the benchland. At 68 m. is a store and filling station. The route now passes through the area occupied by the Hidatsa, also known as the Minitari or Gros Ventres (Fr., big bellies). Their homes are much like those of the other two tribes. The Hidatsa and the Crow Indians of Montana at one time were a single tribe. During a period of want one winter in the eighteenth century, a buffalo was killed by the tribe, and the animal satisfactorily divided until they came to the stomach. The division of this organ led to a quarrel which split the group, and one faction moved W. and became the Crow tribe.
SHELL CREEK, 79 m., is the Hidatsa community center. A few stores, a dance hall, a handful of dwellings, and the central agency experimental farm make up the town.
At 82 m., N. of Shell Creek, is the reservation boundary.