Right from Hebron on a country trail to CROWLEY FLINT QUARRY STATE PARK, 22 m. Here the Indians obtained flint from which to make arrow and spear heads. The process of making an arrowhead or spear point was tedious, the only tool being a piece of bone or horn that had been buried two weeks in wood ashes to remove grease and temper the material. On the palm of one hand was placed a buckskin covering, and on this was laid the flint, held in place by the fingers of the same hand. Using the bone tool in the other hand, the worker began flaking chips from the flint, first up one side and then the other, until the stone assumed the shape wanted. Today unfinished or broken arrowheads and spear points are occasionally found in the quarry.
West of ANTELOPE (L), 275 m. (2,410 alt., 20 pop.), the route follows closely the trail made by Custer's Seventh Cavalry in June 1876, on their way from Fort Abraham Lincoln to the Little Big Horn country in Montana, to meet death at the hands of the Sioux they pursued (see History). The deep ruts cut in the prairie by the military wagons of the expedition, and later by those traveling over the same trail to Fort Keogh, Mont., are visible R. and parallel to the highway where it passes S. of YOUNG MEN'S BUTTE, 277.5 m. According to legend, when the Arikara Indians were still living on the Grand River, in what is now South Dakota, a group separated from the tribe and set out toward the northwest to seek a new home. Two young men in the party, however, grew lonesome for the sweethearts they had left behind, and when they reached this butte they decided to return to their old home. The remainder of the party continued on the journey, and was never heard from again.
Left from Antelope an unimproved dirt road leads to the Heart River, 8 m., and the SITE OF GENERAL SULLY'S TEMPORARY BASE CAMP for the Battle of Killdeer Mountains. On his march to the Yellowstone River, in 1864, Sully corraled his wagon train at this camp, and, traveling light, moved quickly N. to the Killdeer Mountains to make a surprise attack on a camp of 5,000 Sioux (see Side Tour 8D).
RICHARDTON, 278 m. (2,465 alt., 710 pop.), is the home of Assumption Abbey of the Benedictine order. The buildings, of Gothic and Romanesque styles, give the impression of having been transplanted from ancient Europe to the North Dakota prairie. Twin red-roofed steeples raise burnished crosses above the buildings, which are constructed in a square around a garden court. The abbey, completed in 1910, includes St. Mary's Monastery, St. Mary's Church, and a high school and junior college for boys. The library contains 14,000 volumes, among which are several books dated 1720 and bound in pigskin. The town is named for C. B. Richardton, official of a steamship company that sought homes for German immigrants, and is predominantly Russo-German.
At 284 m. is TAYLOR (2,487 alt., 263 pop.). South of here along the Heart River are large deposits of bentonite; a clay used for commercial manufacture of paints, cleaners, linoleum, cosmetics, and other products (see Industry and Labor).
At 299.5 m. is the junction with a graveled road.
Left on this road is LEHIGH, 2 m. (2,347 alt., 203 pop.), named for Lehigh, Pa., because both are mining towns. Here is a Briquetting Plant (open to large parties and school or college groups; guides). This is the only plant in the United States producing lignite briquets with a B. t. u. (British thermal unit: 778 foot-pounds energy) rating of 15,000. Raw lignite has a B. t. u. rating of about 6,500. Eighteen thousand tons of briquets are produced annually by the million dollar plant. The work of the late E. J. Babcock of the State university has been of great importance in adapting the lignite briquetting process to North Dakota coal. The chief byproduct of the plant is creosote, of which about 70,000 gallons are shipped to eastern markets each year. Research conducted on activated carbon, a lignite product used in the manufacture of tires and for filtration purposes, points to commercial development of this byproduct (see Industry and Labor).
DICKINSON, 302.5 m. (2,305 alt., 5,025 pop.), principal stock and wheat shipping point in the central Missouri Slope area, and Stark County seat, is on the slope of a hill overlooking the Heart River, which cuts through the prairie S. of the city. The town is still young enough to retain much of the friendly atmosphere of the early West.
When the railroad reached this point in 1880, the site was known as Pleasant Valley Siding, but in 1883 the name was changed by H. L. Dickinson, the town's first merchant, to honor his cousin Wells S. Dickinson, a New York State senator.