ND 25 branches N. from US 10 (see Tour 8) 5 m. W. of Mandan.
At 12.5 m. the highway crosses SQUARE BUTTE CREEK, named for the square-topped buttes to the E. (see Side Tour 3B). The stream parallels the route for several miles.
CENTER, 30.5 m. (1,760 alt., 293 pop.), was named for its geographic position in Oliver County. Its buildings, almost all of them white, are huddled in the narrow valley of Square Butte Creek. In the Oliver County Courthouse park is a Log Cabin Museum (open) erected in 1937 under the Works Progress Administration to house Indian and pioneer relics. Nearby is the Miner Memorial, a granite marker of Gothic style, erected by former Gov. L. B. Hanna, in commemoration of 16-year-old Hazel Miner. In 1920 Hazel and a younger brother and sister were lost in a raging March blizzard while driving home from school. When they were found the next morning, the two younger children were still alive, for Hazel had used her body to shield them and to hold down the blankets which kept them from freezing. The story of her life and death has been made part of the official records of the county.
North of Center the route encounters rougher country and turns NW. to follow the MISSOURI RIVER for a few miles.
At 40.5 m. is the junction with an unimproved county dirt road.
Right on this road to the junction with another unimproved road, 1 m.; L. here to FORT CLARK STATE PARK, 2 m., site of a trading post established by the American Fur Co. in 1829. The post was only a few feet S. of a village built by the Mandans about 1822, and later occupied by the Arikara. West of the depressions left by the earth lodges are the remains of a burial ground.
At 46 m. is the junction with a graveled road.
Right on this road is STANTON, 1.5 m. (1,722 alt., 358 pop.), on the first bench overlooking the Missouri, which it once served as a river port. The town was founded in 1883 and given the name of a pioneer mother of the vicinity. Partly within the Mercer County Courthouse yard is the site of an Indian Village where excavations have revealed many artifacts.
Straight ahead from Stanton on a county road to the SITE OF SCATTERED VILLAGE, 2.5 m., one of the three Hidatsa and two Mandan villages known to white traders and trappers as the Five Villages. Charbonneau, the French frontiersman, and his Shoshone wife, Sakakawea, were living here when Charbonneau was engaged by the exploring party of Lewis and Clark, in 1805, to accompany them on their hazardous journey to the Pacific coast. Sakakawea went with her husband, and proved herself invaluable to the success of the expedition (see Bismarck). Scattered Village lies on the southern bank of the KNIFE RIVER, which was named by various Indian tribes who procured flint for their knives from pits along the river. The area about the mouth of the Knife is rich in Indian history.
West of Stanton the route moves roughly parallel to the combined courses of the Knife River and Spring Creek.