In the time of the fur trader the Missouri River, the "Smoky Water" of the Indians, was navigable, though as turbulent and capricious as it is today. It was the highway of the trader and later of the gold seeker. The first steamboat to navigate the Missouri through North Dakota was the Yellowstone, which in 1832 ascended the river to Fort Union. To operate a boat on this river required great skill.
Famous pilots in the heyday of the steamboat who wrestled with the wiles of the Missouri included Joseph LaBarge, Grant Marsh, and C. J. Atkins. In 63 years as a pilot Grant Marsh wrecked but one boat on the Mississippi and never had a wreck on the Missouri or Yellowstone.
The yellow gleam of gold, discovered in Montana in 1863 and 1864, drew a rush of prospectors. The railroads had not yet penetrated this territory, and the Missouri was the pathway to the gold fields. Precious cargoes of yellow dust floated down through Dakota, bound for St. Louis. It is said that one boat, the Luella, carried gold dust to the value of $1,250,000 down the river in 1866.
It was not the coming of the railroads to Bismarck in 1873 that marked the decline of the steamboat on the Missouri, but rather the extension of the railroad westward to Montana in 1883.
The Red River of the North was the important channel of traffic for northeastern North Dakota. Steamboats were not as numerous as they were on the Missouri, nor were they operated at such an early date. Fleets of barges and scows were used to transport provisions. The steamer Selkirk commanded by Capt. Alexander Griggs, best known of Red River pilots, brought passengers down the river to settle at Grand Forks the year after he and his crew had unexpectedly spent the winter there (see Grand Forks).
In Territorial days United States military posts were numerous but short-lived. Fort Abercrombie on the west bank of the Red River, about 12 miles north of the site of Wahpeton, was established in 1857. Supplies for this post were brought from St. Paul. When the Sioux went on the warpath in 1862, Minnesota settlers sought refuge here during a seven weeks' siege. The fort was abandoned in 1877 (see Tour 1).
Fort Rice, on the west bank of the Missouri, came next. Gen. Alfred H. Sully's men cut cottonwood trees to build it in 1864. The fort housed four infantry companies. It was to Fort Rice in 1870 that Linda Slaughter, young, talented, followed her husband, Dr. Frank Slaughter. Her writings, depicting the frontier life, found their way into many eastern papers, and today constitute some of the best material on that era of State history. At Fort Rice she buried her first-born child, her only son, in the bitter cold of January. She heard the arrows of hostile Indians whizzing dangerously near. Her luxuriant hair, which she always wore long over her shoulders, was coveted as a scalp lock, and she came near leaving it with the red men on one of her horseback jaunts from the fort. A woman who could paint, write, or lecture at will, she could also cook or nurse as the occasion demanded. In later days she wrote the first telegram that was sent to the world from Edwinton, the village which became Bismarck.
Fort Rice was dismantled in 1878 when Fort Yates, to the south, took its place. Fort Ransom on the Sheyenne was established in 1867. In 1872 Fort Seward, first called Fort Cross, was built at Jamestown. The military reservations of Fort Abercrombie and Fort Seward were opened to homestead entry in 1880.
Fort Totten, near Devils Lake, was constructed in 1867 and served until 1890, when the buildings were turned over to the Indian school. Fort Stevenson on the Missouri at the mouth of Douglas Creek was maintained from 1867-83. Fort Buford was built in 1866 opposite the mouth of the Yellowstone on the north bank of the Missouri. After his surrender in 1877 Chief Joseph was taken through Fort Buford en route to Fort Leavenworth, Kans., and Chiefs Gall and Sitting Bull went there to surrender after their escape into Canada (see Side Tour 6B). The fort existed officially until 1895, but sometime before its abandonment the garrison had been transferred to Fort Assiniboine in Montana.
Established on the Red River near the site of Pembina, Fort Pembina was maintained from 1870 to 1895. Fort McKeen, established in 1872, became, the same year, part of Fort Abraham Lincoln, garrisoned until 1891. It was from Fort Abraham Lincoln that Custer and his Seventh Cavalry marched to death and disaster on the banks of the Little Big Horn in 1876 (see Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park). After 25 years of occupation, Fort Yates was abandoned in 1903, when the new Fort Lincoln was built near Bismarck with facilities for four companies of infantry and supporting detachments. (See Tour 8.)