Area History

The Pine Ridge Area has often been referred to as the "last frontier", and for a good reason.  It was a favorite Indian hunting and camping area for hundreds of years and the Sioux Indians occupied it permanently about  1810.  Spaniards from New Mexico where the first fur traders, followed in the 1830's by Americans from St. Louis, who established a regular trail from Fort Laramie to Fort Pierre on the Missouri River.  In the 1840's there were two competing fur posts, one on Chadron Creek, about eight miles south of Chadron, the other on Bordeaux Creek, three and a half mile east of Chadron.

Red Cloud Indian Agency was moved to the White River in 1873.  Camp Robinson was established in 1874 to protect the Agency.  It was renamed Fort Robinson in 1878 and was an active military post until 1948.  The Agency played an important role in the Indian Wars of the 1870's.  Sioux war leader Crazy Horse was killed at Fort Robinson in 1877.

In 1851, Horse Creek Treaty was the largest gathering of Indians ever recorded - and the first treaty to be covered by the media.  Some 12,000 Indians along with their 30,000 horses descended on this site to discuss an arrangement - the tribes would allow the government to build roads and forts on their lands.  In return, the Army was to protect the Indians from white settlers and pay the tribes $50,000 in goods annually for 50 years.  Rather than solve the problems, the treaty began a series of misunderstandings and misdeeds that led to the bloody Indian Wars.

With the removal of the Sioux Indians to South Dakota in 1877, several very large cattle outfits came into the area.  Large roundups were conducted annually until the railroads arrived in 1885 and an influx of homesteaders took up most of the available land.  

The old Sidney-Deadwood Trail passed just west of the Ponderosa Ranch.  It was the trailhead of the only supply line from Sidney, the nearest railroad, to Deadwood, South Dakota.  Uncountable tons of supplies were exchanged for uncountable amounts of gold during the Black Hills gold Rush.

Dawes County is still cattle country and very much reflects its heritage of Indians, fur traders, cowboys and frontier soldiers.