The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. The battle, which resulted in the defeat of U.S. forces, was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876. It took place on June 25–26, 1876, along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory.
Cody is a city in Northwest Wyoming and the county seat of Park County, Wyoming, United States. It is named after Colonel William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody for his part in the founding of Cody in 1896.
The Absaroka Range is a sub-range of the Rocky Mountains in the United States. The range stretches about 150 mi (240 km) across the Montana–Wyoming border, and 75 mi (120 km) at its widest, forming the eastern boundary of Yellowstone National Park along Paradise Valley, and the western side of the Bighorn Basin. The range borders the Beartooth Mountains to the north and the Wind River Range to the south. The northern edge of the range rests along I-90 and Livingston, Montana. The highest peak in the range is Francs Peak, located in Wyoming at 13,153 ft (4,009 m). There are 46 other peaks over 12,000 ft (3,700 m).
Thomas Moran was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family, wife Mary Nimmo Moran and daughter Ruth took residence in New York where he obtained work as an artist. He was a younger brother of the noted marine artist Edward Moran, with whom he shared a studio. A talented illustrator and exquisite colorist, Thomas Moran was hired as an illustrator at Scribner's Monthly. During the late 1860s, he was appointed the chief illustrator for the magazine, a position that helped him launch his career as one of the premier painters of the American landscape, in particular, the American West.
The Buffalo Bill Center of the West, formerly known as the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, is a complex of five museums and a research library featuring art and artifacts of the American West located in Cody, Wyoming. The five museums include the Buffalo Bill Museum, the Plains Indians Museum, the Whitney Western Art Museum, the Draper Natural History Museum, and the Cody Firearms Museum. Founded in 1917 to preserve the legacy and vision of Col. William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West is the oldest and most comprehensive museum complex of the West. It has been described by The New York Times as "among the nation's most remarkable museums."
Thom Hatch is an American author and novelist who specializes in the history of the American West, the American Civil War, and the Plains Indian Wars. Hatch was born in Erie, Pennsylvania and grew up on Grand Island, New York. He graduated from North Olmsted High School in North Olmsted, Ohio. He served in the United States Marine Corps, including deployment to Vietnam for 13 months. He then became a columnist for the Erie Times-News, and worked as a radio announcer during the late 1960s. In 1975, he moved to Colorado, where he writes books, contributes to national publications such as American Heritage, America's Civil War, True West, and Western Horseman, and teaches school. He has served as consultant and appeared on screen as an expert commentator for The History Channel, the Discovery Channel, and PBS documentaries, including "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" for PBS's The American Experience, based on his book The Last Outlaws. Hatch is regularly invited to speak at colleges, seminars, and civic and historic organizations. He lives with his artist wife, a daughter, and a cattle dog in Colorado's horse and cattle country.
James Elliott Bama was an American artist known for his realistic paintings and etchings of Western subjects. Life in Wyoming led to his comment, "Here an artist can trace the beginnings of Western history, see the first buildings, the oldest wagons, saddles and guns, and be up close to the remnants of Indian culture ... And you can stand surrounded by nature's wonders."
The Plainsman is a 1936 American Western film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. The film presents a highly fictionalized account of the adventures and relationships between Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill Cody, and General George Custer, with a gun-runner named Lattimer as the main villain. The film is notorious for mixing timelines and even has an opening scene with Abraham Lincoln setting the stage for Hickok's adventures. Anthony Quinn has an early acting role as an Indian. A remake using the same title was released in 1966.
John Mix Stanley was an artist-explorer, an American painter of landscapes, and Native American portraits and tribal life. Born in the Finger Lakes region of New York, he started painting signs and portraits as a young man. In 1842 he traveled to the American West to paint Native American life. In 1846 he exhibited a gallery of 85 of his paintings in Cincinnati and Louisville. During the Mexican–American War, he joined Colonel Stephen Watts Kearney's expedition to California and painted accounts of the campaign, as well as aspects of the Oregon Territory.
Wild West shows were traveling vaudeville performances in the United States and Europe that existed around 1870–1920. The shows began as theatrical stage productions and evolved into open-air shows that depicted romanticized stereotypes of cowboys, Plains Indians, army scouts, outlaws, and wild animals that existed in the American West. While some of the storylines and characters were based on historical events, others were fictional or sensationalized.
Harold McCracken (1894–1983) was an American writer, Alaskan grizzly bear hunter, biplane stunt photographer, cinematographer, producer and museum director. He was a noted explorer, who led expeditions in the 1920s tracing the possibility of a long-ago land bridge between Siberia and Alaska.
Mark Kellogg was a newspaper reporter killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Kellogg rode with George Armstrong Custer during the battle. His dispatches were the only press coverage of Custer and his men in the days leading up to the battle. As a newspaper stringer whose reports were picked up around the country, Kellogg is considered the first Associated Press correspondent to die in the line of duty.
Dan Muller aka Daniel Cody Muller (1889–1976), artist, illustrator and writer of the American West; Muller was born in Choteau, Montana, October 11, 1889 to Carl and Augusta Muller.
Arthur Douglas Amiotte is an Oglala Lakota American painter, collage artist, educator, and author.
Edgar Samuel Paxson was an American frontier painter, scout, soldier and writer, based mainly in Montana. He is best known for his portraits of Native Americans in the Old West and for his depiction of the Battle of Little Bighorn in his painting "Custer's Last Stand".
David Humphreys Miller was an American artist, author, and film advisor who specialized in the culture of the northern Plains Indians. He was most notable for painting his 72 portraits of the survivors of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. In addition to his portraiture, he was also featured as a technical advisor on Native American culture for the films Cheyenne Autumn, How the West was Won, and the TV show Daniel Boone. Miller also wrote several books on Indian history. In 1948, he arranged the last meeting of the Bighorn survivors at the dedication of the Crazy Horse Memorial.
White Swan (c.1850—1904), or Mee-nah-tsee-us in the Crow language, was one of six Crow Scouts for George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment during the 1876 campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne. At the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Crow Indian Reservation, White Swan went with Major Reno's detachment, and fought alongside the soldiers at the south end of the village. Of the six Crow scouts at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, White Swan stands out because he aggressively sought combat with multiple Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, and he was the only Crow Scout to be wounded in action, suffering severe wounds to his hand/wrist and leg/foot. After being disabled by his wounds, he was taken to Reno's hill entrenchments by Half Yellow Face, the pipe-bearer (leader) of the Crow scouts, which no doubt saved his life.
Harry Andrew Jackson, born Harry Aaron Shapiro Jr., was an American artist. He began his career as a Marine combat artist, then later worked in the abstract expressionist, realist, and American western styles.
Wandering Rocks is a 1967 steel sculpture by Tony Smith, made in an edition of five plus one artist's proof. The Minimalist work comprises five different polyhedral elements painted black.
Katy Stone is an American visual artist recognized for her installation-based artworks evoking organic forms, patterns, and natural phenomena. Stone’s wall-mounted or suspended sculptural constructions, often composed of layers of painted transparent film, paper, or metal, have been exhibited in museums, galleries, and public collections worldwide. Installations by Stone have been commissioned for the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, Ann Arbor, MI; Microsoft, Redmond, WA; Facebook, Seattle, WA; Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH; Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, WA; Ascent at Roebling’s Bridge Covington, KY; the Federal Courthouse, Jackson Mississippi; Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St Louis, MO; Columbia University School of Nursing, New York, NY; Twin Parks, Taichung, Taiwan; and other public institutions and collections. Stone’s artworks were exhibited in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad as part of the US Art in Embassies Program.
