Crow Agency, Montana
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Crow Agency () is a
census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
(CDP) in
Big Horn County, Montana Big Horn County is a county located in the U.S. state of Montana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,124. The county seat is Hardin. The county, like the river and the mountain range, is named after the bighorn sheep in the Rocky M ...
, United States and is near the actual location for the Little Bighorn National Monument and re-enactment produced by the Real Bird family known as Battle of the Little Bighorn Reenactment. The population was 1,616 at the 2010 census. It is the governmental headquarters of the
Crow Nation The Crow, whose autonym is Apsáalooke (), are Native Americans living primarily in southern Montana. Today, the Crow people have a federally recognized tribe, the Crow Tribe of Montana, with an Indian reservation, the Crow Indian Reservati ...
Native Americans. It is also the location of the "agency offices" where the federal Superintendent of the Crow Indian Reservation and his staff (part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, United States Department of the Interior) interacts with the Crow Tribe, pursuant to federal treaties and statutes. The ending scenes in the film '' Little Big Man'' (1970) were filmed in Crow Agency.


Geography

Interstate 90 Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain states, Mountain West, Great Pla ...
passes through the community, with access from Exit 509. U.S. Route 212 also passes through the town. Custer Creek runs alongside town. According to the
United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the CDP has a total area of , all land.


History of the three locations of the "Crow Agency"

The term "Crow Agency" has been historically used since 1868 for the headquarters where the United States directed the federal interaction with the Crow tribe on its reservation. The Crow Tribe's reservations, and the tribe's relations to the United States were defined by treaties between the Crow Tribe and the United States, and by United States statutes.


A Reservation Without An Agency (1851-1868)

The Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851 created extensive reservation lands for the Indian tribes in Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas at a time when the non-Indian presence in this area was limited to roving traders. A large reservation for the Crow Tribe was set out that was centered on the Big Horn Mountains and extended eastward into the Powder River basin to the banks of the Powder River. However, this treaty did not indicate agency sites for any of the tribes, including the Crows. At the time of the treaty, 1851 the Crow tribe consisted of nomadic bands whose culture was based on hunting the migratory buffalo herds, including those herds in the Powder River Country. Hunting in the Powder River area on the east side of the Big Horn Mountains brought the Crow in increasing conflict with more powerful bands of Sioux who were migrating westward. In 1863 gold was discovered in commercial quantities in the mountains of the western Montana Territory. Travelers to the gold fields left the Oregon Trail and traveled through the Powder River country, going up the east side of the Big Horns to the Yellowstone valley, and then westward. This route became known as the Bozeman Trail, and three forts were built to protect travelers. The Sioux conducted an all out war against the forts and the travelers on the Bozeman Trail called "Red Cloud's War", which finally forced the United States to agree to abandon the forts, and close the trail, and to remake the boundaries of the reservations for the Crow and Sioux in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.


The First Crow Agency (1868-1874)

The Fort Laramie "Treaty with the Crows, 1868", was one of a series of treaties that recognized the encroaching presence of the Sioux tribes into the Powder River Basin, and gave them that entire area as a hunting preserve. The Treaty with the Sioux in 1868, in Article 16 gave the Sioux "the country north of the North Platte River and east of the summits of the Big Horn Mountains" as "unceded Indian territory", and this same Article committed the U.S. to abandoning the military posts in this area, and the "road leading to them" (i.e. the Bozeman Trail) "shall be closed". This huge grant of an area had only a western and southern boundary, and presumably had a boundary on the western edge of the ceded lands of the Sioux reservation, but had no northern boundary. The separate 1868 treaty with the Crow moved the center of the Crow lands to the west of the Powder River Basin, into the western portions of the Yellowstone Valley. The 1868 Treaty provided for annuities and other federal support, and stipulated that the Crow would have an agency "on the south side of the Yellowstone, near Otter Creek", close to present day
Big Timber, Montana Big Timber is a city in, and the county seat of, Sweet Grass County, Montana, Sweet Grass County, Montana, United States. The population was 1,650 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Big Timber takes its name from Big Timber Creek, w ...
. The first Crow Agency (1869-1874) was eventually constructed about eight miles east of present-day
Livingston, Montana Livingston is a city and the county seat of Park County, Montana, United States. It is in southwestern Montana, on the Yellowstone River, north of Yellowstone National Park. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 8,040. Hist ...
on Mission Creek, and became known as Fort Parker. This first Crow Agency was located in the western reaches of the Yellowstone River Valley, north of the Absaroka Range of Mountains. The Crows continued a largely nomadic life style hunting on the buffalo ranges to the east, though this brought them in constant but sporadic conflict with the Sioux who dominated the Powder River area.


The Second Crow Agency (1875-1884)

In 1874 miners encroached on the western margins of Crow lands in the Absaroka Range, and the reservation was reduced in 1875. The first Crow Agency was within these ceded lands and so the Agency was relocated eastward to a new site just south of modern-day Absarokee, Montana. The second Crow Agency (1875-1884) was still located north of the Absaroka Range of Mountains but about 66 miles further east of Fort Parker in the Yellowstone Valley, on the Stillwater River which was a tributary of the Yellowstone River. The nine year period from 1875 to 1884 was a time of rapid transition on the plains of eastern Montana and Wyoming. In 1876 the Crows provided scouts for the United States military forces in the
Great Sioux War of 1876 The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations that occurred in 1876 and 1877 in an alliance of Lakota people, Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. The cause of t ...
. The defeat by the Sioux of
George Armstrong Custer George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars. Custer graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point ...
at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876 resulted in a concerted military backlash against the Sioux, and by 1877 and 1878 the hostile bands of Sioux had either fled to Canada, or they had surrendered and were confined to reservations along the Missouri River in the Dakotas. This initially left the Crows more secure in their use of the buffalo ranges on the eastern Montana and Wyoming plains, but in 1876 and 1877 federal forts were built across this area. With hostile Indian presence essentially neutralized, hide hunters came to harvest the northern buffalo herds. By 1882 the buffalo were gone from this area. Also, in 1880 the Northern Pacific Railroad began building eastward from Bismarck, ND, and in 1882 they completed their northern transcontinental line, which passed up the Yellowstone River valley just as the last of the buffalo disappeared. Almost at once large Texas trail herds arrived in the Montana Territory to exploit the now empty open range on the vast plains of central and eastern Montana. These successive rapid changes in this 9-year period eliminated the herds of bison and reduced other wild game on which the Crow culture relied, and ended forever the Crow's nomadic way of life.


The Third Crow Agency (1884 to Present)

In 1884 these events led to the last movement of the Crow Agency to the site of its third and final location at present day Crow Agency, Montana, 60 miles SE of Billings on the Little Bighorn River. This move of over a hundred miles eastward removed the Crow people from the vicinity of the Absaroka Range of Mountains, and from the Yellowstone River valley, and placed their reservation center on the east side of the Big Horn Mountains, on the western edge of the Powder River Basin of the northern great plains.


Demographics

As of the
census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
of 2000, there were 1,552 people, 336 households, and 303 families residing in the CDP. The population density was . There were 361 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the CDP was 3.74%
White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 95.68% Native American, 0.06% Asian, and 0.52% from two or more races.
Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or Latino of any race were 1.16% of the population. There were 336 households, out of which 52.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.4% were
married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...
living together, 26.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 9.8% were non-families. 7.4% of all households were made up of individuals, and 0.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 4.40 and the average family size was 4.66. In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 41.5% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 25.5% from 25 to 44, 17.8% from 45 to 64, and 4.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 23 years. For every 100 females, there were 96.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.2 males. The median income for a household in the CDP was $22,438, and the median income for a family was $27,768. Males had a median income of $17,300 versus $15,804 for females. The
per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the CDP was $7,354. About 39.6% of families and 40.9% of the population were below the
poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
, including 42.6% of those under age 18 and none of those age 65 or over. The Annual Crow Fair, which is held every third weekend in August, is held on this reservation. The Crow Fair is known as "The Teepee Capital of the World," by the fact that during celebration as many as 1,500 teepees are seen across the river valley of the Little Big Horn River. The
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
series
Reading Rainbow ''Reading Rainbow'' is an American educational children's television series that originally aired on PBS and afterward PBS Kids from July 11, 1983 to November 10, 2006, with reruns continuing to air until August 28, 2009. 155 30-minute episodes ...
filmed its tenth episode "The Gift of the Sacred Dog" here on June 17, 1983. The title was based on a book by Paul Goble and was narrated by actor
Michael Ansara Michael George Ansara (; April 15, 1922 – July 31, 2013) was an American actor. A Syrian-American, he was often cast in Arabic and American Indian roles. His work in both film and television spanned several genres including historical epic ...
.


Notable people

* Tuff Harris,
Pittsburgh Steelers The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...
safety Safety is the state of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings The word 'safety' entered the English language in the 1 ...
, was born here * Clara Nomee, former Chairwoman of the Crow Tribe, was born here.


Education

Crow Agency has an elementary school. Hardin High School serves 9th through 12th grade. Crow Agency is home to Little Big Horn College.


Climate

According to the
Köppen Climate Classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...
system, Crow Agency has a
semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of se ...
, abbreviated "BSk" on climate maps. The town averages 41" of snowfall annually.


See also

* Crow War


References

{{authority control Census-designated places in Big Horn County, Montana Census-designated places in Montana Crow Tribe of Montana Seats of government of American Indian reservations