The Powder River Country is the
Powder River Basin area of the
Great Plains
The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...
in northeastern
Wyoming
Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...
,
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. The area is loosely defined as that between the
Bighorn Mountains
The Bighorn Mountains ( or ) are a mountain range in northern Wyoming and southern Montana in the United States, forming a northwest-trending spur from the Rocky Mountains extending approximately northward on the Great Plains. They are separa ...
and the
Black Hills, in the upper drainage areas of the
Powder,
Tongue
The tongue is a Muscle, muscular organ (anatomy), organ in the mouth of a typical tetrapod. It manipulates food for chewing and swallowing as part of the digestive system, digestive process, and is the primary organ of taste. The tongue's upper s ...
, and
Little Bighorn rivers.
During the late 1860s, the area was the scene of
Red Cloud's War
Red Cloud's War (also referred to as the Bozeman War or the Powder River War) was an armed conflict between an alliance of the Lakota people, Lakota, Cheyenne, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapaho peoples against the United States and the Crow ...
, fought between the
Lakota people
The Lakota (; or ) are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people. Also known as the Teton Sioux (from ), they are one of the three prominent subcultures of the Sioux people, with the Eastern Dakota (Santee) and Western D ...
s and the United States. The Lakota victory in the war resulted in the continuation of their control of the area for the next decade.
After control of the area fell to the U.S. government in the 1870s following the end of the
Great Sioux War of 1876–77, the area was opened to white settlement for
homesteading
Homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. It is characterized by subsistence agriculture, home preservation of food, and may also involve the small scale production of textiles, clothing, and craft work for household use or sale. H ...
. From 1889 to 1893, the area was the scene of the
Johnson County War.
In the early 20th century, the discovery of
oil in the area led to the development of the area's oil fields.
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal i ...
is also mined.
{{coord, 44, 30, N, 105, 30, W, format=dms, display=title, type:adm1st_region:US-WY
Regions of Wyoming
Great Sioux War of 1876
Red Cloud's War