Album: Big Hole National Battlefield

Big Hole National Battlefield

Big Hole National Battlefield was the site of a battle on August 9-10, 1877 between the U.S Army and Montana citizen volunteers and the Nez Perce people. The battle was part of a five-month conflict in which the army, intent on moving the Nez Perce to the Lapwai Reservation in Idaho, pursued roughly 750 men, women, and children across 1,170 miles from the Wallowa Valley in Oregon to the Bear Paw Mountains, just 40 miles from the Canadian border in northern Montana. Since the battle, the Big Hole Battlefield has been recognized and honored both as a historic site and as a memorial.