In 1851, the Treaty of Fort Laramie created extensive reservation lands for the Indian tribes in Montana. Wyoming, and the Dakotas. A large reservation for the Crow Tribe was centered on the Big Horn mountains and extended eastward to the banks of the Powder River. Initially, no agency sites were indicated for any tribes, but that changed in 1868 when the treaty was ratified. Besides providing annuities and other federal support, the treaty stipulated that the Crow would have an agency located in the western reaches of the Yellowstone River Valley, in the shadow of the Absaroka mountain range, near present-day Livingston, Montana.

In 1875, when miners began encroaching on the Crow lands in the Absaroka Range, the reservation was reduced. Because the first Crow Agency was within the ceded lands, it was moved east and situated on the Stillwater River. The cession and relocation of the Agency occurred during a time of rapid transition on the plains of eastern Montana. Most devastating for the Crow tribe was the elimination of the bison herds they so desperately relied on. After being hunted to near extinction, the lack of bison ended the Crow’s nomadic lifestyle forever. In 1884, Crow Agency was moved for the third and final time, to its present location on the Little Bighorn River.

Thomas LaForge, a white man, was witness to all of this change. After coming to Montana from Ohio, he decided to live among the Crow Indians. He was adopted by the tribe as a teenager and eventually married a Crow woman. Thomas, along with other Crow Indians, had been assisting the United States military as scouts against their traditional enemies, the Lakota Sioux and the Nez Perce Indians. He missed the Battle of Little Bighorn due to an injury, but later guided surveyors to the proposed site of Fort Custer. He became somewhat of a local legend and served as a scout for campaigns led by notable leaders, including George Custer, Alfred Terry, and John Gibbon.

The LaForge cabin, constructed of logs cut from the Wolf Mountains, was built in Lodge Grass, Montana by Thomas and his oldest son. The simple cabin, which occupied three generations of the LaForge Family, was moved to the Big Horn County Museum in 1981 and holds within its walls stories of transition, turmoil, and tradition from a man who was born white but died a Crow.