Welcome to Makoshika State Park, what many consider to be “the jewel of Eastern Montana.” With 11,531 acres, Makoshika is Montana’s largest state park. It gets its name from a Lakota phrase meaning, “land of bad spirits” or “badlands.”

Some archeologists think that inhabitants have lived in the area for over 12,000 years or more. When European settlers arrived around 1800, they called the place “hell with out fire” because they were amazed by the stark beauty of the place.

The beauty took its time. It began as a tropical sea in prehistoric times. Many layers of mud built up on the bottom of the sea, the mud was made up of the decayed remains of plants and animals. Slowly, more layers of mud buried the first layers, until the earlier layers were under tremendous pressure. This process continued for millions of years until the mud became petrified into stone. Then, approximately 65 million years ago, the are that is now Makoshika was a flood plain. The Yellowstone River and the streams that flow into it, cut deeply into the rock exposing colorful bands of stone. The water eroded away the stone in places

The site became a state park in 1939 when Dawson County donated 160 acres to the state. Another 80 acres were donated by the county in 1953, and the state acquired additional lands from the US Bureau of Land Management, Dawson County, and private landowners over the course of the following five decades.