TALKING TRAIL

The land in the Little Bend area was carved out by a melting glacier and has been home to people for over 10,000 years. In fact, the U.S. Army Corps and Engineers and the University of Nebraska in Lincoln discovered prehistoric and historic cultural artifacts hidden in plain sight above the water along the east shore of Lake Oahe, which led to the Cooper Village Archeological Site’s inclusion on the National Registry of Historic Places in 2003.

Located on the southern edge of the Little Bend Recreation Area, the ancient village was home to a group of people, likely ancestors of the Arikara, five hundred years ago. Arikara villages included houses built with corner posts and roof beams, then timbers laid on in a circular pattern. Willows, rushes and grasses were placed over the beams and the whole structure was covered with mud. The Arikara farmed the river bottom, storing their crops in “cache-pits” through the winter. The river provided them with fish and they hunted bison and deer.

As the Lakota and Dakota moved into the region in the 1700’s and diseases like smallpox, measles and the flu decimated the villages in the early 1800’s, the remaining people moved north, joining with their relatives the Mandan and Hidatsa to form the Three Affiliated Tribes.

The Verendrye party came to the region in 1743 and were likely the first white men to arrive here. Lewis and Clark found John Valle operating a trading store on the north side of the river as they passed around Little Bend on their way up the Missouri. In 1896, the Pierre Ranch and Cattle Company purchased much of the land in Little Bend and had it stocked with several hundred head of cattle. Within ten years, the ranch was sold to H. P. Knox, a local businessman, who had established a sawmill, grocery store, and post office. By the thirties, the land had once again changed hands and became the property of the United States Government and was used to establish a National Game Reserve. As part of the relief work during the Depression, workers built dams and cleared brush. Soon, the area became a popular place for fishing, hunting, and boating.

Although he had moved miles away from the river, H. P. Knox spent most of his last years engaged in his favorite activity, fishing the “Old Muddy Missouri.” When he didn’t return on Sept 8, 1941 and his boat was found overturned, it was clear he had joined the hundreds of others whose histories lie submerged beneath the mighty waters of Lake Oahe.