Montana: Billings and Little Big Horn

Billings, Montana was named after Frederick Billings, who was president of the Northern Pacific Railroad in the early 1880's at the time that the town was established along the railroad's route. Mr. Billings was a native of Royalton and Woodstock Vermont, and is the "Billings" of the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park in Woodstock (a plug for the only national park in Vermont - http://www.nps.gov/mabi/index.htm, at which Chris has volunteered for several years).
On display in the National Park mansion's library is a small 18-20" statue of Mr. Billings, which we had been told is a model of the full-sized version to be found in the city of Billings. Locating that statue in the city of Billings became our mission.


We saw a number of statues in town, but sadly, when we inquired about the location of the Billings statue, we were first met with "I'm not sure - who did you say he was?".



However, with the help of a KOA clerk we were able to locate it on a city map in front of the Western Heritage Center on Montana Avenue.





We were delighted to find out that the Western Heritage Center is also the former Parmly Billings Library, donated in 1900 by the Billings family in honor Frederick's eldest son Parmly (1863-1888).
The library was slated for the wrecking ball in 1967, but the city chose to preserve the building in its current incarnation as the Heritage Center, and the Laurance Rockefeller family (Laurance's wife Mary was Frederick Billing's grand-daughter) provided for the update of the building's landscaping in 1993.




















Later the same morning, we visited the Little Big Horn National Monument - the site of Custer's Last Stand on June 25, 1876 against a combined force of Northern Plains Indian tribes. As per the National Park flyer, "Although the Indians won the battle, they subsequently lost the war against the military's effors to end their independent, nomadic way of life....The tribes [subsequently] scattered... and most... returned to the reservations and surrendered in the next few years".


The memorial equally honors all that fell in the battle - Custer's battalion as well as the Native Americans, making the point that all fought and died defending their known way of life.