The Nez Perce in Yellowstone: Eighteen Seventy-Seven

In the late summer of eighteen seventy-seven, one of the most dramatic events in the history of the American West passed through the area that is now West Yellowstone. The Nez Perce people, known in their own language as the Nimiipu, were fleeing United States Army forces that had attacked their homeland in Idaho. Roughly eight hundred people, including warriors, families, children, and elders, were moving east under the leadership of chiefs including Looking Glass and White Bird, heading toward Canada and what they hoped would be safety.

Their route in late August took them through the western sections of what had been designated Yellowstone National Park just five years earlier. The geyser basins and boiling springs were deeply unfamiliar to many in the party, creating anxiety during an already desperate journey. Inside the park, the Nez Perce encountered small groups of tourists, some of whom were reportedly pressed into service as guides in the confusion of the flight. Tense confrontations occurred, and several resulted in violence. News reports dramatizing the events reached newspapers across the country within days, adding a dimension to Yellowstone's early reputation that its railroad promoters had not anticipated.

The Nez Perce escaped the park through its northeastern corner and continued north toward the Bear Paw Mountains in north-central Montana, where they were surrounded and forced to surrender in October of eighteen seventy-seven, just forty miles short of the Canadian border. The Museum of the Yellowstone in the old Union Pacific depot in West Yellowstone tells the story of the region, and the Nez Perce flight of eighteen seventy-seven connects this town to the passage of people who never chose to come to Yellowstone for tourism.