Chief Plenty Coups State Park Author(s): Molly Holz Source: Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 88-89 Published by: Montana Historical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4520223 Accessed: 05-01-2018 21:30 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Montana Historical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Montana: The Magazine of Western History This content downloaded from 184.171.112.49 on Fri, 05 Jan 2018 21:30:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms ontana Traveler Chief Plenty Coups home (above) is under study, as is the park, for improved restoration and interpretation. WI hen Plenty Coups, the last traditional lated the story of his vision to Linderman in 1928. That chief of the Crow Indians, recounted his life same year, on August 8, Plenty Coups presented his story to the writer Frank Bird Linderman in homestead for use as a park. "This park is not a me- 1928, he told of a vision. Conferring with Linderman morial to me," he declared during the dedication cer- at his home on the Crow Indian Reservation thirty-five emony, "but to the Crow nation. It is a token of my miles south of Billings, Plenty Coups explained how friendship for all people, red and white." the vision had set the course of his life. Though Plenty There is much to see at Chief Plenty Coups' home- Coups was then eighty years old, his memory of it had site. There is a museum, the only one in the world fo- not dimmed. When he had been about twenty, he said, cusing solely on Crow history and culture. There is he had visited a traditional Crow site in the Crazy the spring, revealed to Plenty Coups in his vision, which Mountains and seen himself as an old man. "I saw the continues to bubble forth cold and strong. Chief Plenty spring down by those trees," he told Linderman, "this Coups attributed his long life and good health to its very house just as it is, these trees which comfort us supply of water, and it was beside the spring that he today, and a very old man sitting in the shade, alone." prayed about important decisions. The spring is sa- And so it had come to pass, along with the profound cred to the Crow people, who continue to hold cer- changes the vision implied and with which his people emonies there. To the northwest are the grave sites of would have to contend. Chief Plenty Coups, Kills Together, his wife of thirty Plenty Coups was revered in his lifetime for his wis- years, Strikes the Iron, whom he married in 1923, and dom and diplomatic skill in helping his people make his adopted daughter, Mary. To the north are sand- the transition from traditional lifeways to reservation stone bluffs that mark traditional Crow burial sites, and life as settled agriculturalists. Remembered for those to the south stand the Pryor Mountains. qualities today, he is also commemorated with Chief Plenty Coups' life at Pryor and his homestead on Plenty Coups State Park, a park that includes the home- the reservation represented Crow efforts to balance stead where he sat beneath cottonwood trees and re- forced assimilation to American ways of life with pres- 88 This content downloaded from 184.171.112.49 on Fri, 05 Jan 2018 21:30:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms SPRING 2000 -a MONTANA TRAVELER ervation of Crow cultural traditions. Speaking viewed before today at the park's museum. the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in Washington, When Plenty Coups and his wife Strikes the Iron D.C., in 1908, Plenty Coups said, "I am chief deeded of the189 acres "as a park and recreation ground for tribe and as such I tell the younger men, 'Come all people" follow (40 to be used as a park and the remainder me,' and raise the crop for my own support toand support I teach its maintenance), they asked that one room the young men what I know myself." One of thethe house first be reserved for display of the items Plenty Crow chiefs to take up farming, Plenty Coups Coups settled had collected. After Plenty Coups' death in 1932 on 360 acres in the Pryor Valley in 1883 andthe Bighornbuilt a County Commissioners assumed respon- thriving farm. In 1908 the farm included 80sibility irrigated for the site and engaged a ranch caretaker. In acres under cultivation and an apple orchard, 1941, supported a stone monument was dedicated at the grave site 250 horses and 36 cattle, and produced 54 tons by the of Billingshay, Kiwanis Club, which assumed manage- 250 bushels of wheat, and 280 bushels of oats. ment of the park in 1951, in part due to Plenty Coups' Under tall cottonwood trees stands Plenty inductionCoups' log in 1924 as an honorary Kiwanian. The orga- cabin home, built in 1884, and beside it a log nization structure operated a small museum on the first floor of in which he operated a general store. Plenty the Coupshouse, improved accessibility, placed headstones opened the store, which he called "the mess," at the in grave 1893 site, and paid for a caretaker. In 1961, stew- to sell fruit from his orchards ardship of the site passed to and other supplies to local To Roun the Montana State Highway \ ToShepherd people and the laborers who vTo, SeedCommission, which, in 1965, constructed irrigation canals on Chief Plenty CO turned it over to the parks di- vision of the Montana Fish and the reservation. Plenty (35 Coups,mles from Bifngs) (Statf rk who did not write English, kept Game Department as a state accounts on pieces of card- park. With donations and board with drawings denoting tribal and state money, the customers' names and marks in- museum was built in 1972, al- dicating the money they owed. though the chiefs home and At one point the chief ex- i... ~ store remained closed to the plained, "I would rather hunt public because of their fragil- buffalo for a living, but we can- CreekyRd ^ ity. A $100oo,ooo grant in 1993 not. So I have opened a grocery t r w allowed for stabilization of store." It was a popular meet- I building exteriors, and since ing place. T ry ToSt. r 1994 an additional $172,000 The one-and-a-half-story has been spent on park im- log house, with additions provements, includingadded stabilization in 1900 of the house'sand in- 1909, was one of the most important terior. Further buildingsimprovements are under on study. the In 1998, Crow reser- vation and accommodated the site was designatedmany a Nationalcallers. Historic Landmark.On the ground floor was a kitchen and Chief a Plentylarge Coups room State Park for is located dances about a and coun- cils as well as a bedroom half mile westfor of Pryor. visitors, Follow Highway including 416 south from the Je- suit priests who came interstate to visit exit 447 St.to Pryor Charles Creek Road, whichCatholic runs Church and school that stood southa few to the townmiles of Pryor. to Take the BIA Road south. no. 5 west At Plenty Coups' request, Jesuits to the park,built which theis located school at the intersection in 1891with so that local children could receive an education and live at BIA Road no. 8. The park and museum are open from home. An advocate of learning English and of educa- May 1 through September 30, the park 8 A.M. to 8 P.M., tion generally, Plenty Coups advised: "Education is your and the museum 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Tours of Plenty most powerful weapon. With education you are the white Coups' home are available by arrangement with park man's equal; without education you are his victim andstaff. On the first Saturday in September, the park cel- so shall remain all your lives." Upstairs was Plenty Coups' ebrates Chief Plenty Coups Day of Honor. In addition, bedroom and a room where he kept important papers the chiefs story lives on in Linderman's Plenty Coups: and photographs of notable occasions, including his hav-Chief of the Crows. For more information write to Chief ing represented all American Indians at the 1921 dedica- Plenty Coups State Park, Box 100, Pryor, Montana tion of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, 59066, or call (406) 252-1289. o, D.C. Other of his affects-weapons, medicine bundles, Crow finery, items of spiritual significance, and such gifts as the rifle from Prince Albert I of Monaco-can be MOLLY HOLZ is assistant editor of this magazine. 89 This content downloaded from 184.171.112.49 on Fri, 05 Jan 2018 21:30:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms.