Community Events

Wednesday, June 19 - Sunday, June 23

Little Big Horn Days

Hardin, MT

Little Big Horn Days Features Reenactment of Battle of the Little Bighorn

Hardin, Montana (USA) March 14, 2013

Hardin, Montana's Little Big Horn Days will be held from Wednesday, June 19th to Sunday, June 23rd, 2013. During this annual event, put on by the Hardin Area Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture, the town's population swells from 3,500 to more than triple that amount as people from around the state, the U.S. and the world gather to enjoy a celebration of local history and culture.

"Little Big Horn Days is an authentic American West experience," says Al Sargent, who chairs the event for the Hardin Chamber. "It's a terrific mix of history, music, art, food and events, and it's all family-friendly. Everywhere you look there is something to see or do."

Sargent says the crown jewel of Little Big Horn Days is the Custer's Last Stand Reenactment, held once daily on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This reenactment features more than 300 individuals recreating the famous Battle of the Little Bighorn between the U.S. Seventh Calvary, led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, and the combined forces of the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho nations.

"The reenactment is always a huge favorite of visitors," he says. "And afterwards they stay to enjoy everything else we have to offer."

Other planned events for Little Big Horn Days include a street dance featuring country music band Confederate Railroad, a parade featuring a California-based Lamborghini Club, a demolition derby, parades, a street fair, Native American dance demonstrations, suitcase relay races, historical symposiums and exhibits, and much more.

"We are also going to bring back our military ball, which we reintroduced last year," Sargent says. "It will be held Thursday night, before the reenactments begin on Friday. We hold it under a large outdoor tent, and people wear period costumes. The men are in formal military dress and women wear long dresses with all their finery. Everybody waltzes and reels to live 1800s-era music. We also encourage spectators to watch this event."

About The Custer's Last Stand Reenactment The Custer's Last Stand Reenactment began in 1990 with the goal of telling the story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Featuring a script based on the notes of Crow Tribal Historian Joe Medicine Crow, the reenactment takes place six miles west of Hardin, Montana. The reenactments are the centerpiece of Little Big Horn Days, an annual event presented by the Hardin Area Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture. Additional planned events in 2013 include a street dance featuring country music band Confederate Railroad, a parade featuring a California-based Lamborghini Club, a demolition derby, parades, a street fair, Native American dance demonstrations, suitcase relay races, historical symposiums and exhibits, and much more. Entrance to the reenactment is $20 (US) per person. Learn more about the event at www.custerslaststand.org.

Visitor Information
Hardin, Montana (pop 3,500) is located in Big Horn County on the edge of the Crow Reservation in southeastern Montana. Hotels, campgrounds and other accommodations are available in Hardin for reenactment attendees. Additional hotels are available in Billings, Montana (pop. 105,000), a forty-minute drive from Hardin. Flights are available into Billings Logan International Airport.

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Submitted for the Hardin Area Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture (PO Box 446; 10 East Railway; Hardin, MT 59034, 406-665-1672) by:

Mike Curtis, President
Gibson Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations
PO Box 20735
Billings, MT 59104
(406) 670-3412
www.gibsonad.com
www.facebook.com/gibsonad
blog: thoughts on life and advertising: www.gibsonad.com/info/mikesblog

For more information contact Hardin Area Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture PO Box 446 10 East Railway Hardin, MT 59034 406-665-1672)

Saturday, June 22

Castle Gardens Rock Art Site in Fremont County

45 miles east of Riverton

CASPER, WY - - The Alliance for Historic Wyoming (AHW), in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management, will be hosting an event at the Castle Gardens Rock Art Site in Fremont County on June 22, 2013.

Castle Gardens, named for the area's turrets and towers of eroded sandstone, is located approximately 45 miles east of Riverton in the interior Wind River Basin. The area has been attracting visitors for thousands of years, many of whom have left their markings in the soft sandstone. This early "graffiti" is now recognized and appreciated as Native American rock art, also known as petroglyphs and pictographs.

This event is part of AHW's Unbarred series, which provides glimpses into preservation efforts in Wyoming. The Unbarred event on June 22 will feature a tour of the site with Archaeologist Craig Bromley from the Lander BLM as well as a discussion of the tribal importance of this site and its future as a cultural site in Wyoming. The Alliance for Historic Wyoming will be hosting the event as part of their mission to raise awareness of historic and cultural resources in the state and to empower people to protect them.

Visitors who wish to go on the tour are asked to meet at the Waltman Rest Area on Highway 20/26 between Casper and Shoshoni at 10 am. Visitors should bring plenty of water and a lunch and be properly dressed for the weather and conditions as there are limited facilities at the Castle Gardens site. There is little shade at the site, so please plan accordingly.

The first systematic study of Castle Gardens took place in 1932 by professional archaeologist E. B. Renaud of the Archeological Society of the Western High Plains. Renaud was guided by Wyoming geologist JD Love, and came away with valuable drawings and photographs of the area. Renaud found no items from the historic period which indicated that Castle Gardens was an older site.

The most famous rock art at the site is the Castle Gardens Shield Style, the oldest recognizable example of the shield-bearing warrior figure type. This style features elaborately drawn figures and shields and seems to be a style unique to the Bighorn and Wind River Basins in Wyoming. The warrior shields feature geometric and animal forms and were colored with layers of paint in shades of red, orange, black, white, and green. The use of many paint colors, especially green, is rare in Wyoming and is a distinguishing characteristic of the Castle Gardens Shield Style. The Great Turtle shield (housed at the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne) exemplifies the hallmarks of this style.

Sadly, Castle Gardens' history is wrought with vandalism and deterioration. In 1940, vandals chiseled the Great Turtle shield out of the rock, which someone anonymously donated to the Wyoming State Museum in 1941. Castle Gardens was officially opened to the public by the BLM in the 1960s for recreational use. This public access, rather than deter vandalism, only accelerated destruction at the site. Increased foot traffic exposed previously buried cultural resources and vandalism continues to be a serious problem for the area, with modern graffiti marring the sandstone in many places.

Recently the Lander BLM, in partnership with a professional rock art conservator, has completed a rock art condition evaluation and stabilization project to assess the condition of rock art sites, experiment with stabilization methods, and develop a rock-art-management manual for Federal agency managers.

Spectacular rock art of Wyoming occurs all over the state, and comes in several different types and styles. There are over 260 widely distributed rock art sites listed with the SHPO Cultural Records Office at the University of Wyoming's Anthropology Department.

The Alliance for Historic Wyoming, Wyoming's statewide historic preservation nonprofit, was founded in 2005. The organization works to preserve cultural and historic resources on Wyoming's public lands as well as to preserve historic structures throughout the state. To learn more about AHW and its work visit HistoricWyoming.org, email Carly-Ann Anderson at ExecDirector@historicwyoming.org or call 307-333-3508.

For more information contact Carly-Ann Anderson at: ExecDirector@historicwyoming.org or via phone at 307-333-3508. Or, visit HistoricWyoming.org