Fort Fizzle - Montana Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Group of four related interpretive signs at the Fort Fizzle replica west of Lolo, Montana. Sign deals with Fort Fizzle.

Text of Sign #1: The “Soldiers’ Corral”
You’re standing in a replica of an entrenchment and breastworks similar to those built north of this point in
July 1877. Notice the gap between the bottom and top logs. Rifle barrels could be slid through this opening while the logs provided soldiers some protection from return fire.
When Chief Looking Glass heard about the entrenchments, he called them the “soldiers’ corral.” The soldiers hid behind the barrier of two to three logs set on top of the dirt that was thrown forward when they dug the trenches.
The original network of trenches, individual rifle pits, and log breastworks were located to your right across Highway 12. The remains were visible until homesteading, logging, and finally a 1934 forest fire destroyed the shallow depressions and rotting logs.
The Army regulars had been constructing buildings for the new Fort Missoula, so a good supply and variety of tools were available for the field work the soldiers did here.

Text of Sign #2: Taking Cover . . .
During the Civil War, soldiers often fought out in the open causing thousands of casualties. Because of this, the military decided to formally instruct and equip soldiers to entrench themselves. Soldiers and citizens here fully embraced this new strategy.
But in the mountainous terrain of “Lolo Canyon,” holes in the ground had their limits of protection. One citizen volunteer “labored arduously” to prepare his pit. When he was finished . . . “He looked with pride at the results . . . and then climbed a short way up the hillside to give it a better ‘once over.’ He returned with a look of genuine disgust . . . ‘Hell, I can see plumb to the bottom of my pit!”
Brevet Lt. Col. Edmund Rice, invented the trowel-bayonet, which was one tool the infantry used to dig the trench and at least three rifle pits. One of the plates from his instruction manual is shown. The Model 1873 Rice trowel-bayonet was designed to be a hand-shovel, a hatchet, and a bayonet. It was credited with helping save the Regiment twelve days later at the Battle of the Big Hole.

Text of Sign #3: Pauses and Parleys
About twenty miles west of here at Lolo Hot Springs, the Nez Perce heard that soldiers were coming, so they moved cautiously and set up camp four miles from here.
Three parleys (meetings) between Nez Perce soldiers, and citizens were held over the next three days. Neither side found the other’s terms acceptable.
They were going to meet again on the fourth day, but by then the Nez Perce found they could end the stalemate. Nez Perce scouts had found a way to pass around the soldiers without further confrontation.
The military demanded the surrender of arms, ammunition and horses; the Nez Perce refused, saying they needed these for their trek to the east but that they would pass peacefully.

Text of Sign #4: Outwitted and Outflanked
One-half mile west of here, a steep, narrow ravine runs north from Lolo Creek. In the early morning of the fourth day of the standoff, the Nez Perce ascended the ridge next to this ravine. Using skills acquired by life in the mountains and plateaus of their homeland, Nez Perce elders, children, and wounded climbed the ridge with their herd of horses and headed east.
A screen of warriors appeared along the crest of the ridge north of you and taunted the soldiers below. The Nez Perce were now out-of-range and out-of-reach.
After descending from the mountains east of here, the Nez Perce passed peacefully through three separate ranks of volunteers and soldiers, some in route to and others leaving, Fort Fizzle. The Nez Perce then turned south and began a leisurely trek along the west bank of the Bitterroot River.

Describe the area and history: These signs are located at the replica of Fort Fizzle.

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Date Logged Log User Rating   05/18/2014 HM63 visited it 10/09/2010 Volcanoguy visited it

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