This site on Main Street in downtown Bismarck has always hosted the railroad depots. A small wood-frame freight depot was built here in the 1870s, and of course, with that came the telegraph. That depot burned in 1898, and was replaced with the 1900 Spanish Mission-Revival beauty that stands here today -- see (
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A small subtle plaque on a small quartzite boulder under some trees on the west side of the property reads as follows:
"From approximately this spot on July 5, 1876, Colonel Clement A. Lounsberry, the founder of the Bismarck Tribune, in a feat of newspaper enterprise that overcame many obstacles, flashed – by telegraph – to the New York Herald the first account of Custer’s defeat and death at Little Big Horn.
Few News stories have so electrified a nation.
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This spot marked by
Sigma Delta Chi and ND Press Association
April 10, 1953"
Lounsberry had a personal connection to this story since his Assistant Editor Mark Kellogg was traveling with Custer, filing dispatches back to the Bismarck Tribune. Kellogg died with Custer at Little Big Horn. Source: (
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Some details of that historic day can be found here: (
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"Late in the evening of July 5, 1876, the Missouri River steamer Far West pulled up to the dock at Bismarck, Dakota Territory. Soon its crew spread the news in the town that Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and 268 men of his 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment had been killed in battle with the Plains Indians on June 25-26, 1876, at the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory. Editor Clement Lounsberry worked tirelessly throughout the night to produce a special edition of his newspaper, the Bismarck Tribune, published the next day, July 6, 1876, that carried the first full account of what would become known as one of this country’s most famous battles. In addition, he telegraphed the news to the New York Herald and other Eastern newspapers. Among the battle casualties at the Little Bighorn was Lounsberry’s reporter, Mark Kellogg."
Col. Clement A. Lounsberry, a Union Civil War veteran, who got the biggest news scoop of the 19th century, is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.