For its importance in the history of indigenous people and as an archaeological site, a State Park was created around the site. Within the park is the buffalo jump itself, a gravesite and evidence of a native village in which the band camped during the buffalo hunt. There is also an old trail which may have originally been an ancient bison pathway. Outside the village site are other Tepee rings and hearth sites. About a quarter mile above the kiosk at the parking area is another interpretive kiosk with signage relating various aspects of the site.
Budget cuts and limited funding have put this state park, and others, in jeopardy of becoming extinct. When the possibility was presented to the citizenry, the response was overwhelmingly against that option, overwhelmingly in favor of the status quo. See below.
Comments overwhelmingly oppose FWP divesture of Madison
Buffalo Jump State Park
By EVE BYRON Independent Record Feb 5, 2013
Comments gathered during the past month are overwhelmingly opposed to removing the Madison Buffalo Jump State Park from the oversight of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
More than 230 people submitted comments to FWP, with the vast majority extolling not just the park’s “solitude, stark beauty and wildlife resources,” but also the historical values of its teepee rings, eagle traps and buffalo bones strewn about at the base of the cliff. Many recalled hiking and horseback riding in the area, and were concerned about losing more recreational areas in one of the fastest developing regions in Montana.
The buffalo jump is listed on the National Historic Register and is located on the east side of the Madison River Valley near Logan, about seven miles south of I-90. For about 2,000 years, hunters on foot, often disguised in hides, hazed bison over an 85-foot cliff, where they fell down the slope to their deaths. Historic butchering areas and campsites still sit below the cliffs.
An interpretive display helps visitors understand the events that took place there and the site is open to the public year-round, with an FWP employee managing the park along with others that are nearby.
Yet a recent audit turned up that while FWP has been managing the 638 acres around the buffalo jump as a state park for years, 617 acres actually is owned by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. The Parks Division said it cost an average of $15,192 per year from fiscal year 2008 through 2012 to operate the park, and only earned an average of $1,839 annually in revenue.
It saw an average of 3,786 visitors during those four years, not including about 600 school children who ventured there to learn more about Native Americans and early Montana history.
Read on at the Helena Independent Record