2 Signs, 1 Stop
N 46° 59.400 W 107° 51.617
13T E 282511 N 5208024
Two historical markers located at the Mosby Rest Area on Highway 200 in Montana mentioning the significance of trading in early Montana, a plan to steal business from Fort Benton, and the history of the phrase "Liver-Eating".
Waymark Code: WM93FH
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 06/22/2010
Views: 5
Text of first sign:
FORT MUSSELSHELL
Fort Musselshell was located on the Missouri River about 35 miles north of here. It was a trading post in the '60s and '70s and as such had a brief but colorful career. The only whites in that part of the state were woodchoppers for the Missouri River steamboats, wolfers, trappers, and Idian traders.
The River Crows andGros Ventre Indians traded there. A buffalo robe brought them 3 cups of coffee, or 6 cups of sugar, or 10 cups of flour. It was tolerably profitable business from the traders standpoint.
The Assiniboine and Sioux regarded this post as an amusement center where bands of ambitious braves could lie in ambush and get target practice on careless whites.
During the cattle days of the 80's on the mouth of the Musselshell became a cattle rustlers hangout but after a Vigilance Committee stretched a few of them they seemed to lose interest.
Text of Second Sign
KERCHIVAL CITY
Competition to supply the mining camps was fierce in Montana in the 1860's. Many oppertunitsts realized that the real money was not in mining for gold, but in "mining the miners" by provigind essential goods andservices. Fort Benton dominated upper Missouri trade. Stemboat landings andtrading posts established downriver of the worlds innermost port sought to circumvent Fort Benton's monopoly. The mouth of the Musselshell River, about 35 miles north of here, was ideal for trading. Above there the river was treacherous and unreliable, but below the Musselshell, rapids were fewer and the water deeper. Consequently, the mouth of the Musselshell was a busy place in the 1860s.
The Rocky Mountain wagon Company built a log cabin andstockade there in 1866 Called kerchival City after a steamboat captain who promoted the venture. The owners hoped that ships and mining camp traders would funnel freight, passengers and gold through them rather than Fort Benton. The scheme was unsuccessful - the steamboats would not stop and the Lakota Indians harassed the residents. By 1868, the settlement was all but abandoned, a monument to a failed dream of oppertunity and wealth. It was at Kerchival City that one of Montana's most colorful characters, John Johnson, earned the sobriquet "Liver-eating" after a bloody skirmish with the Lakota in 1869.