Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park

 

Our next stop was just an overnight along the way at Brown County Fairgrounds in Aberdeen, South Dakota.  This fairgrounds has over 1000 RV spots, in three different campgrounds -- and I think there were a total of 7 campers there along with us.  This is much more to my liking than the noisy, crowded KOA of the two previous nights!  But only because we were there when nothing else was going on.  Apparently, the Brown County Fair is actually bigger than the South Dakota State Fair! 

The best campground view -- nobody in sight!

Yup, that's the sun.  Canadian wildfire air quality issues.

Our next stop was Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park.  This, again, was a relatively random stop based on how much travel we (and by "we" I mean "Doug" since he does all the driving) wanted to do in a day.  We had no interest in this park beyond that, yet it turned out to be one of the most thought-provoking experiences of the year.

Fort Abraham Lincoln is near Mandan, North Dakota, across the Missouri River from Bismarck.  In addition to a lovely and large campground along the river, the park is home to "On-a-Slope Village," a re-creation of the extensive earthen shelters created by the Mandan indigenous peoples.  There's a great little visitor's center with interpretive exhibits on this, as well.  

Fort Abraham Lincoln came later, after the Mandan had already left the area.  Home to both US Cavalry and Infantry Companies, several buildings have been reconstructed and lovingly staged, including cavalry stables and bunkhouse, the commissary, infantry watch towers and, my favorite, the house in which General Custer and his wife, Libby, lived.  Custer was commander at Fort Abraham Lincoln at the time of his death.  Apparently, there are many photographs of the interior of the house and the restoration is incredibly faithful to those; it is just beautifully done.  It felt as though the family had just stepped away for a bit -- I can't recall another similarly staged re-creation that felt so authentic.  Many of the furniture pieces and even some of the draperies were original, carefully stored all those years after Custer's death and Libby's return East.  

We paid $5 to take the guided tour, which was worth several times that.  Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and very impartial; if he thought Custer was a hero or a villain, he didn't let on.   It was surprisingly difficult to learn that a) there are guided tours of both Custer House and of the On-A-Slope Village and b) what time those tours take place.  In retrospect, I wish we'd allocated more time here than we did; there was much we didn't get to explore.

I vaguely knew that Libby Custer was born in the same town as me, Monroe, Michigan, but not that she met George because he was sent there to school.  I have not thought of Monroe as some kind of 19th-century educational Mecca and now need to research that idea!