MONTANA PARK OF THE WEEK: Medicine Rocks State Park

Enjoy photography, hiking, camping, and wildlife viewing at Medicine Rocks. As the name implies, it was a place of "big medicine" where Native American hunting parties gathered.

Teddy Rosevelt was one of the first tourists to visit the park in the late 1800s. He is quoted as saying, "As fantastically beautiful a place as I have ever seen."

For over 10,000 years, Native Americans visited these formations gathering their sacred plants and fossils. As they continued to visit the site throughout the generations, they began to leave their marks on the site.

Many tribes began to set up permanent residences around the sacred site. The A'aninin, Arikara, Assiniboine Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, Mandan, and Sioux are among these tribes.

In 1804 Lewis and Clark came to the area, and a few decades later, white settlers followed in their footsteps. Wealthy cattle ranchers eventually claimed the area, forcing the remaining Natives from their holy site.

The town of Ekalaka was founded by one of the local ranchers, David Harrison Russell, a former scout, and frontiersman. He named the place after a 16-year-old Sioux girl that he fell in love with and eventually married. Ijkalaka is an Oglala word meaning "Restless."

By the early 1900s, the area had become popular for camping and picnicking. By the '30s, the county had seized the property due to unpaid taxes, turning it over to the state in the 1950s.

Not all formations exist within the limits of the state park; some are still privately owned. The area is still considered sacred to many of the local tribes and held in high regard by the locals, who have been recreating in the site for almost 200 years.

Park: Open year-round.

Day use hours: 7 am - 10 pm.

Camping: Open year-round.Campsites are on a first come first serve basis.

Location:

1141 Hwy. 7 Ekalaka, MT