With thousands of visitors preparing to converge on Crow Agency for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, business owners near the national monument are voicing frustration over closures that have cut into the tourist traffic they depend on — arriving at the worst possible time.
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument is one of Montana's most visited historic sites, drawing visitors from across the country and around the world each summer. The anniversary of the June 25-26, 1876 battle is expected to bring an especially large crowd, making the timing of any access restrictions particularly painful for the trading posts, fuel stops, and small businesses that ring the monument on the Crow Reservation.
One trading post owner described feeling the toll of the closures directly in lost sales, with travelers who can't reach the battlefield having little reason to stop. The frustration is compounded by the sense that the 150th anniversary — a generational tourism moment — is slipping by while access issues remain unresolved.
The monument is managed by the National Park Service. Details on the specific nature or duration of the closures were not immediately available, but the situation underscores the economic dependence of reservation border communities on federal land access — a dynamic familiar to Montanans in communities adjacent to Glacier, Yellowstone, and other federally managed sites.