Visitor Center Expansion Nixed for Little Bighorn, Lawsuit Halts National Park Service Plan for “Last Stand Hill”

Custer's Crow scouts returned to the Little Bighorn battle site for this historic photo. Photo: Nebraska State Historical Society

A modern-day battle—a lawsuit—has stopped NPS plans to build a theater at the base of Last Stand Hill.

The National Park Service (NPS) announced Aug. 19, 2008 it would abandon a controversial plan to build an enclosed theater with seating for 200 at the visitor center at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. The decision was apparently prompted by a federal lawsuit filed in July by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) on behalf of three former Little Bighorn National Battlefield superintendents, the Custer Battlefield Historical & Museum Association and some notable historians. The plaintiffs contended the plan violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and NPS’s own management policies.

The NPS announced it would formally withdraw approval for construction of the visitor center expansion.

“…we’ve concluded there are other ways that we can achieve those goals without encroaching further onto the battlefield,” said NPS Regional Director Michael Snyder.

The agency planned on locating the theater at the base of Last Stand Hill. Atop the hill is where General George Custer and what remained of the U.S. 7th Cavalry were killed in the eastern Montana Territory on June 26, 1876 by Lakota and Northern Cheyenne warriors led by Sitting Bull. The battle had several fronts, including a devastating Indian attack earlier in the day by the Little Bighorn River.

“Sometimes you just have to admit that you didn’t do your homework as well as you might have thought,” Mr. Snyder admitted, a sentiment that pointedly describes Custer’s preparation for confronting the Sioux Nations.

NPS Chief Historian Robert Utley, the lead plaintiff in the PEER suit, said he was pleased the regional director “recogniz(ed) the flaws of his approach (and) withdrew it altogether.” Mr. Utley added: “Hopefully, he and his staff will now proceed with enlightened planning to remove intrusions from the historic landscape and implement the current general management plan and open an offsite facility.”

That general management plan calls for removing the visitor center entirely, because it is seen as a major intrusion on the historic landscape. The plan opts for an off-site facility. The NPS said it will work with specialists to develop other approaches to providing film and interpretive talks for park visitors.