The Killdeer Mountains have long been a place of recreation, ranching, conflict, and spiritual meaning. The Killdeer Mountain Roundup Rodeo began in 1924 near the now-defunct town of Oakdale at the base of Killdeer Mountain and quickly became a local tradition, drawing fans who camped for a week to enjoy baseball games, concessions, barbecues, dancing, vaudeville acts, bands, movies, and side shows; by 2008 it had celebrated its 85th anniversary and was the oldest PRCA event in North Dakota, where many local cowboys began careers that reached national championship competition. For some Native people, the Killdeer Mountains were Takhakanouty, meaning the place where they kill deer, while others called them Turtle Hill, and the mountains and the caves known as the Medicine Hole held deep spiritual significance. In 1864, during the Federal government’s campaign to subdue the Plains Indians, General Alfred Sully led a heavily armed force into Dakota Territory to punish the Sioux after attacks on settlers in Minnesota; troops attacked an encampment of Indian families west of here, Sioux warriors resisted but were overwhelmed by cannon fire, and retreated into the rugged, heavily forested slopes of the Killdeer Mountains. Ten army soldiers and fifty Sioux warriors were killed, but the loss of winter supplies harmed the Native Americans most, leaving them scattered and demoralized and unable to mount effective resistance against the Army for several years. A persistent story says some retreating warriors escaped through the Medicine Hole by traveling through caves and tunnels to emerge in the Badlands many miles away. In the 1870s, cattle ranching became a way of life in western North Dakota as ranchers from the southern plains drove cattle north to graze on the open range along the Little Missouri, and Badlands herds soon reached half a million head. That boom collapsed in 1886 when early season blizzards killed an estimated 75% of the herds, but many cattlemen remained with smaller ranches and fewer animals per acre, and the region still includes the state’s leading cattle-producing county, where the cowboy way endures.