In the early 1860s, there was not a ranch in this country from Bismarck to Bozeman and from the Platte River to Canada. To non-Indians, it was land considered fit only to raise Indians, and while some hoped for a crop failure, most were indifferent to how much the tribes fought among themselves. That changed when greed asserted itself and John Bozeman blazed a shortcut in 1863 from the Oregon Trail in Wyoming to the gold diggings of southwestern Montana. The Bonanza or Bozeman Trail crossed the last great Indian hunting grounds on the northern Great Plains and forded the Yellowstone River near here, coming from the southeast. It became a trail soaked with the blood of warriors, soldiers, and immigrants. For five years, thousands of Lakota warriors, primarily under Red Cloud's leadership, bolstered by hundreds of Northern Cheyennes and some Arapahos, fought against the trail and forced its closure by the military in 1868, a rare victory over the U.S. Government.