Fort Walsh Trail

Another wagon road ran northeast from Fort Benton to the Cypress Hills and Medicine Hat, Alberta. It passed through Big Sandy, on north near Havre, and into the Cypress Hills. In 1873 Fort Benton whiskey traders massacred Indians in the Cypress Hills. As a result, the Northwest Mounted Police were organized in 1874 to bring law and order to the Northern Plains. The next year the Mounties built Fort Walsh in the hills along the road. Some supplies that came up the trail were destined for Sitting Bull and his Sioux refugees from 1877 to 1881.

Big Sandy, Montana · United States