For centuries, this area along Bear Butte Creek was a favored camp site for Plains Indians, who found mountain spring water, wood, protection from bitter north winds, and abundant game and wild fruit in season. Here, or nearly adjacent, the Grand Council of 1857 was held and attended by many bands of Plains Indians, who determined to resist white advance into their lands, especially the mountainous area now known as the Black Hills. Crazy Horse, an Oglalla then still a young man, was inspired by this plan of resistance and vowed to dedicate his life to the cause. Although the participants did not strictly adhere to the principles agreed upon, the hostility and discontent of the next two decades culminated in the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. Adjacent Ft. Meade, first established as Camp Ruhlen in August 1878, was often obliged to house, feed, and clothe Indian encampments here. For years Oglallas under Chief Lips claimed this as their abode, but with the coming of settlers and the establishment of reservation boundaries, the site was abandoned. Numerous scars made by sharpening tools remain in the great rock walls to the north and on the huge floodplain boulders near the creek as evidence of the site's long Indian use.