In September 1875, a lone cottonwood served as a landmark where the Allison Commission met with thousands of Lakota Sioux in a futile effort to buy the Black Hills. Based on the recollections of elderly Lakotas, the Captain Christopher Robinson Chapter, D.A.R., of Crawford identified what was believed to be the historic tree in May 1932. Sometimes called the treaty tree, the cottonwood died in the 1970s.