Big Hole National Battlefield - Montana

On August 9, 1877 gun shots shattered a chilly dawn on a sleeping camp of Nez Perce. Colonel John Gibbon and 163 men of the 7th Infantry and 34 Bitterroot Volunteers had orders to stop the non-treaty Nez Perce and return them to Idaho. The nearly 800 Nez Perce men, women, and children had fled their native lands when being forced onto a smaller reservation.

Big Hole National Battlefield is part of Nez Perce National Historical Park that has thirty-eight sites spread over four states (Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington) that touch on many of the threads that make up the Nez Perce story.

Big Hole National Battlefield is located ten miles west of Wisdom, Montana on state highway 43.

From I-15 at Dillon, Montana take highway 278 northwest to Wisdom, then highway 43, ten miles west.

From I-15 at Divide, take route 43 west through Wisdom to Battlefield.

From Missoula, Montana, take state route 93 south through the Bitterroot Valley to Lost Trail Pass. Turn east on highway 43 and drive 17 miles to the battlefield.