Little Bighorn Battlefield, Montana: History, Ghosts and Visiting

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument covers about 765 acres of grassland and ravines near Crow Agency, on the Crow Reservation in southeast Montana. It protects the ground where, on June 25 and 26, 1876, Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors defeated Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry, and it holds Custer National Cemetery, where about 5,000 veterans and family members are buried.

It is also one of the most storied haunted places in Montana. That reputation does not rest on internet lists alone: the Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield have published decades of accounts from rangers, historians and seasonal staff, most of them centered on the old superintendent’s lodge known as the Stone House. We set those stories out below as what they are, firsthand reports nobody can prove, alongside the history that gives them their power.

History of the Little Bighorn battlefield

In the summer of 1876 the Army sent three columns to force Lakota and Cheyenne bands who had refused to move onto reservations. On June 25 Custer’s 7th Cavalry found a very large village on the Little Bighorn River. He split his regiment: Major Marcus Reno attacked the south end of the village and was driven back across the river to the bluffs, where Captain Frederick Benteen joined him, while Custer led five companies north along the ridges. Within hours Custer and every man with him were dead. Reno and Benteen held their hilltop through June 26 until the village moved away.

Soldiers were buried where they fell, often in shallow graves. On January 29, 1879, the site was preserved as a national cemetery, and in 1881 Lt. Charles F. Roe and the 2nd Cavalry built the granite memorial on Last Stand Hill over a mass grave of the enlisted dead. In 1890 the wooden stakes that marked where men fell were replaced by the white marble markers that still dot the slopes. The Stone House, a red sandstone lodge for the cemetery superintendent, went up in 1894; its lower level is said to have held bodies awaiting burial.

The site passed from the War Department to the National Park Service on July 1, 1940, became Custer Battlefield National Monument on March 22, 1946, and was renamed Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument on December 10, 1991, when Congress also called for a memorial to the Native people who fought there. Red granite markers for fallen warriors have been placed since Memorial Day 1999, and the Indian Memorial, a circular sandstone wall topped by Colleen Cutschall’s bronze Spirit Warriors, was finished in 2003.

Today the monument is a cemetery as much as a battlefield. Custer National Cemetery holds veterans of later wars, and the old Stone House, after years as staff housing, became the White Swan Memorial Library, a research library on the battle.

The ghosts of Little Bighorn

The ghost herder

The oldest tradition comes from the Crow, on whose land the monument stands. According to the Friends of the Little Bighorn, the Crow called the superintendent the ghost herder: lowering the flag at dusk let the spirits of the dead rise, and raising it in the morning sent them back to rest. Military Times repeated the same story in 2021, describing the caretakers’ flag as the signal for spirits to come out at dusk and return to their graves at dawn.

The Stone House

Most of the staff stories come from the 1894 lodge. Former park historian and superintendent Neil Mangum told the Friends that he kept finding lights on in the upstairs apartment, that his front door once refused to open for an hour, and that his dog paced constantly while his family lived there. In 1980 a ranger climbing the stairs heard a voice say ‘second story’ while a new television went blank. A summer ranger in 1986 woke to see a soldier’s torso, with no head or legs, at the foot of his bed.

In early 1989 two staff members heard loud knocks on a locked partition wall when the only other way in was a secured window, and in August 1997, on the last night before the house was converted to a library, a young woman heard footsteps grow louder, saw paint chips fall and heard the kitchen door slam. Others in the house heard nothing. Those accounts are firsthand, but none can be tested, and the Friends say plainly that they report them without trying to prove them.

Lt. Benjamin Hodgson at the kitchen table

The most specific story dates from 1983. Christine Hope, working at the park through the Student Conservation Association and living in Apartment C, said she woke around 2 AM to see a man with a long handlebar mustache sitting at her kitchen table. Shown a photograph the next day by staff member Tim Bernardis, who had walked her over Reno’s retreat crossing the day before, she picked out Lt. Benjamin H. Hodgson of Company B, who was killed at that crossing. She kept her lights on for the rest of her stay. The account was later published in Earl Murray’s book Ghosts of the Old West.

Voices on Last Stand Hill

A National Park Service law enforcement officer told of a sudden chill and faint voices on Last Stand Hill in August 1976. A Minneapolis cab driver came to the visitor center shaken after seeing soldiers and warriors fighting on Battle Ridge, and visitors to the cemetery have described the sound of horses charging and sudden cold spots. A visitor center employee in 1985 described a soldier-like figure in the museum basement that passed through a locked door.

What the historians say

Not everyone agrees there is anything to report. Robert Utley, who worked as a ranger here from 1947 to 1952 and became the leading historian of the battle, said there was no ghost activity in his time and rejected a story that an earlier author, Charles Kuhlman, had contacted Custer’s spirit. Utley also pointed out that supernatural tales tend to collect around legendary places, and this is one of the most legendary in the country.

Where to look

• The Stone House: the 1894 superintendent’s lodge beside the cemetery, now the White Swan Memorial Library, home of most of the staff stories.
• Last Stand Hill: the granite memorial over the mass grave, where an officer heard voices in 1976.
• Custer National Cemetery: where visitors describe charging horses and cold spots.
• Reno-Benteen: the hilltop defense site at the end of the tour road, near the river crossing where Lt. Hodgson fell.
• The visitor center: where a figure was reported in the museum basement in 1985; a temporary contact station serves visitors during construction.

Visiting Little Bighorn Battlefield

The monument is near Crow Agency in Big Horn County, in southeast Montana. It is open every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day, and there is no access outside opening hours. In summer, from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day, the gate, bookstore and cemetery are open 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM and Last Stand Hill, the tour road and Reno-Benteen close at 5 PM; arrive by 4 PM to drive the whole road. In winter everything runs 8 AM to 3:30 PM, and you should arrive by 2 PM.

Entry is $25 per private vehicle, $20 per motorcycle or $15 per person on foot or bicycle, valid for seven days, and America the Beautiful passes are accepted. The park does not take cash. The main visitor center is closed for construction, with a temporary contact station and bookstore open in its place.

The tour road runs 4.5 miles one way from Last Stand Hill to the Reno-Benteen site, with markers along the ridges. Walk the short Deep Ravine Trail, visit the Indian Memorial, and take time in the cemetery. Ghost hunting is not allowed, and this is a cemetery and a sacred place for many tribes, so treat it with respect.

• Visiting National monument; no access outside opening hours
• Hours and season Daily; summer 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM, winter 8 AM to 3:30 PM
• Tickets $25 per private vehicle; no cash
• Ghost hunting Not allowed; the park closes at the end of the day

Tips for your visit

• Start at Last Stand Hill, then drive to Reno-Benteen and work back.
• Visit in the last hour before closing for the quietest light on the ridges.
• Bring water and sun protection; there is little shade.
• Look for the red granite warrior markers as well as the white soldier markers.
• Find the Stone House beside the cemetery and picture the stories told about it.
• Read Robert Utley or visit the bookstore before you go; the ground makes more sense once you know the battle.

More haunted places nearby

• Haunted places in Montana: the Old Montana Prison, Bannack, the Dumas Brothel and more
• Pollard Hotel, Red Lodge: a haunted historic hotel in Red Lodge, in the Beartooth foothills
• Haunted hotels in Montana: haunted places to stay across the state
• Haunted places in Montana

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

• National Park Service: Little Bighorn hours
• National Park Service: Little Bighorn fees
• Wikipedia: Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument
• Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield: Ghosts along the Little Bighorn
• Military Times: 6 haunting military ghost stories (2021)