The Life and Legend of Yellowstone Kelly exhibit at Blaine County Museum
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Olivia Downs and Austin Haney, staff members at the Blaine County Museum, study one of the panels of the Yellowstone Kelly exhibit on display at the local museum. Luther "Yellowstone" Kelly was a soldier, adventurer and scout who spent much of his life in the Yellowstone and Missouri River territories. The exhibit, on loan from the Western Heritage Center in Billings, depicts the life of the close friend and member of President Teddy Roosevelt's "tennis court."
The Blaine County Museum in Chinook is currently hosting an exhibit about the life of Yellowstone Kelly. Luther Sage Kelly was a Union soldier during the latter stages of the Civil War. He spent much of the remainder of his life in the American West as a hunter, scout, adventurer and eventually as a government official in the Philippines and Indian Agent in Arizona. Kelly was a member of President Teddy Roosevelt's "tennis court," a group of close friends and confidents of the president known for his love of the outdoors and adventure.
The nine-panel exhibit is one of a dozen or so exhibits created by and offered for loan from the Western Heritage Center (WHC) in Billings. Museum Director Sam French said she selected this exhibit for the current display because "it had the most relevancy to the history of our area." Readers may recall the Blackfeet Indian Tipis...exhibit, also from the WHC, that was featured at the local museum in the fall of 2022.
Yellowstone Kelly: a "reticent and restrained" adventurer
Without revealing the entire content of the exhibit, Kelly was born in New York state in 1849. He spent much of his life exploring and adventuring in the Yellowstone and Missouri River territories. Unlike many of his more well known contemporary famed adventurers and military men, Kelly was not a self-promoter and was often described as "reticent and restrained." A couple of examples of his exploits may help demonstrate the low profile he preferred.
Austin Haney, the former ranger for the Bear Paw Battlefield and now working with the local museum, described an encounter Kelly wrote about that occurred near the Bear Paw Mountains. Kelly had a pack horse laden with furs he had trapped. A group of bison, perhaps seeing the pile of furs as an enemy, began to charge Kelly and his horses. Quickly thinking Kelly threw a coat over the furs to hide the furry pelts from the charging animals. That seemed to calm the agitated bison.
An expert in Plains Indian sign talk, Kelly spent time in the Milk River Valley looking for signs of Sitting Bull's Hunkpapa Sioux, a part of the Lakota tribes. In another locale Kelly was ambushed by two Oglala Sioux warriors and survived. From this encounter a band of Gros Ventre named him "Little-Man-With-The-Strong (Big)-Heart." Of this encounter Kelly later wrote, "...this duel had little charm for me." Of his time in and around our area Kelly wrote, this was "...the happiest period of my life as a plainsman and scout...."
Over the years several books were written and some movies were made about the adventures of Yellowstone Kelly. Per the last frame of the current exhibit in the local museum, most of these productions were "wildly inaccurate." After his adventurous career he and his wife moved to California to retire and operate a small fruit farm. Going blind, it was there Kelly wrote the account of his life. In his last will and testament instead of opting for a military burial in Arlington Cemetery, Kelly specified he was to be buried on the Rimrocks overlooking the Yellowstone River in Billings. Laid to rest there in 1929 in a ceremony said to have drawn 1000 people, Kelly's grave and memorial is part of Swords Park near the Billings airport.
The Yellowstone Kelly exhibit will be on display at the Blaine County Museum through the end of June. There is no charge to visit the exhibit. Museum hours are 10am-6pm, Monday-Friday. Call 406-357-2590 for more information about the Blaine County Museum or the Yellowstone Kelly exhibit.
