FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 28, 2007

Contact: Mark Sundlov

(701) 572-9034

HISTORY ALIVE! CAMPFIRE FEATURING YELLOWSTONE VIC SMITH
AT FORT BUFORD STATE HISTORIC SITE OCTOBER 13

WILLISTON – Fort Buford State Historic Site will sponsor a special History Alive! event on Saturday, October 13. Campfire stories with frontiersman and buffalo hunter Yellowstone Vic Smith will feature spine-tingling stories from the colorful memoirs of Vic Smith, as portrayed by actor/historian Arch Ellwein. The program will start in the glow of the campfire at the Fort Buford camping area at 7:30 p.m.

As a man involved with some of the Old West’s wildest events, the stories that Yellowstone Vic Smith will share in the campfire light will be colorful and graphic. Due to the content of the stories and the inherent danger of campfires this event is not suitable for the youngest children. It is recommended that parents use their best discretion and that children under eight not attend.

The campfire stories will last about 45 minutes, followed by free refreshments at the Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center. The Confluence Center’s museum store will also be open for business.

Visitors should wear clothing appropriate to the weather. Visitors are also welcome to bring flashlights. There is no admission charge.

Ellwein is an advertising consultant and Williston-Sidney area actor and children’s theater director. Since 1996, Ellwein has been bringing historical figures to life for audiences in nine western states, including Captain Grant Marsh, probably best known as the Missouri River steamboat captain of the Far West, which brought back the wounded after the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876; Sergeant John Ordway, the First Sergeant of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1803-06; and President Theodore Roosevelt.

Yellowstone Vic Smith, born Victor Grant Smith (1850-1925), was a buffalo hunter, trapper, dispatch rider, scout and storyteller. He was hired as a hunting guide by the French aristocrat and cattle baron, the Marquis de Mores, during the Marquis’s time in the frontier town of Medora in Dakota Territory in the 1880s. The unlimited style of hunting by Smith and many others led to the near-extinction of the buffalo. During the winter of 1881-82, he reportedly killed more than 5,000 buffalo in southeastern Montana. Later in life, Smith wrote that he

wished “my aim hadn’t been so good.” In his memoirs, The Champion Buffalo Hunter: The Frontier Memoirs of Yellowstone Vic Smith, he chronicled his encounters with notorious outlaws, buffalo and bear hunts, Indian fights, and natural disasters, as well as such frontier personalities as Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull and Theodore Roosevelt.

Fort Buford was established as a military post in 1866 to guard the trails west and serve as a major supply depot, functioning until 1895. When the fort was decommissioned in 1895, it included more than 100 buildings and structures. Today, in addition to the Field Officer’s Quarters where Sitting Bull surrendered in 1881, only two other original buildings remain – the Officer-of-the-Day Building and the stone powder magazine. The nearby fort cemetery also still exists. During its 29-year history, Fort Buford was expanded twice – in 1867, using materials taken from the old Fort Union Trading Post site two miles west, and again in 1871. The state acquired the Fort Buford property as a state historic site on June 22, 1931. Today, the site encompasses approximately 189 acres, including Confluence Park, where the Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center is located.

Located one-half mile east of Fort Buford, the Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center tells the story of the confluence of these two mighty rivers, as well as provides the same magnificent view that Lewis and Clark Expedition members enjoyed when they visited in 1805 and 1806. It is open year-round. Its winter hours are now in effect, and are Wednesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. Central Time. It is closed on New Year’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission is $5 per adult, $2.50 per child, ages 6-15, and children 5 and under are admitted free.

For more information, contact Fort Buford State Historic Site Supervisor Mark Sundlov at (701) 572-9034.

– 30 –