Lightning Creek Fight with Jim Kruse

Niobrara County rancher Jim Kruse will share the history of the Lightning Creek fight at the library.

Just before sunset on October 31, 1903, a sheriff’s posse and a band of Oglala Sioux from the Pine Ridge Reservation engaged in a brief, sharp gunfight near Lightning Creek, northeast of Douglas, Wyoming.

Earlier that fall U.S. Indian Agent John R. Brennan had authorized two parties of Oglala Sioux families to leave the Pine Ridge Reservation to search for medicinal plants, herbs, and berries. He warned them not to hunt in Wyoming or Montana. One family was headed back to the reservation when a posse, which included Sheriff William Miller of Weston County, encountered them on October 30 and tried to arrest them for violating game laws. Charles Smith, who was the Oglala leader of the tribe, convinced the Indians that they should return to the reservation rather than go to Newcastle, WY, with the sheriff. The next encounter on October 31, resulted in a five-minute fight with seven deaths.

The Niobrara Historical Society will host a tour, in collaboration with the Weston County Historical Society, to the battle site on Saturday, September 21 at 12:30 p.m. Contact JoAnn Wade (307-216-0400) by September 15 for more details and to register. The tour will include traveling to the location of the battle and the site of the cabin where the wounded were taken.  Attendees will need to bring water and a lawn chair if standing is difficult. The site is 90 minutes to and from Lusk.