Yellowstone Kelly’s Grave

On the Rimrocks [1] along Black Otter Trail is Yellowstone Kelly’s Grave, placed here at his request at a site overlooking the Yellowstone River.

Luther Kelly was an adventurer of an old-fashioned sort, better suited to fiction than reality. He came west after the Civil War and found the rough-and-ready life here to his liking, despite his cultivated Eastern background. He learned both the Crow and Sioux languages and campaigned with General Miles when the Army forced the Indians onto reservations following the battle at Little Bighorn.

Kelly later ventured to Alaska and later still became a provincial governor in the Philippines. Back on this continent, he became an Indian agent in Nevada, where he also mined for gold.

He died in California, and his body was returned to this site in 1928.