The Powder River Country refers to an area of the Great Plains in northeastern Wyoming in the United States. The area is loosely defined between the Bighorn Mountains and the Black Hills, in the upper drainage areas of the Powder, Tongue, and Little Bighorn rivers.
During the late 1860s, the area was the scene of Red Cloud's War between the Lakota and the United States. The Lakota victory in the war resulted in the preservation of their control of the area for the next decade.
After control fell to the U.S. government in 1870s following the end of the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, the area was opened to white settlement, one of the last such areas opened for homesteading in the continental United States. In 1892, the area was the scene of the Johnson County War.
In the early 20th century, the discovery of petroleum in the area led to the development of the area's oil fields.
Famous quotes containing the words powder, river and/or country:
“Any gentleman with the slightest chic will give a girl a fifty dollar bill for the powder room.”
—George Axelrod (1922)
“This ferry was as busy as a beaver dam, and all the world seemed anxious to get across the Merrimack River at this particular point, waiting to get set over,—children with their two cents done up in paper, jail-birds broke lose and constable with warrant, travelers from distant lands to distant lands, men and women to whom the Merrimack River was a bar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)