Old Agency, 1880-1894

The second Indian Agency on the Blackfeet Reservation was built at Old Agency in 1879. Agent John Young moved the buildings from the first reservation agency on Upper Badger Creek with help from the Blackfeet Indians. Both men and women dug cellars, hauled stone and mixed mortar. The women covered the exterior with lime from Heart Butte. Built as a stockade, the Agency had blockhouses at diagonal corners to protect against an attack. The Blackfeet called it “Old Ration Place” after the government began issuing rations from the agency. Many Blackfeet bands settled down and built log cabins in proximity to the agency. The “Starvation Winter” of 1883-1884 took the lives of about 500 Blackfeet Indians who had been camping near Old Agency. This tragic event was the result of an inadequate supply of government rations during an exceptionally hard winter. In 1894, after the Great Northern Railway had extended its tracks across the Reservation, the Agency moved to Willow Creek at the present site in Browning. Today, the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning houses a fine collection of artifacts that illustrate Blackfeet culture before and after the establishment of the Reservation.