Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park

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The Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park is home to an Indian Village and reconstructed military buildings including the Custer House.

The Mandan Indian tribe established a village at the confluence of the Missouri and Heart rivers in about 1575. They built earth lodges and thrived in their community by hunting bison and growing a number of crops.

In June 1872, at the same location where the Mandan tribe had established their village, a military post named Fort McKeen was built by two companies of the 6th U.S. Infantry under Lt. Col. Daniel Huston, Jr. The three-company infantry post's name was changed to Fort Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1872, and expanded to the south to include a cavalry post accommodating six companies.

By 1873, the 7th Cavalry moved into the fort to ensure the expansion of the Northern Pacific Railway. The first post commander of the expanded fort was Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer, who held the position until his death in 1876.

The Fort was abandoned in 1891 after the completion of the railroad to Montana in 1883. A year after the fort was abandoned; local residents disassembled the fort for its nails and wood. In 1895, a new Fort Lincoln was built across the river near Bismarck. In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the deed to the original fort's land over to the state as Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park.

A reproduction of Custer's house was built in the park in 1989, in time for the state of North Dakota's centennial celebration.