Fort Fizzle (Montana)

Fort Fizzle Site
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
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Nearest city	Lolo, Montana
Area	120.4 acres (48.7 ha)
NRHP Reference #	77000821
Added to NRHP	July 21, 1977

Fort Fizzle was a temporary military barricade erected in July 1877 to intercept the Nez Perce Indians in their flight from Idaho across the Lolo Pass into the Bitterroot Valley of Montana. The name describes the effectiveness of the fort.

In the Nez Perce War the U.S. Army defeated, but did not demoralize, the Nez Perce under Chief Joseph at the Battle of the Clearwater, July 11–12, 1877. Pursued by General O. O. Howard the Nez Perce, numbering about 200 warriors and 750 persons in total along with more than 2,000 horses, decided to flee across Lolo Pass into the Bitterroot Valley and onward to the Great Plains. The Nez Perce were familiar with this region, having been frequent visitors while en route to the plains to hunt buffalo. The Nez Perce leader Looking Glass persuaded the other Nez Perce leaders that they would be safe from the U.S. Army in Montana and that he could lead them to a safe refuge among his friends, the Crow Indians.

White settlers and U.S. Army soldiers in the Bitterroot Valley, informed by telegraph that the Nez Perce were coming their way, prepared to defend themselves. Captain Charles Rawn had only 35 soldiers to defend the valley. On July 23, two White youths who had been prisoners of the Nez Perce reported to Rawn that the Nez Perce were camped at Lolo Hot Springs, on the Montana side of the pass and only a few miles from the White settlements in the Bitterroot Valley. The youths had been released to bring a message from the Nez Perce that they wished to pass peacefully through the settlements. Rawn, however, was ordered to “compel the Indians to surrender their arms and ammunition, and to dispute their passage, by force of arms, into Bitterroot Valley.”