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For thousands of years the valleys, prairies, mountains, and plateaus
of the inland northwest have been home to the Nimiipuu or Nez Perce people.
Explore these places. Learn their stories. Treat them with care.
The 38 sites of Nez Perce National Historical Park are scattered across
the states of Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana and have been designated
to commemorate the stories and history of the Nimiipuu and their interaction
with explorers, fur traders, missionaries, soldiers, settlers, gold miners,
and farmers who moved through or into the area.
The 1877 flight of the Nez Perce from their homelands while pursued by U.S.
Army Generals Howard, Sturgis, and Miles, is one of the most fascinating
and sorrowful events in Western U.S. history.
Chief Joseph, Chief Looking Glass, Chief White Bird, Chief Ollokot, Chief
Lean Elk, and others led nearly 750 Nez Perce men, women, and children
and twice that many horses over 1,170 miles through the mountains, on
a trip that lasted from June to October of 1877.
Congress passed the National Trails System Act in 1968, establishing
a framework for a nationwide system of scenic, recreational, and historic
trails. The Nez Perce (Nimiípu or Nee-Me-Poo) Trail stretches from
Wallowa Lake, Oregon, to the Bear Paw Battlefield near Chinook, Montana.
It was added to this system by Congress as a National Historic Trail in
1986.
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