ABSTRACT
Medicine Tail Coulee is a pivotal spot in one of the biggest mysteries in Western mythology. The site is protected and managed by the US National Parks Service (NPS) as the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. At Last Stand Hill, where Custer was finally overwhelmed, there are monuments and gravestones to the fallen. However, apart from these modest developments, the rest is undulating grassy hills. An isolated place in eastern Montana, there are few tourists. The NPS was acutely aware of four contentious issues in effectively managing and interpreting this iconic site. The first was with its name. The second issue concerned interpretation. The third issue was a growing realisation that the NPS visitor centre was in the wrong place. As early as 1986, staff began to voice the idea that what had been built in the past was back-to-front. The fourth, and most heretical, was a reinterpretation of the battle by archaeologists, particularly Richard Fox.
