National Buffalo Museum – Jamestown North Dakota
And Baby makes 3!! Another white buffalo calf joins the two other white buffalo at the museum, WOW.
If you have tried to do so, and can’t find a home where the buffalo roam, all is not lost. You can visit the National Buffalo Museum in Jamestown, North Dakota, which has a herd of buffalo roaming around, including a rare white one, and “The World’s Largest Buffalo” which is a huge cement sculpture.
The World’s Largest Buffalo was constructed in 1959 of cement, and stands twenty-six feet tall and forty-six feet long, weighing sixty tons. This statue was the idea of Harold Newman who strived “to create something so big and magnificent, that passersby would have to stop in the city.” Older buildings from Jamestown were moved in, and soon the World’s Largest Buffalo had formed his own village, now called Frontier Village.
Included in the village are businesses such as a post office, trading post, saloon, barbershop, jail, and even a Louis L’Amour writers’ shack. From Memorial Day through Labor Day, all the buildings are open to the public, and there are also stagecoach and pony rides.
In 1991, the North Dakota Buffalo Foundation was formed, and began work to realize their dream of having a herd that would roam and graze in a pasture surrounding the statue of the World’s Largest Buffalo in the Frontier Village. The first five buffalo arrived that same year, moved from the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Today there are normally anywhere from twenty-five to thirty roaming in the pasture.
The National Buffalo Association then merged with the American Bison Association to become the National Bison Association. Now needing somewhere to house the artifacts and other historical memorabilia of the two previous organizations, the National Buffalo Museum was constructed in the Frontier Village.
The National Buffalo Museum, a 6000 square foot rustic log building standing inside Frontier Village, shows the culture and natural history, from prehistoric times to the present, of bison and the Great Plains. Included in the building are a history room, children’s room, white buffalo room, buffalo viewing deck, antique gun room, and more.
One of the highlights of the museum is the cast of the skull of a giant bison, made from the original skull that is housed at the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck, North Dakota. Another highlight is the Lewis and Clark exhibit that shows how these great animals helped Lewis and Clark survive their trek. The exhibit also shows the many uses found by the Native Americans for the bison, and other plants and animals that Lewis and Clark most likely encountered.
One of the most popular attractions on the site is White Cloud, a very rare female albino buffalo. Many Native Americans consider the white buffalo to be sacred. White Cloud was born on July 10, 1996, and later had calves of her own, all of normal color. Princess Winona (meaning first-born daughter in the Lakota language) was born in 2000, and a male calf, Dakota Thunder, was born the day after Mother’s Day in 2003. The exciting news is that in 2007 White Cloud gave birth to another white calf, named Dakota Thunder. This extrodinary pair is well worth visiting!
The museum is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day from 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM each day. From November 1 to April 30 it is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Saturdays from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and on Sunday it is closed. The rest of the year it is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Saturday from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and Sundays from 12 noon to 5:00 PM. Adults are admitted to the museum for a fee of $5.00, seniors for $4.00, families for $10.00, students age 7 through 18 for $1.00, and children 6 and under are free. Groups of fifteen or more adults or nineteen or more seniors are admitted at a group rate of $75.00.
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