rock structure in Battle Creek
We have worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife program to improve the habitat for fish in Battle Creek. The structures, which are engineered to guide the flow of the creek through high water and low, and to prevent erosion. The structures also help with our flood irrigation system which also provides habitat for birds and other wildlife.
waterfall
Confluence of Battle Creek and the Little Snake River
Ladder Ranch
Dave C.
December 19, 2023 at 7:38 PM
Re. photo of Confluence of Battle Creek and the Little Snake River:
“After trapper [John] Johnson married his Flathead Indian bride Swan, they rode back from the Bitterroots in Montana to live in Ol’ Jack Hatcher’s cabin at the confluence of the Little Snake River and Battle Creek in northwestern Colorado, just south of the Wyoming border and Battle Mountain.” (True West Magazine, Dec. 2023, p. 29).
Crow Indians would later kill Swan and her unborn child while Johnson was away trapping. Johnson was a tall, powerful man, and a veteran of Civil War battles. In his grief for the murder of his wife and child, he carried out a revenge vendetta against the Crow for many years during which he may have killed over 300 Crow braves. The story was depicted in the 1972 Robert Redford film “Jeremiah Johnson.”