The Little Bighorn Battlefield and National Monument has a new visitor center in the works.
The announcement was made Thursday in Washington D.C. by the National Park Service and Nation Park Foundation, along with the Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield and the Leona M. & Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. The aim of the new space is to expand educational opportunities for all visitors to the Little Bighorn.
The new visitor center will be a state-of-the-art design and feature a large dedicated space for tribal artifacts, new displays for current collections, and even a roof top terrace with a view of the battlefield.
The Helmsley Charitable Trust is making this new building possible by with a $4.5 million donation to the project.
“This is a significant site in American history with an amazing story to tell,” said Walter Panzirer, a Helmsley trustee. “The new visitor center will preserve, protect, memorialize, and interpret the cultural and natural resources of the park, including the landscape and the park’s world-class artifact and document collection for future generations.”
And though they are still in the planning stages, the National Park Service hopes to have the new building completed and open to the public by June 2024.
In 2019, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument welcomed 241,000 visitors, which generated an estimated $14.4 million in visitor spending, supported 220 jobs, and resulted in $18.9 million in local economic impact.
