Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park — Attraction in Bismarck

This a a wonderful park. There are tons of very nice trails here. The Mandan-Fort Lincoln Trail is super nice. It is a paved trail from the park up to the town of Mandan. We visited the Custer House at the Calvary Post, which was a very interesting look into the daily lives of soldiers in the mid-late 1800’s. Glen, our tour guide, did an excellent job. We really enjoyed the personal information on the placards in the barracks. The information about the Indian Scouts was especially interesting. There is a great coffee bar/snack area at the commissary with a wonderful book shop in the back. We also visited the Infantry Post on the top of the hill. The viewing towers were extraordinary. It was very interesting to see the way these were built and their placement on the hill. We were especially intrigued by the soldiers’ cemetery and the inscriptions on the tombstones. The other really interesting place in the park is the On-A-Slant Indian Village. The park has done a great job recreating these domed structures and providing information about the Native Peoples of this area. We were disappointed that the Trolley was not working and appeared to have been shut down for some time, although the stops were still listed on the park map. We walked every trail and road in this park. They were well groomed and easy to walk. There are hills in this area, so there can be some strenuous climbs. We recommend this park to anyone...

We came for the convenient campground but enjoyed the park as well. Interesting trails around an historic Mandan village and historic frontier fort.

The campground is very nice, grassy and level, right on the river with nice big cottonwood trees, but campsites are pretty close together, not private. Sites labeled “modern” on their map have water and electric (50, 30, 20 amp) and a picnic table & fire ring. Sites labeled “primitive” have picnic tables & fire rings. There is a central “comfort station” with flush toilets and showers, very decent. And there are additional pit toilets and another bathroom with flush toilets. It’s a nice enough campground, good place to stop over, but not our kind of place to stay for an extended time. Too close to civilization rather than out in nature, and sites not at all private.

All the sites have permanent “reserved” signs on them without dates, so you don’t know without going online if a site is open. There are no first come first serve sites, everything must be reserved online. The numbers on the sites are a little wonky as they can only be read in one direction but the roads are not one way, so you may be driving in a way you can’t see the numbers. Double sites have 2 numbers, but only one shows on the website - these sites cost more. Just sort of a wonky system that could...

Great campsites here because there is a lot of space between the backyards of the sites, maybe 50 ft. and there are many rustic and modern sites. If you are into history and Custer, you can tour the house where he lived and was the Post (Ft Abraham Lincoln) Commander. This was the house he occupied when he marched off with his calvary to the Little Big Horn and he modified it to his and Libbys liking! All of the current base buildings have been reconstructed because the lumber, etc, was carted off the 1890s by the locals. There is also a great museum in the Visitor Center that covers both the Mandan life and Army fort life. Next to the museum is a slant village built by the Mandan. It is called slant village because it was built on a slant of the hill and had 75 lodges! However, the earth lodges now are reproductions based on their original designs. The Mandan lived on the Missouri river for 500 years but were decimated by smallpox in...