Article Review: Crusade for a Chief

This article touches on the life of Chief Washakie.  It is written by Jana Bommersbach and appears in the August 2016 of True West magazine.  In 1940, the life of Chief Washakie was the subject of 23 oil paintings by J.K. Ralston.  Chief Washakie is considered the last chief of the Eastern Shoshone.  He was friendly to the Americans, and helped them on many occasions, being credited with saving thousands of lives.  He helped save General George Crook and his men at the battle of Rosebud.  We was given his choice of a location for their reservation.  A federal fort was named for him.  The paintings by Ralston were action paintings.  He painted them in more than forty years after Washakie's death.  He used some of Washakie's grand children as models to tell scenes from the life of Chief Washakie.  The paintings were exhibited in at the Fremont Pioneer Museum in Lander Wyoming.