LITTLE MISSOURI NATIONAL GRASSLANDS - Reasons to be out on some of North Dakota's most beautiful land are as plentiful as the white-rumped antelope sunning on the hillsides.

If the call of the buttes and bright flit of a bluebird don't suffice, a historical reason to go there is a worthy substitute.

The U.S. Forest Service is putting together the first-ever auto tour for land it manages in North Dakota.

The tour has to undergo scoping and review, first, with a Monday deadline for public comment.

Barring problems, the tour project should be ready to go by fall.

Anybody with persistence can find the historical sites now. But the Forest Service wants to make it easy and more enjoyable with a brochure, map and interpretive signs.

By almost any standard, the $120,000 or so it will cost makes it a relatively inexpensive project, and worth its weight in gold for the pleasure it offers.

The historical tour encompasses about 85 miles of mainly gravel roads through the Little Missouri National Grasslands.

One loop exits I-94 from Fryburg and winds up to Medora. A second loop heads west from Medora and circles back.

A decent vehicle makes easy work of it; even motor homes can go there.

It's a different place out on the grasslands than it was back in the 1800s, when military men pushed and cursed their way through some of the most challenging terrain they would encounter.

The tour goes to places where Gen. Alfred Sully went in 1863 and where Gen. Alfred H. Terry and Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer went in 1876.

The first loop is all about Custer.

On the way to his waterloo in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, he entered the Badlands at Easy Hill and set up camp around the base of the butte to the west.

The men, horses, cattle and cooks spread out on the open scrubby flat. That night, May 27, the military band was enjoined to hike to a nearby hill and strike up music to entertain the troops.

The next day, they headed west up Davis Creek draw.

At least two men - possibly sent ahead with shovels to build creek crossings - carved their initials in the sandstone.

The names of Pvts. Frank Neely and William C. Williams are still there, preserved under a shelter built by the Forest Service last year. The two made it back from the Battle of the Little Bighorn, unlike Custer and so many others.

The draw at Initial Rock is a beautiful quiet place. The creek winds back and forth, carrying rusty, muddy water through the valley.

The Forest Service has kept oil wells out of sight and the view at Initial Rock is about as pristine as it gets on the grasslands. Tracks from Custer's wagons are still intact, deeply incised into the dry soil.

The last site on the first loop is Custer's Wash, where military and exploration teams exited the Badlands on the west banks of the Little Missouri.

Custer's Wash will be interpreted near the new clubhouse of the Bully Pulpit Golf Course. The beautifully manicured greens in the river bottom are a sharp contrast to the intimidating landscape that marked the way out.

People who stop in for a round of golf will get an unexpected history lesson.

The second loop takes visitors to Square Butte, where in 1864, Sully engaged the Sioux in the battle of the Badlands after an engagement that started at the Killdeer Mountains.

Square Butte, with its sisters Sentinel, Bullion, Pretty and Camel buttes, are grandiose in their westward march past the river.

The last site on the loop is Custer's Snow Camp, named for a freak snowstorm that dropped 6 inches of white sloppy snow on May 3, delaying any advance for two days.

Along the way, visitors can enjoy the scenery, the sights of hawks on the hunt, husky mule deer browsing the grass and, with luck, bighorn sheep down from the high mesas.

Tom Turck, the Forest Service archaeologist who's heading the project, said the tour would help broaden the public's use of the grasslands.

He said the military campsites are the most important historical sites anywhere on the grasslands, which are made up of more than 1 million acres from north to south.

"This has been such a neat project," Turck said. "This is real important history."

Anyone with questions can contact Turck at 250-4443, Dakota Prairie Grasslands in Bismarck.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@westriv.com.)