The enduring interest in Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer draws thousands of visitors to Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park every year, but the fort and its environs have a far richer story to tell than that of just one man.

The replicas of earthlodges in On-a-Slant Village are a striking reminder that the Mandan tribe long predated the U.S. cavalry soldiers as residents of the locality.

And while Custer's time stationed at the fort was brief, many others lived there also, in accomodations far more modest than the commanding officer's quarters, the reconstructed version of which now is called the Custer House.

One such was Michael Lang, an enlisted man. He came down with dysentery in May 1876 and was left behind when the 7th Cavalry departed on a mission that took it to a battle some call Little Bighorn, others Greasy Grass.

Lang, spared being one of the 260 casualties of the battle, lived on to become a pioneer businessman in Mandan. Many of his descendants still live in the area.

The stories, as well known as Custer's and as little known as those of hundreds of soldiers and cooks, laundresses and others, are whispered by the breezes at the fort and are visually represented by recreated structures. More than 100,000 people come to see, hear, learn, relax and enjoy the place every year.

The park is one of North Dakota's treasures. This summer at the park is notable, because it's being recognized that in 1907 President Theodore Roosevelt signed a document that gave the grounds of the former military reservation to the North Dakota Historical Society.

The soldiers had left years earlier. In the 1930s, they were replaced by young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps, who were working for a bare-bones living during the Great Depression. They built public works, including parks, each working for a dollar a day - $5 of which was theirs each month, $25 being sent to their parents.

The "CCC boys," as they were called, started the reconstruction of the fort and built five earthlodges.

A statue honoring the CCC workers was dedicated at the park on June 14. It commemorates all the CCC enlistees and, in particular, the 32,000 young North Dakota men, aged 18 to 25, all of them single, who got work from the New Deal program.

They benefited, and so have visitors who've climbed a blockhouse at Fort McKean - the outpost that was succeeded by Fort Lincoln - on the bluff to feast on the view of the Missouri River valley.

The Fort Abraham Lincoln Foundation has worked for 25 years, caring for the history, improving the park, its interpreters telling the stories of people's lives in an earthlodge village and a lonely frontier military post.

People come from all over the United States and many countries to Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. We're fortunate to have it in our backyard. We should treat ourselves this summer to a visit - or several.