About this city
Also known as: Where History Meets Energy
Stanton is an historic, archeologically deep rural city serving as the county seat of Mercer County, strategically positioned along the western banks of the Missouri River in west-central North Dakota. Long before European contact, this area was the supreme center of indigenous agricultural commerce in the northern plains, featuring sprawling earth lodge villages inhabited by the Mandan and Hidatsa peoples. It was famously right next to Stanton where the Lewis and Clark expedition met Sacagawea in 1804. Formally established as a frontier river town in 1883, Stanton today blends its dense, world-class indigenous archeological heritage with heavy modern energy production, bordered by massive coal-fired power stations and lush, protected river bottomland forests.
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Practical Tourism Metadata
Suggested stay: 1 day
Walk among the well-preserved depressions of historic indigenous earth lodges at Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, view fur-trade artifacts at the interpretive center, and fish for trophy walleye on the Missouri River.
