Story by Sam Armstrong-Dubois | Photos by Noah Epps

Coal has been one of the strongest and deeply rooted pillars in the economy of the Crow Indian Reservation since 1958. Its roots ran so deep that when it collapsed in 2024, everything it supported crumbled. 

Before that, the vitality of the coal mine generated 90% of the tribe’s income.  The loss of coal for the Apsáalooke happened gradually across the span of 17 years until 2024, when the Westmoreland Mine lost its last customer. The Environmental Protection Agency regulated quality checks on coal requiring a low level of foreign sediment allowed in coal.  This made it much less lucrative to mine.

“Coal created 1,100 tribal jobs,” said Frank White Clay, the tribe’s chairman. “So right now, we’re at 251.”  

Employment surrounding the coal trade went beyond mining. It included truck driving and several positions within power plant operation. Currently, the only positions remaining include maintenance of the Westmoreland mine property located just outside Hardin. 

The market shift could have also impacted the tribe’s political stance. During Donald Trump’s first presidential administration, once coal-strong communities like the Crow reservation, had high hopes his commitment to mineral extraction and fossil fuels would somehow revive the coal industry. However, that failed to pan out, but the sentiment still echoes.

“If you asked me to poll everybody, we’d probably all get good Democrats,” said Tribal Secretary Levi Black Eagle of the electorate on the reservation. “And that’s funny because the one that was sticking up for us were all the ones on the Republican side.” 

Since the collapse of the coal trade in 2024, the Crow government has been working toward the expansion of hydro energy and market stands to develop more jobs and infrastructure, setting aside $500,000 to start development this summer. A proposed wind farm and hydroelectric facility has been stalled for years on the Crow Indian Reservation. 

“There’s really nothing stopping us from doing it except ourselves and having the willingness to say, ‘Okay, I want to take full advantage of it,’” Black Eagle said. 

Overall, the economy on the Crow Nation, like many reservations across the country, lacks the proper infrastructure that could help develop an economy. Black Eagle said the working class has been trying to look beyond the coal industry, which has become so ingrained in the community. 

“We had a whole lot of young kids that were told, ‘Go get your heavy equipment operator’s license,’ ‘Go learn this,’ ‘Go work at the coal mine, you’ll have retirement, you’ll be able to support your family,’” White Clay said. 

The Crow Nation is in a state of economic evolution. While the Apsáalooke people recognize that moving forward from the coal industry means relying more on entrepreneurship in both private and tribal owned businesses, they face an uphill battle. Reservations tend to lack the needed infrastructure to support local businesses diverse enough to sustain thriving economies. 

This dramatic change for the reservation has left families developing financial independence from the coal trade. It should be no surprise then, that citizens across the Crow Nation are hoping to establish a more broad economy. 

“I mean we want to diversify. The main thing that will bring revenue to our tribe in the long term is our land and agriculture,” White Clay said.  

Organizations located in Crow Agency have developed educational programs to help inform tribal citizens about equity and retail marketing. One of these organizations, Plenty Doors Community Development Corporation, was developed by Charlene Johnson and aims to provide financial education and assistance within the tribe to build jobs. 

Plenty Doors also facilitates homeownership and other business classes to inform tribal members how they can be self-sufficient outside of tribal services. Johnson had a full career working in public well-being, including 25 years at the Indian Health Service before creating Plenty Doors. 

“My intent was to always try to improve the health of our people,” Johnson said. “We are also an emerging [Community Development Financial Institution].” 

Plenty Doors’ office entrance has a blue synthetic banner above the entrance, which has a tight-knit metal screen in front of the window. Entering through the door, a fairy-light-decorated open room, which formerly housed a coffee shop, provides seating for lectures and meetings held in the establishment.

Plenty Doors offers credit-building classes and both personal and business loans. Johnson hopes to help the community build credit and equity, the basics. 

“You don’t build a business from the top down, but from the ground up,” Johnson said. 

Being on the reservation for most of her life, she has seen the changes firsthand. When her mother suffered a stroke, she saw how much the reservation had changed. 

“During that time when I cared for her, we’d drive around and we just realized how far down the communities had gone,” Johnson said. 

During the start of their organization’s upbringing, Johnson noticed that many families didn’t have access to clean water, leading to their development of water sanitation and hygiene. Through the addition, the corporation has been able to add infrastructure of wells, septics and cisterns across the community. 

“So, we started including what they call wash water sanitation and hygiene, which is usually a term that’s used in third world countries when there’s disasters,” Johnson said. “What we found is that there was enough families that didn’t have access to water. We needed to add that.” 

Infrastructure is key to developing a robust economy. The National Congress of American Indians, which advocates on behalf of tribal nations across the country on the national stage including in Washington, D.C., lists community development and infrastructure as one of its priority interests, focusing on housing, technology and transportation. 

“Proper community development and infrastructure planning has the potential to revitalize and transform the quality of life for tribal citizens across Indian Country,” the organization states on its website.

Lacking infrastructure has led to a phenomenon called economic leakage, in which the money that is earned in a community is spent elsewhere. In a 2021 article for the Regulatory Review, Robert Miller, a law professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law, stated that, ideally, currency should be exchanged up to seven times within a community to maintain a healthy economy. 

However, up to 80% of income earned in most reservations is immediately spent in border towns, Miller states. 

“Few of the 300 Indian reservations in the United States have functioning economies in which reservation residents can be employed, spend their money, and find adequate housing,” he states. “As a result, almost all reservation residents have to travel to distant cities to find banks, businesses, higher education and jobs.”

Through the eight years of business on the Crow reservation, Plenty Doors has been able to keep 99.9% of its funds designated for loans as out funded. In 2023, the business had been allotted $50 million, and this process continues to help develop the tribe. 

In her experience working for tribal health services, Johnson noticed a trend that every two years there would be a complete turnover of staff, making it hard to develop long-lasting services. “When you want to try to make an impact in your community, that continuity is really important,” Johnson said. 

Another aspect of Plenty Doors is “business incubation,” where the nonprofit takes in growing businesses and grants them space for work. 

One of the incubated businesses lies just behind Plenty Doors, run by Tanya Gardner, a University of Montana alumna. Leading through a chain-link-fenced backyard, steppingstones lead to the entrance of a small shop. Inside sits a kiln, porcelain clay and thousands of synthetic elk ivories. Elk ivory, also known as elk teeth, is an integral part of Crow tradition as they are sown onto Crow regalia. 

Pressing organic elk ivory into clay molds, Gardner maintains the natural shape of the teeth while also being able to mass-produce the product. She sells each tooth for $1, but most customers are looking for a 400-tooth dress for events. 

“The record I’ve made for one dress is 1,000,” Gardner said. 

After molding the teeth, she places a maximum of 32 into a kiln she bought for $1,400 last June. Once the firing process is complete, the product comes out pale, like sun-bleached bones found in the backcountry. To give them color, Gardner uses a slurry of coffee grounds so concentrated it almost forms a paste. As she applies it with a paintbrush, the ivory becomes nearly indistinguishable from natural teeth. 

“I’ve fooled some hunters and elders,” Gardner said. “They’ll be like, ‘Wait, this is synthetic?’ It’s always super entertaining.” 

Currently, many tribal citizens rely on jobs outside the reservation. “People are going off the road and spending their money there instead of putting it back into the local economy,” Black Eagle said. 

While the lack of infrastructure is one of the leading causes of this issue, the effects are significant. 

In March of 2025, President Donald Trump passed the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order, resulting in the National Park Service recently removing signage leading to and on the Little Bighorn Battlefield. For many tribal members, the site of the battlefield is a point of pride, not only for its rich history but also for the economic revenue it generates for the tribe.

The Little Bighorn Battlefield is one of the most documented Indigenous history sites in media, notably being referenced in movies like 1970’s “Little Big Man.” Currently, Trump is making efforts to rewrite that history to “focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people,” he states in the executive order. 

In February, Trump flagged two exhibits at Montana’s Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument as non-compliant, both of which honored tribal sacrifices. The move could have affected tribal tourism, as the parks are major draws.

In 2023, the tribe invested $20 million in a new arbor to bring tourism to Crow Fair, an annual celebration for tribal members. Chairman White Clay hopes to continue this momentum, developing vendor stations leading up to the Little Bighorn Battlefield. 

Other tribal citizens turn toward agriculture and land to diversify development and generate income on their land. 

A white cloud of smoke that reeks like wet dog and a grease trap at a roadside grill sizzled through the air as a red-hot brand labeled “K/C” made contact on the side of Casey Old Horn’s new bull. 

Old Horn, a 28-year-old first-generation rancher and owner of the Casey Old Horn Cattle, hopes to develop jobs through a packing plant, becoming FDA-certified and distributing meat through his patented “Montana Meat Market.” Old Horn hopes to begin developing the business this year to bring food to the community, which is considered a food desert. In addition, as the ranch expands, he hopes to generate more jobs for the community through hiring ranch hands and wranglers. 

Tribal citizens have little access to whole or fresh foods, apart from two gas stations and one store, which holds some canned foods and grains. The food desert requires tribal members to drive off the reservation to buy healthy meal supplies; otherwise, local residents are left with processed or canned foods.

Dozens of cars could be seen lining up in front of food trucks located in the city center of Crow Agency to grab some fresh food. Others parked their cars along the street and began lining up for fresh eggs sold at market tents. These small businesses keep money on the reservation and are exactly what Old Horn hopes to create from his ranch. 

The vision of Old Horn’s meat market, bringing local agricultural produce to the tribe, is to improve not only accessibility but also keep money circulating throughout the tribe. With basic amenities placed just off the reservation, it forces spending outside the reservation. The loss of money has resulted in the tribal government relying on federal funds to build infrastructure, such as the Yellowtail Afterbay Dam. 

Just like the bull rearing its head as the brand seared it into Old Horn’s possession, outer-reservation expenses rear their head once more. Just two hours before to the branding, Old Horn and his cousin John Nomee were getting ready to head to Billings to meet a man about buying a new bull.

Old Horn’s ranch holds 125 head of cattle, including four bulls. As the herd expands, so does the number of bulls to ensure a successful calving season. Per 25 cows, a herd should have one bull for efficient breeding. The land, owned but not cultivated by his grandfather, Dale Old Horn, is quickly becoming too small to hold the head of cattle. Casey Old Horn hopes to expand his ranch outside of Dunmore. 

“You can’t run this many cows on this little piece of ground all year,” Old Horn said. 

Like Hansel and Gretel leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, Old Horn led a trail of molded bread into the trailer bed. Dropping its head to the ground, the reddish-brown Hereford bull made its way into the trailer, lapping the loaf up with its tongue, relaxing more with each slice. 

Old Horn shook his head, laughing. Reaching into his billfold, he brought out a two-inch stack of $100 bills, paying the rancher $3,000 for the bull. Until 2023, the Hardin bank refused to allot him a loan without a minimum 30% equity rate. Using Community Development Financial Institutions funds, a federal investment program meant to increase economic development in distressed communities, Old Horn was able to build his business’s equity slowly. 

“It took an act of Congress,” Old Horn said. 

The difficulty for tribal members to gain financial footing is rooted in generations of a lack of resources and education on financial practices. Locally, resources are limited, due to a narrow scope of infrastructure to harbor those resources.

For instance, tribal colleges focus degree programs first on areas where jobs exist, such as clerical and lower-level managerial positions, teaching and human services. Now, more colleges need to expand into business and public administration programs to train people in the skills needed to start businesses and revive stagnated economies. It is a trend that the Little Big Horn College is seeing. 

From spring of 2024 to the fall of 2025, Little Big Horn College saw a 14.58% increase in enrollment numbers, increasing from 240 to 275. After the loss of the leading source of financial revenue, Crow Nation has seen an increase in higher education and business classes. 

Through years of dependency on the coal trade, tribal citizens have seen a dip in education of home ownership and entrepreneurial skills. Financial institutions play an important role in generating economic growth and opportunity in some of the nation’s most distressed groups. 

By offering tailored resources and innovative programs that invest federal dollars alongside private-sector capital, the financial institution funds serve a diversity of people, utilizing a market-based approach to supporting economically disadvantaged communities.  

After years of navigating the federal banking system, Old Horn turned toward financial institutions, such as Akiptan, which focus on Indigenous businesses and even grants loans to  local entrepreneurs to get their business off the ground.  

Through years of lacking infrastructure and being forced to rent and renovate old buildings, tribal members are now taking a deeper look at how to build equity through home and land ownership. 

Sierra Not Afraid, who works as a realtor in Billings after getting licensed in 2018, leads a class at Plenty Doors. Through homeownership, members can build equity to develop their own businesses. 

“It isn’t ingrained, the idea of homeownership, because of years of renting, so it’s important to pass on this knowledge to the next generations,” Not Afraid said. 

The class is active for multiple weeks from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Fridays, holding a dozen students who participate in small tests to ingrain what they are learning into memory. 

Lauri Kindness, one of the students, sat waiting for the lecture to begin, chatting with other participants. While gregarious, she defines herself as being “kind every other Friday on a rainy day.” She served in the U.S. military for four years and, even with veteran benefits, cannot afford to own her own home.

“I’ve wanted this for a while, to stop living out of bags and boxes,” Kindness said. “To live in a home that can house a family is what happiness looks like to me.” 

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